A bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers is urging Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to block the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate the LGBTQ+ youth services within the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—an emergency support network that has served more than 1.3 million contacts since its full implementation in 2023.
The Wednesday letter, signed by Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, New YorkRepublican Michael Lawler, Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, calls on Kennedy to stop a 30-day phaseout announced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on June 17. According to internal agency guidance, the LGBTQ+-specific branch of the hotline, which allows callers to “press 3” to connect with affirming counselors, is set to be dismantled by July 17, according to SAMHSA.
“This is not some kind of hotline set by a liberal Democratic administration,” Krishnamoorthi said in an interview with The Advocate Thursday morning. “It was actually signed into law by President Trump. Various Republicans in the Senate and the House supported it.”
Since the line became fully operational in 2023, he noted, “it has received an astonishing 1.3 million calls, texts, and other forms of communication” and was “averaging 2,900 contacts every day” as recently as February.
Krishnamoorthi, who serves as a ranking member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services, raised the issue sharply during a Wednesday hearing on diversity, equity, and inclusion policy rollbacks. “In the name of expunging DEI, the Trump administration has lurched from the farcical to the cruel,” he said, highlighting the crisis line’s termination as an especially harmful example. “These actions are wrong, but do not compete in cruelty with the ending of a suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth.”
The LGBTQ+ subnetwork of 988 was developed under a bipartisan mandate to offer tailored support to high-risk groups, much like the veteran-specific track within the program. In addition to young people, it has provided critical services to adults experiencing distress related to anti-LGBTQ+ violence, legislation, and rejection.
At the hearing, Krishnamoorthi pressed conservative legal activist Daniel Lennington on whether he disputed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from the Trump administration showing LGBTQ+ youth face significantly higher suicide risk. Lennington replied he was “not aware of anything to do with the suicide hotline,” prompting Krishnamoorthi to respond, “That’s the problem—a lack of awareness.”
Krishnamoorthi told The Advocate that the decision to eliminate the program was driven by the Trump administration’s broader campaign against diversity and inclusion initiatives. “Eliminating this lifeline is cruelty because you are essentially discontinuing a service that saves lives,” he said. “In the name of fighting DEI, they’re going to cause a lot of young people to DIE.”
Krishnamoorthi warned that “especially now, during a time when the LGBTQ+ community at large feels tremendous pressure,” the need for the hotline may be “much higher than it was before.”
Krishnamoorthi emphasized the rare bipartisan nature of the letter to Kennedy. “It’s hard to get bipartisan letters, let alone legislation, on topics involving the LGBTQ+ community,” he said. “But this one touches a nerve. I think that young people, whoever they are, still occupy a soft corner in people’s hearts regardless of ideology.”
The Trump administration’s move, first reported in The Advocate in April, was confirmed in the FY2026 budget released during WorldPride in Washington, D.C. Mental health advocates and LGBTQ+ organizations have condemned the proposal as reckless and dangerous.
Mark Henson of The Trevor Project previously told The Advocate the 988 LGBTQ+ subnetwork is “a vital tool” that serves more than 60,000 young people each month. Without it, advocates warn, those calls may go unanswered—or be routed to general crisis lines lacking LGBTQ+ expertise.
In response to a question about his message to young LGBTQ+ people, Krishnamoorthi said he’s met with young people and their parents and understands their pain. “We’ve got to band together at the state level, at the local level to protect whatever rights we can. We must continue to fight for change in the future,” he said.
Krishmamoorthi added, “If we can rally around a group of people, it would be our young people.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline,services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.
For queer people like me, the desire to move to a different country often stems from a deep curiosity about what lies beyond what we are allowed to embody here in the U.S. — a restlessness, as one interviewee told me, to understand ourselves uninhibited by the weight of social expectations.
Others leave out of fear, scrambling to find a safer haven where they’re not treated like political pawns. With an election marked by an abundance of anti-queer rhetoric from conservatives and even silence from Democrats on trans rights, moving abroad may soon become a reality for many queer Americans.
Navigating the world as queer individuals involves questions that many take for granted: Would I find community? Is the health care affirming? If parts of America do not feel like a queer haven, is there a promised land awaiting somewhere else? As I’ve learned, so many LGBTQ Americans of all ages have found their home abroad — and some of their overseas journeys began with a spontaneous swipe.
