The Texas House of Representatives today (Friday, May 23) passed Senate Bill 11 mandating a daily period set aside in Texas public schools for prayer and reading the Bible. Having passed both chambers of the Texas Legislature, the measure is now headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.
Texas Freedom Network Political Director Rocío Fierro-Pérez criticized the vote in a written statement, warning that the bill “allows politicians to impose their preferred religion on millions of Texas families,” and noting that it is “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and an escalation in the ongoing effort to turn public schools into tools of government-endorsed religion.
“Coercing students into state-sanctioned prayer disrespects the religious and nonreligious beliefs of families across our state,” she said.
Fierro Pérez added, “This bill undermines parental rights and places public educators in the impossible position of enforcing deeply personal and spiritual practices. We are outraged that lawmakers are wasting time serving their self-interests while ignoring urgent problems in our schools.
“Texas needs leaders who fight for the freedom of all families, not just those who share their religious views. Texans deserve leadership that defends liberty, not legislation that tramples it.”
SB 11 will, no doubt, face legal challenge, and established precedent would seem to be against it.
In its landmark 1962 decision Engel v. Vitale, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory, state-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, therefore public schools cannot require or sponsor religious activities, even if participation is voluntary. The following year, in Abington School District v. Schempp, SCOTUS ruled that school-sponsored Bible reading before class is unconstitutional.
A former NSW police officer has described the terrifying ordeal she faced after she was detained, jailed overnight and deported from the United States – despite travelling there legally on a tourist visa to visit her US military husband.
Nikki Saroukos from south-west Sydney says she was “treated like a criminal”, denied her rights and subjected to invasive searches, humiliating treatment and a night in federal prison – simply for trying to spend time with her American partner stationed in Hawaii.
Now back in Australia and still reeling from the trauma, Mrs Saroukos and her mother are demanding answers – and warning others how easily international travel can turn into a nightmare.
Mrs Saroukos has visited Hawaii three times in recent months under the ESTA visa waiver program to see her husband, a US Army lieutenant she married in December 2024 after a whirlwind long-distance romance. The couple met through a dating app and quickly knew they wanted to be together.
A former NSW police officer has described the terrifying ordeal she faced after she was detained, jailed overnight and deported from the United States – despite travelling there legally on a tourist visa to visit her US military husband.
Nikki Saroukos from south-west Sydney says she was “treated like a criminal”, denied her rights and subjected to invasive searches, humiliating treatment and a night in federal prison – simply for trying to spend time with her American partner stationed in Hawaii.
Now back in Australia and still reeling from the trauma, Mrs Saroukos and her mother are demanding answers – and warning others how easily international travel can turn into a nightmare.
Mrs Saroukos has visited Hawaii three times in recent months under the ESTA visa waiver program to see her husband, a US Army lieutenant she married in December 2024 after a whirlwind long-distance romance. The couple met through a dating app and quickly knew they wanted to be together.
Mrs Saroukos and her mother (pictured left) were expecting a three week holiday to Honolulu. Picture: Supplied
He joined the army in 2022 and has been serving as a US Army lieutenant on the Pacific island and US state since August 2023.
“He’s serving their country,” Mrs Saroukos told news.com.au in an emotional interview.
“We sacrificed so much to make this work. To be mocked and detained like that – it’s appalling.”
Mrs Saroukos and her mother arrived to Daniel K Inouye International Airport in Honolulu last Sunday for what was supposed to be a routine three-week holiday when things took a sharp and unexpected turn at the customs desk.
“The officer began to look troubled at his computer to which my mum offered to provide more information,” she explained.
“From there he screamed – ‘Shut up and get to the back of the line, go now’ – at the top of his lungs.
“My fight or flight immediately kicked in. I’d seen horror stories about this stuff. I just bawled on the spot,” Mrs Saroukos recalled.
“We were in such a vulnerable position. We didn’t know their rules well and he was obviously carrying a gun.”
Mrs Saroukos, who lives with with anxiety and PTSD, and her mother were then taken to a holding area for questioning where she offered contact with her husband and to show her marriage certificate – to which they laughed in her face.
She said the pair were told, “Don’t say anything, don’t talk and don’t touch your phones,” by officers before their bags were tossed out and inspected along with their documents.
“I didn’t hide anything,” she said.
Her mother was free to go after the search but Mrs Saroukos was taken to a second location where she was subjected to further interrogation.
There, she was forced to surrender her phone and passwords, and questioned about her work as a former police officer.
“They questioned me about the demographic of my suburb and what crimes I was exposed to as a police officer,” she said.
“They were asking me about ice and meth and whether I knew how much was being imported from New Zealand.”
She said she had “now idea how to answere the questions.
“I was just dumbfounded,” she said.
“They took a 45-minute sworn statement where they grilled me on my stream of income, my marriage, my phone history.
“They were clutching at straws. They even asked why I had deleted Instagram three days prior, I was completely honest.”
After the statement concluded she was told to wait outside where she was then subjected to a DNA swab – which she was given no explanation for.
She was further forced to sign a document declaring she was not a part of a cartel and had no affiliation with gang members.
She also signed a document stating her husband was her next of kin and that he would be contacted and informed of her whereabouts – something she later learnt never happened.
After hours of questioning and a sworn statement, a supervisor informed her that her statement was deemed inadmissible and that she would not be entering the United States.
“I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I froze. They said ‘We’ll be sending you to jail.’ I was just shaking, sweating – I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
Mrs Saroukos said she was handcuffed, subjected to an in-depth cavity search and marched through the airport in full view of the public before being placed into a car and driven 10 minutes to a federal detention facility.
“The officers told me I wasn’t under arrest but I was cuffed and searched. My jewellery was taken and not secured. I felt stripped of all my dignity,” she said.
“I told the officer that from my understanding when you place someone in cuffs it’s an indication of arrest and you need to read them their rights.”
To which an officer replied, “It’s for our safety.”
When she asked a female officer whether she’d be safe inside the prison they told her, “I can’t answer that, I’ve never been there. I can assume you’d be safe to a degree.”
Upon arriving at the prison around 3.30pm, she was fingerprinted again, ordered to strip naked, squat and cough, and handed prison issued briefs and green outerwear.
“When they finished with the search there was a male officer standing outside who looked confused. He asked me why I was here to which I told him what had happened,” she said.
“He told me, ‘Wow. You should not be here right now, you have Trump to thank for that though.’”
When she asked if she would be fed, officers told her she had missed the cut off for dinner time and would not be provided any food today.
She was further forced to sign a waiver where she agreed she would not be making or receiving any phone calls – something her lawyer later informed her was against basic human rights.
Officers also told her that if she needed to take a shower she would not be provided with a towel and was to use a wet paper towel to clean herself.
“The entire time I was just thinking, ‘Shut up and do what they say and you’ll get out of here,’” she said.
Mrs Saroukos says she was taken to a shared cell where her roommate was a Fijian woman who was being held over similar circumstances.
“There were prisoners everywhere. I learned that I was being housed with convicted murderers,” she said.
“(Other inmates) told me I looked like a fish out of water and even gave me soap and a towel.
“As a former police officer it was such an irony to be on the other side of things. Those inmates treated me better than anyone else.”
Mrs Saroukos’ husband and mother had been waiting outside the airport for five hours with no information on her whereabouts.
“A Hawaiin Airlines ground manager told them that their ‘best guess is that she is there’ (the detention centre). That was all they had to go off,” she said.
Mrs Saroukos recalls that at 6am after only receiving an hour of sleep, she was woken by prison guards bashing on the metal cell doors.
“I just kept thinking that someone has to come save me and that this surely wasn’t really happening,” she said.
She was then told by officers that she would be leaving in ten minutes and was to clean her cell and discard any rubbish.
She was changed back into her own clothing before being transported back to the airport, again in handcuffs.
There, she was marched through crowds of people by officers before being taken to another holding room where she was finally given a small bottle of water, a muesli bar and a packet of chips.
“It was just so humiliating and embarrassing,” she said.
She was then informed she had a call from the Australian Embassy who had been closed over the weekend during the ordeal.
“They told me they couldn’t do anything and that no one had the power to help,” she said.
She asked the embassy to call her mother and let her know that she was being put on a 12.15pm flight back to Sydney.
“I couldn’t fly by myself, I was terrified.”
She was then finally allowed a three-minute phone call with her husband who was “inconsolable”.
“He was crying so much. When I asked if he had known where I was he told me ‘nobody told us anything’,” she said.
Mrs Saroukos was then escorted to the gate by two officers – one in front and one behind – who then handed her phone and passport to flight attendants.
Once in the air, she requested her phone to which a flight attendant said “You will get it given back when touch down and it will be handed over to Australian authorities.”