When Bill McKinley, 64, matched with a Spaniard named Ricardo on Big Muscle Bears, a dating website, 14 years ago, the Indiana native had no idea his Midwestern life was about to be upended forever.
Growing up between Indianapolis and Muncie, Indiana—a place he describes to me as “the most average town in America”— McKinley was forced into conversion therapy for several years, a life chapter he detailed in a 2022 HuffPost article.
While his parents later converted to The Church of Christ, a more queer-welcoming denomination, their earlier parenting was shaped by their profoundly devout Catholicism. His experiences led to advocacy work as a young adult and he eventually found his support system and became a gay-rights activist, actor and performer.
McKinley always thought he would call the United States home, but after talking to Ricardo for almost a year, he decided to visit him for three weeks in his Madrid home and soon fell in love. Despite returning to Indiana for 11 months, he permanently settled in the Spanish capital in the fall of 2011. On Valentine’s Day 2012, he and Ricardo got married. “I didn’t leave the United States; I came to Ricardo,” he says, when reflecting on the big move.
Now living in Chueca, “the world’s largest gay neighborhood,” as he describes it, McKinley cannot picture himself far from the quaint streets of low-rise, custard-colored buildings that fill Madrid’s downtown. “I can’t imagine going back to the United States,” he says. “I don’t know that we would ever live somewhere else.”
For queer people like McKinley, life outside the American border can offer a renewed sense of freedom and security — whether or not it was longed for — and places like Barcelona, Bogotá or Paris can become havens for the queer community.
Living abroad as a queer American is part of a broad historical trend, with literary icons such as James Baldwin and Audre Lorde standing out as two of its most influential examples. Baldwin settled down in France in 1948 and Lorde spent several years in Berlin in the 80s. Through works like Lorde’s “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls” and Baldwin’s ”Giovanni’s Room,” both writers inspired a generation of queer Americans — especially queer people of color — to venture beyond their homeland.
Moved by Baldwin’s legacy, Prince Shakur, a 30-year-old gay artist and author of ”When They Tell You To Be Good,” became curious about Paris. The Jamaican-American writer ended up living there for three years over several intervals. During this time, he became involved in the city’s protest scene, particularly around the Nuit Debout demonstrations.
As a Black American, he was shocked by the way police treated activists in France. “Their relation to Blackness felt a little less violent compared to America,” he tells me. Living there, he says, partly liberated him from certain constraints racial minorities experience in the U.S. “Being queer and Black, I get a little more freedom … that made it easier for me to have fun and feel comfortable.”
The term “freedom” was frequently used by the LGBTQ+ Americans now living abroad whom I spoke with. Moving to Barcelona about two-and-a-half years ago allowed Lars Wenzel, a 30-year-old queer man, to disclose his transness on his own terms. For Wenzel, who was already a foreign exchange student in Italy in 2010, moving there was an affirming experience — one that resonates with many in the LGBTQ community.
“Diasporic travel can be really appealing to queer people, because in terms of relationships with people that have known us since we were little, there’s this framework of, ‘This is who you always were,’” Wenzel says. His words resonate; even though anti-queerness does exist in every corner of the world, there’s something to be said about intentionally distancing yourself from a past that you no longer believe serves you.
In New York, where Wenzel lived before moving to Barcelona, the LGBTQ+ community felt quite siloed to him, especially in nightlife. Each letter stayed within their own bubbles, he says. Barcelona’s queer spaces felt more porous, reflecting a culture that is less fixated on identity compared to the American one. “Even in the Spanish language, how people talk about queerness with terms like travesti and maricón, all these things flow together. It doesn’t feel so important to understand exactly what words you use to describe yourself,” he says. “Queerness feels more cultural than identity-focused.”
Access to free health care is another reason Wenzel decided to settle down in Barcelona. As a trans person, his identity constantly relies on good medical care, he says, but Spain’s universal coverage also provides him with a sense of safety regarding his overall sexual health. According to recent OECD data, 53% of Americans primarily relied on private health insurance, 38% on public coverage, and 9% remained uninsured, whereas the public system in Spain covers over 99% of the population. “Having unprotected sex doesn’t mean that you could be putting someone at risk of a medical bill,” he says. “And there’s very little stigma surrounding STIs and HIV.”
Ben Seaman, a 58-year-old queer man who grew up in a “WASP household with a lot of emotional repression,” as he describes it, between Kansas and Connecticut, echoes Wenzel’s sentiment. A painter and a psychotherapist, Seaman always gravitated toward Spanish people and culture, and since the ’90s, he has been visiting Madrid, a city he initially thought was “a bit behind in terms of technology” compared to New York, but “more open in terms of gay life.”