Upon landing in Australia, Mrs Saroukos was forced to stay on the plane where she expressed her concerns to an empathetic air hostess.
“She told me didn’t agree with what was happening.”
Once being free to de-board the plane, an Australia Customers Officer was waiting for her where he handed her an envelope with her belongings.
“He told me I was free to leave which I couldn’t believe,” she said.
Mrs Saroukos’ husband is planning to apply for an honourable discharge from the US Army as a result so that he can live and work in Australia.
“We don’t know yet what he’ll do here. We’re just too shaken up to even think about it,” she said.
“I never want to return to the United States.”
Mrs Saroukos and her family have now hired an immigration lawyer in the US to probe what can be done about her ordeal.
US Customs and Border Protection did not comment when contacted by news.com.au.
Hockey star Madison Packer played in five All-Star Games and is the second-highest goalscorer in the history of the Premier Hockey Federation, which was the forerunner to the National Women’s Hockey League.
Packer is widely recognized as an icon of women’s sports. Yet not for the first time, Packer recently found herself being misgendered as a result of gender policing she believes is escalating in line with heightened anti-trans rhetoric.
Two weeks ago, the 33-year-old posted an Instagram story to say that in late April she had been “forcibly removed” from a women’s bathroom stall in a Florida nightclub.
Packer, who spent eight seasons with the Metropolitan Riveters in the NWHL and PHF, wrote “sounds familiar” when sharing an article about the incident on social media.
She describes her own experience in Florida as “humiliating” and connects it directly to the ongoing discourse in society that suggests trans people pose a threat in women’s spaces.
“The entire bathroom situation is absurd,” Packer tells Outsports.
“The fear-mongering and outright propaganda we have perpetuated against the trans community in this country is pathetic.”
Packer says she had been with her wife and their friends at the club in Naples, Fla., when she left them to visit the restroom.
“Upon walking in, the female bathroom attendant several times said, ‘Sir sir,’ as to get my attention,” recalled Packer. “I am a cis female. I don’t respond to ‘sir.’”
During her playing days, the former power forward was a vocal leader on and off the ice, partnering with You Can Play on the organization’s LGBTQ advocacy initiatives.
She ignored the attendant and headed into a stall.
It was then that Packer felt the attendant pulling her backwards by the shoulder.
“Again, she addressed me as ‘sir’ and told me I was in the wrong bathroom. We proceeded to argue over the bathroom I was in until I showed her my driver’s license.”
In Florida, trans people are prohibited by law from using public bathrooms and gendered facilities that align with their gender identity in all government-owned buildings, including K-12 schools and colleges.
The law applies only to facilities run by the state, but there have been several reports of trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people being challenged when using restrooms inside private businesses.
The Movement Advancement Project lists five other states — Arkansas, Montana, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — as having passed bathroom bills similar to that of Florida.
For women like Packer, who in her own words is “masculine presenting,” the chances of being confronted in a restroom are by no means limited to certain states.
She says that a few years ago, she was also involved in a physical altercation with a male bouncer in the bathroom of a bar in Connecticut.
It’s natural for her to speak out about the damage done by gender policing. After announcing her retirement from hockey last November, Packer and her wife, Anya Battaglino, started a podcast called “These Packs Puck” in which they discuss queer parenthood and navigating life after pro sports.
On the latest episode, they talk about how being challenged in Florida left Packer “very upset” on what was, by coincidence, Lesbian Visibility Day. The couple had posted to Instagram to mark that awareness day, using an old photo taken in a Palm Springs restroom to make a point.
Anya wrote the caption: “Minding mine. (Wish the government would do the same).”
A little over a week later, Packer shared more details of her confrontation after reading online about what had happened in the Boston hotel.
In its reporting of that incident, CBS News quoted the executive director of PFLAG Greater Boston, Nina Selvaggio, who said: “For gender nonconforming lesbians, women in general, being harassed in public restrooms is a tale as old as time.
“I do think the surge in national anti-trans rhetoric is contributing to an increased policing of women’s bodies and their expression of gender.”
Packer told Outsports she agrees “wholeheartedly” with Selvaggio’s comments.
“I find it infuriating that we’re now going as far as to dictate or try to regulate what ‘female’ looks like.
“I’ve shared locker rooms and bathrooms with straight men, gay men, gay women, straight women, trans men, and trans women… I’ve never once had an altercation or inappropriate exchange with a trans person.