Once he turned 50 and started to look for places to spend his “third and final childhood,” the Spanish capital was on top of his list. Along with his husband, he spent five weeks there this spring and their connection to the city’s vibrant social fabric grew even stronger. But feeling safe and well-treated by the Spanish health care system was a crucial factor in his decision. “They [healthcare system] are here to help you, and they don’t divide into insured and uninsured,” he says. “They just keep people healthy.” Next month, Seaman will finally settle down in Madrid.
Safety, however, encompasses more than just having access to quality health care. For Lola Mendez, a 35-year-old pansexual journalist who grew up in Kansas and moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, this past March, the United States’ gun violence epidemic drove her to leave the country. And she doesn’t plan to return anytime soon. “If you’re under 18, your most likely cause of death is a gunshot,” Mendez says. “I can’t live in a society where I could be killed at any given moment.”
And in an increasingly hostile legislative environment for the trans community, some queer Americans have even sought legal protections abroad. Eric (who prefers to use a pseudonym for safety purposes) is a 40-year-old queer person from Arizona who was living in Ohio with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter, a trans girl, when state lawmakers started to push for bills targeting the trans community.
Fearing for their child’s safety, they flew to Ireland in March and applied for asylum there. “We didn’t have plans, we didn’t know anybody here, but we just needed to get out,” he tells me. Although he is still waiting for his case to be resolved, he remains hopeful about their future life in Ireland. “They put us in housing in one of the most conservative counties in the country, so that didn’t super work for us, but it’s already safer than the U.S.,” he says.
After our interview took place, he and his family were moved to Cork, a more progressive city, and their daughter has enrolled in school. “Everyone from teachers to principal were amazing and affirming, and she has a bunch of other little girls trying to make friends with her here,” he said.
Moving to a place that is affirming and protective of queer identity is essential, but for many American immigrants, access to community and LGBTQ spaces is also crucial. After growing up in South Florida and attending college in Maine, Tasha Sandoval, a 33-year-old queer journalist, decided to move to Bogotá, where she was born, in 2019 to reconnect with her roots. She eventually returned to New York, but this March, she took advantage of her work flexibility and gave Bogotá another chance.
While other Colombian places such as Medellín feel relatively conservative, Bogotá stands out as a cosmopolitan and diverse city where the queer community thrives within a vibrant cultural scene, Sandoval says. “This time around feels like it has more potential. I feel more queerness around me,” she adds.
After spending two years in San José, Costa Rica, Aaron Bailey finally built a community there — one centered around queer friendships. The 47-year-old gay Michigan native experienced a midlife crisis in Denver, his former home, and purchased a vacation house in the Central American country, where he eventually found himself spending more time.
The house, located in a tourist and transient area, felt detached from the local society, so he moved to the capital. Bailey describes it as more queer-friendly and safe and says he now feels integrated into the community, and so Costa Rica has come to feel like his new home. “At this point, I can’t imagine leaving Costa Rica; certainly I can’t imagine moving back to the United States,” he says. “I feel really settled and rooted here, and that’s something I haven’t felt in decades in the United States.”
Living abroad has its own set of challenges, and many queer immigrants carry a guilt around leaving loved ones that sinks deep, no matter the number of calls and Sunday morning FaceTimes. The black screen will always look back at you, reminding you of the missed 30th birthday and the wedding you will never attend — but it is a price many deem worth it.
“I will do absolutely everything I can to help any person who wants to get out of the United States get connected with resources,” Wenzel says.
Around 100,000 people defied a government ban and police orders Saturday to march in what organizers called the largest LGBTQ+ Pride event in Hungary’s history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.
Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and heavy fines to participate in the 30th annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed in March by Orbán’s right-wing populist governing party.
The march began at Budapest City Hall and wound through the city center before crossing the capital’s Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River. Police diverted the crowd from its planned route to keep it separated from a small group of far-right counterprotesters, while members of Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community and masses of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow and anti-government flags.
One marcher, Blanka Molnár, said it was “a fantastic feeling” that more people had attended the Pride march than ever before despite it being outlawed. She said it was “increasingly important” for Hungarians, “even those who have never been to Pride before,” to push back against the government’s policies.
“This isn’t just about LGBQT+ rights, it’s also about the right to assemble and about standing up for each other and not allowing (the government) to oppress us,” she said.
The massive size of the march, which the government for months had insisted would no longer be permitted in Hungary, was seen as a major blow to Orbán’s prestige, as the European Union’s longest-serving leader’s popularity slumps in the polls where a new opposition force has taken the lead.
Orbán and his party have insisted that Pride, a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility and struggle for equal rights, was a violation of children’s rights to moral and spiritual development — rights that a recent constitutional amendment declared took precedence over other fundamental protections including the right to peacefully assemble.
The law fast-tracked through parliament in March made it an offense to hold or attend events that “depict or promote” homosexuality to minors underage 18. Orbán earlier made clear that Budapest Pride was the explicit target of the law.
Authorities installed additional cameras throughout the city center before the march, and were expected to use facial recognition tools to identify individuals who attend the banned event. According to the new law, being caught attending Pride could result in fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($586).
Marcher András Faludy said the “hysteria” that has emerged in Hungary over the Pride march in recent months was “damn pathetic. It’s nonsense.”
“I could use an uglier word because I’m extremely angry, but I won’t,” he added.
The ban was the latest crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights by Orbán’s government, which has already effectively banned both same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage and disallowed transgender individuals from changing their sex in official documents.
Police rejected several requests by organizers in recent weeks to register the Pride march, citing the recent law. But Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony joined with organizers and declared it would be held as a separate municipal event — something he said doesn’t require police approval.
But Hungary’s government remained firm, insisting that holding the Pride march, even if it’s sponsored by the city, would be unlawful. Hungary’s justice minister this week warned Karácsony that organizing Pride or encouraging people to attend would be punishable by up to a year in prison.
Many marchers expressed their belief that the Pride march represented a struggle not just for the protections of the rights of sexual minorities, but for the democratic future of their country.
Participant Zsófia Szekér said the number of attendees showed that a major part of society desired a new direction for Hungary.
“I think we can only achieve change if so many people take to the streets,” she said.
Today (June 27, 2025), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) membership structure and its recommendations for preventive services made after passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2010.
These services—including the HIV prevention medicine PrEP, breast cancer screenings, depression screenings, Hepatitis B and C and other STI counseling and screenings—must be covered by nearly all private insurance plans at no cost to enrollees as mandated by the ACA. This decision in Kennedy v. Braidwood overturns a portion of the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and will have numerous benefits for Americans nationwide, including the LGBTQ+ community who disproportionately rely on PrEP, which when taken as prescribed, reduces the chance of HIV transmission by close to 100%.
Human Rights Campaign’s President Kelley Robinson released the following statement:
“This decision means millions of Americans, for now, can breathe easier, knowing that critical preventive care remains within reach—not a luxury reserved for the privileged few.The LGBTQ+ community has historically faced societal and economic barriers that have worsened health outcomes and widened gaps in healthcare inequality–barriers that have only grown worse as anti-equality lawmakers continue to attack our healthcare. While we’re pleased that the Supreme Court has blocked this attempt to create even more burdens on people seeking lifesaving care, we must remain vigilant. The HHS, under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has exhibited an open hostility toward the health needs of LGTBQ+ people and has already undermined critical protections against HIV. We must continue to work to ensure everyone, no matter your sexual orientation, gender identity, race, income or location, can access the care they need to thrive.”
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the case brought by parents who said that their First Amendment rights were violated when schools used books that included LGBTQ+ characters.
The decision was 6-3 along ideological lines, with the Republican-appointed justices siding with the religious parents who wanted to opt their children out of reading books like Prince & Knight and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in the Montgomery County, Maryland, school system.
“The Court does not accept the Board’s characterizations of the LGBTQ+-inclusive instruction as mere ‘exposure to objectionable ideas’ or as lessons in ‘mutual respect,’” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “The storybooks unmistakably convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender.”
“Regardless, the question in cases of this kind is whether the educational requirement or curriculum at issue would ‘substantially interfere with the religious development’ of the child or pose ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices the parent wishes to instill in the child.”
“Casting aside longstanding precedent, the Court invents a constitutional right to avoid exposure to ‘subtle’ themes ‘contrary to the religious principles’ that parents wish to instill in their children,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion. “Exposing students to the ‘message’ that LGBTQ people exist, and that their loved ones may celebrate their marriages and life events, the majority says, is enough to trigger the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny.”
The case involved several sets of Christian and Muslim parents who objected to their kids reading books that mentioned LGBTQ+ people. The district had an opt-out policy that they later rescinded because, the district claimed, the opt-outs were becoming “unworkable.”
Some parents in the district protested to get the opt-out policy reinstated, while others protested in favor of learning about LGBTQ+ people.
“The books geared to younger kids are just showing a diverse range of families,” said Christina Celenza, a mother of a student in the district, during one of the 2023 protests. “We have a two-mom household, so my wife and I are really proud and out, and, of course, my kid in kindergarten or pre-K is going to probably talk about his family and his two moms.”
The district didn’t budge, so several parents sued. Two lower courts denied them a preliminary injunction, but the Supreme Court just granted them one.
The parents want the courts to ultimately order teachers to notify them of every possible discussion where LGBTQ+ people may come up so that they could opt their children out, lest their kids learn that LGBTQ+ people exist. They claimed that knowing that LGBTQ+ people exist is contrary to their religious beliefs and violates their right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Public education advocates warn that the ruling could lead to even more requests for opt-outs of public education on wide-ranging topics including Earth Day, critical thinking, and anti-drug programs.
Free speech and LGBTQ+ advocates denounced the ruling.
“This ruling is a deeply disappointing blow to the right to read under the First Amendment,” said U.S. Free Expression Programs staff attorney for PEN America Elly Brinkley in a statement. “It is a fundamental betrayal of public schools’ duty to prepare students to live in a diverse and pluralistic society. By allowing parents to pull their children out of classrooms when they object to particular content, the justices are laying the foundation for a new frontier in the assault on books of all kinds in schools.”
“While religious liberty is fundamentally important, it should not force public schools to exempt students from lessons that don’t align with their families’ personal religious or cultural beliefs,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang in a statement. “LGBTQ+ themed books are already among the most banned and challenged in school districts and libraries across the country. Today’s decision will make it even harder for these books to find their way into the hands of students who simply want to read — and who may find validation and acceptance in the process.”
“Today’s ruling does not change schools’ obligation to prepare students to interact with and thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world,” said GLAD Law’s Mary L. Bonauto. “LGBTQ+ people and families exist, students in our public schools have LGBTQ+ parents, and books that include LGBTQ+ people should not be treated differently than those without LGBTQ+ people.”
“The Court’s decision does not require our schools to abandon these efforts. Parents, students, educators, and neighbors can encourage opportunities for learning about diverse people and families by staying involved with school districts, school boards, and in our local communities.”
June 26, 2015 was a milestone day in the United States when the SCOTUS decision was announced in the case of Obergefell v Hodges. A narrow 5-4 ruling brought nationwide marriage equality for LGBTQ people much sooner than many expected it. I certainly did not even think it would occur in my lifetime. The nation was split down the middle on the topic. A piecemeal approach was commonplace, with some states making it legal before the ruling, and others staunchly opposed to it in their state constitutions. Yet, a conservative justice saw fit to challenge the status quo and actually base a ruling on the US Constitution for a change, rather than political ideology.
We had already been married for almost 4 years at that point. We were living in Texas in July 2011 and my boyfriend at the time decided to ask me to marry him (now her, but that is another story for another day). We had been living together nearly 10 years. Going to Canada was floated as an idea. I had family in New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo in New York had just its own marriage equality law June 24 that year to take effect in July. So, New York it was! I had become an internet wedding planner of my own wedding by then to be wed on October 09, 2011, one day difference from our “10th anniversary”. It was tedious. It was stressful. It was fun. It was one of the best days of my life. I will never do it again. Sorry boys and girls.
While our own wedding anniversary of 14 years is coming this fall, I sit here writing this and worried that we will have to go through even more bullshit to not only keep our marriage legally intact, but to ensure future generations maintain their right to due process and equality under the law. We have a Supreme Court who has already shown it has the balls to revisit and repeal established forward thinking case law precedent. See, Roe v Wade’s death as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, and Alito, who each wrote a dissenting opinion in Obergefell v Hodges are still proudly part of the conservative super majority on the bench. Yes, there is a Respect for Marriage Act that was finally passed in 2022 to help reaffirm O v H.
But we also have a President and House who are willing to turn back time. We have state legislators, who are now firing the opening salvo towards repeal of marriage equality. House reps in 9 states in 2025 proposed resolutions urging SCOTUS to repeal O v H. Those resolutions were passed in North Dakota and Idaho. 4 other states introduced bills, which failed, to introduce covenant marriage to their books, which would have created an exclusive category for opposite sex couples.
I hope everyone enjoys their anniversary, whether you were married today or at another point in time. But please remain vigilant and pay fucking attention to what is going on around you. Your rights can always be removed with the stroke of a pen. And sometimes that pen needs to be shoved into an uncomfortable place.
This is us. Climate change was on full display.
John Turner-McClelland is the editor of several blogs including FleeRedStates. He is a licensed real estate agent in Texas and North Carolina. He was on a Vice News panel once and was allowed to speak for 5 seconds on air. He has been a proud liberal LGBTQ activist and former elected official for a few decades or so. Yes, he is still married.
Lavonnia Moore, a 45-year-old library manager, had worked at the Pierce County Library in Blackshear, Georgia, for 15 years. She was ultimately let go when a Christian extremist group filed a complaint to the library after Moore approved the display of a children’s book about a transgender boy.
According to Moore, the display (entitled “Color Our World”) included the book When Aidan Became a Brother (by trans male author Kyle Lukoff), a story about a family accepting a trans child named Aiden while also preparing for the birth of Aiden’s sibling. Library volunteers created the display as a part of a regional-wide summer theme featuring books that celebrate diversity.
“I simply supported community involvement, just as I have for other volunteer-led displays. That’s what librarians do — we create space for everybody… I did not tell the parents and children what they could or could not add to the display, just as I do not tell them what they can or cannot read,” she wrote in a statement.
However, the book caught the attention of a group calling themselves the Alliance for Faith and Family (AFF), not to be confused with the anti-LGBTQ+ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. The AFF had previously been in the public eye for demanding the removal of a mural in the Waycross-Ware County Public Library, which included a Pride theme declaring, “Libraries Are For Everyone.”
The AFF campaigned on Facebook, urging their followers to pray and take a few moments out of their day to email the Three Rivers Library System and Pierce County Commissioners to “put a stop to this and show them the community supports them in taking a stand against promoting transgenderism at our local library,”
In an update post, the group wrote, “The display has been removed, and LaVonnia is no longer the Pierce County Library Manager. Please thank the Pierce County Commissioners and Three Rivers Regional Library System for quickly addressing our concerns.”
Moore and her sister Alicia confirmed that LaVonnia Moore had been fired. A statement to The Blackshear Times from the Three Rivers Library System Director Jeremy Snell explained that the library board leadership decided to move to new leadership for the Pierce County Library. He specifically cited the display of an “inappropriate” book as his reasoning.
“The library holds transparency and community trust in the highest regard,” Snell said.
“Instead of investigating, talking to me or my team, or exploring any kind of fair process, they used the ‘at-will’ clause in my contract to terminate me on the spot. No warning. No meeting. No due diligence. Just the words ‘poor decision making’ on a piece of paper after 15 years of service,” Moore claimed.
“I am just heartbroken,” she said of her dismissal.
According to Moore’s sister Alicia, “She messaged the family group and said ‘I was just fired.’”
“I don’t think she’s doing emotionally good, because imagine having to pack up 15 years in two days,” Alicia Moore told First Coast News.
“She’s heartbroken that a place she gave so much of herself to turned its back on her so quickly. And yes, she’s still in disbelief. She didn’t expect to be punished for doing her job with integrity and love for all patrons — especially children.” the sister explained.
The sisters are currently seeking legal counsel, and Alicia is urging people to reach out to the library board and county commissioners.
“I’m hoping the same method will be useful to get her justice,” Alicia said.
The state Senate approved a bill Tuesday that includes multiple controversial LGBTQ policies. Democrats objected to a GOP move to add the proposals to a popular House bill, prompting a heated fight over the Senate’s rules.
The original version of House Bill 805 added new consent requirements for pornographic websites, and it got unanimous support from Democrats and Republicans. It would allow people who appear in sexually explicit photos and videos online the option to have them removed.
The Senate added a lot more. Its bill would allow lawsuits against medical providers over gender transitions, and change the definition of biological sex in state law to exclude gender identity. The new definitions would say that gender identity is “a subjective internal sense” that “shall not be treated as legally or biologically equivalent to sex.” The change could affect transgender people seeking to change their birth certificate.
Sen. Buck Newton, R-Wilson, is the bill’s sponsor. “We cannot ignore the biological realities, and we believe our state laws should reflect that,” he said. “Women are being systemically erased from our language, whether it’s changing words from pregnant women to pregnant person, or mother to a birthing parent.”
The bill would also require schools to provide parents with a list of school library books and allow the parents to ban their children from checking out specific titles.
But Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch says the new provisions are harmful, and it means the original pornography bill likely won’t make it to the governor’s desk.
“When my Republican colleagues loaded this bill with culture war amendments, they didn’t just distract from the problem, they made it impossible to solve,” she said.
The bill put Democrats in the difficult position of voting against legislation titled “Prevent Sexual Exploitation.” Instead of voting no, they took an unusual approach. Asked to vote yes or no, most responded “I vote present.”
Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, that’s not an option in the state Senate.
“Notice, you have a green button and a red button, not an extra ‘whatever I came up with today’ button,” he said. “Those are the options under the Senate rules.”
The dispute put a lengthy delay on the vote as senators paged through their rulebooks. Batch said the only law she could find requiring legislators to vote yes or no dates to the 1700s.
“What it does say, if we don’t actually move and we don’t discharge our duty, which I assume that my colleagues are saying today, it’s a $10 fine,” she said, brandishing a stack of cash on the Senate floor. “I have $10 for every single one of the members in my caucus who voted present.”
But Republicans decided to count the present votes as excused absences, so on paper, Tuesday’s vote looks nearly unanimous in support of the controversial bill. It’s unclear if House Republicans will approve the Senate’s version of the bill.
Even if the House doesn’t take it up, Wednesday’s vote could wind up in campaign ads next year. “This was about elections and mailers and things like that,” said Sen. Lisa Grafstein, D-Wake. “You can already see, somebody didn’t get the memo, and they’ve been attacking members on voting no, when we did not vote no. That’s absolutely what it’s about.”
For the past nine years, the transgender flag was included among those that flew around the Stonewall National Monument in Christopher Park during Pride Month. However, the National Park Service(NPS) will no longer be displaying the Transgender Pride flag or the Progress Pride flag, stating a change of protocol as the reason.
The New York City monument commemorating the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 is the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights, having been designated as such in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. It has since become tradition for the monument, located in a park across the street from the Stonewall Inn, to be adorned with various Pride flags, including the trans flag. NPS funds the installation of these flags. This year, however, NPS told photographer, advocate, and installation creator Steven Love Mendez that the park will not allow Trans or Progress Pride flags this year.
The censorious move comes after the Trump administration wiped all references to trans and nonbinary people from the monument’s website in February, as part of his wider initiative to purge trans and nonbinary people from all references and resources provided by the federal government. The removal of trans people from a monument in which a transgender person was considered a key figure has led to outrage, with many coming to the monument to protest.
Speaking to CBS, Mendez comments, “It’s a terrible action for them to take.” he continues, “I used to be listed as an LGBTQ activist, and now it says ‘Steven Menendez, LGB activist,’” Menendez said. “They took out the Q and the T.”
The trans-exclusionary initialism of “LGB” is sometimes used by transphobes to encourage a social and ideological split between gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and transgender people, based on their differing gender experiences.
Upon learning of the monument’s trans erasure, many New Yorkers and tourists came to the monument to set up unauthorized pride flags in protest, including smaller trans flags planted in the soil.
Jay Edinin of Queens, New York, was one of the people who brought his own flag and told CBS, “I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now.”
Willa Kingsford of Portland, Oregon, stated, “I think it’s absurd. I think it’s petty,”
Patty Carter of Los Angeles, California, stated, “It’s horrible. They’re changing all of our history.”
The Stonewall Riots, to which the monument is dedicated, to began on June 28, 1969. During that time law enforcement commonly raided queer bars since New York had outlawed homosexuality and “cross-dressing.” During the raid at the Stonewall Inn, the LGBTQ+ community decided they had reached their tipping point and fought back against law enforcement. The resulting six days riots were said to have marked the beginning of the LGBTQ+ rights movement and became the reason why Pride Month is celebrated in June.
Two of the most notable figures in this uprising were Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, both trans women. It is believed that Johnson instigated the riot by throwing a brick at a police officer. Rivera is also considered to be a key instigator; she is said to be one of the first people to fight back against the police, to which many quote her as saying, “I’m not missing a minute of this—it’s the revolution!”
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