“I think we’re concerning ourselves with the wrong groups when it comes to restroom safety.”
Transgender woman Michelle Rosenblum, of Ventura, California, has been planning a family vacation to Hawaii, but recent law changes regarding identification documents have made her wary of travel.
After President Donald Trump’s election to a second term last November, Rosenblum had been rushing to get her identification in order as a safety precaution.
According to Rosenblum, she updated her California birth certificate to show she had transitioned and renewed her passport.
Rosenblum was shocked to receive a letter from the State Department telling her she needed to correct her information on her passport application to show her biological sex at birth.
As Rosenblum prepares to fly, she fears that the discrepancies between her California Real ID and her passport will create problems when traveling. While the federal government requires Real ID for air travelers, states oversee the gender marker listed on the IDs.
Rosenblum is now debating traveling with a stack of documents, such as her birth certificate, Social Security card, and a court order showing her gender change.
Rosenblum tells The Los Angeles Times, “In the 10 years that I’ve been transitioned, I have never felt like, ‘Whoa, I need to get all my papers together.’ I was never concerned about traveling.”
Rosenblum’s experience echoes similar concerns that trans people have about traveling, as noted in a recent survey conducted by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. In the survey, 302 trans, nonbinary, and other gender non-conforming American adults were surveyed — nearly a third said they were travelling less frequently as a result of the 2024 election.
Though the survey was conducted a month before Trump’s official inauguration. Trump’s campaign focused heavily on attacking the rights of trans people. On the day of his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order directing the federal government to no longer acknowledge the existence of trans people in any capacity. This led the State Department, which issues passports to U.S. citizens, to announce they no longer accept gender markers that do not align with a person’s sex assigned at birth.
Trump’s continual attacks on the trans community in his official capacity as president have emboldened many GOP members to begin proposing anti-trans legislation in their home states, making travel even less desirable.
In the survey, nearly 70% of respondents said they’d be less willing to vacation in states they viewed as more hostile to trans people, particularly states that hold a GOP majority.
The survey also showed that 48% of respondents were considering moving to or had already moved to states they viewed as safer, particularly states with a liberal majority, such as Washington, California, New York, and Minnesota.
Lead author of the survey, Abbie Goldberg, wrote, “When you feel that you need to consider moving, you’ve been pushed to a certain point…. If you’re a trans person living in the U.S., particularly in a state with not a lot of protections and some explicitly anti-trans legislation, you’re thinking about your physical safety, your children’s safety at school, the possibility you could be fired from your job, and no way to push back.”
Rosenblum said she is grateful to live in California, where she is protected by anti-discrimination laws but as she gets ready for vacation, she said, “It feels like people are trying to shove me back into the closet.”
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed legislation on Tuesday that decriminalizes HIV. The Carlton R. Smith Act – named for a local HIV activist who died last year – eliminates criminal penalties based on one’s HIV status. Maryland is the 5th state to decriminalize HIV, with North Dakota making the move just last month.
Until now, it was a misdemeanor in Maryland to “knowingly transfer or attempt to transfer” HIV to someone else. The law did not require intent to transmit, actual transmission, or conduct that would transmit the virus. Penalties included up to three years incarceration and a fine of up to $2,500.
Laws like this can deter people from being tested and treated for HIV. In addition, Maryland’s law has been disproportionately used to target Black people.
The Williams Institute found that from 2000 to 2020, Black people accounted for 82% of HIV-related criminal cases in the state, despite only making up 30% of the population and 71% of the people living with HIV. The study also found that Black men make up 68% of people accused in HIV-related criminal cases, despite being 14% of the state’s population and 44% of the population living with HIV.
When the study was released, Williams Institute HIV Criminalization Project Director Nathan Cisneros explained that the law was put in place “at the height of the AIDS crisis before we had effective treatments for HIV.”
“We now have medical treatments that wholly eliminate the risk of transmitting HIV through sex,” Cisneros explained, “yet these advances are not reflected in Maryland law despite several reform attempts in recent years.”
In a statement, Phillip Westry, director of the state LGBTQ+ organization FreeState Justice, celebrated the passage of the Carlton R. Smith Act, calling it “a testament to the power of education, research, and courageous leadership.”
“It sends a clear message,” Westry continued, “Maryland is committed to evidence-based policymaking and to ending the criminalization of people living with HIV. We honor the memory of Carlton R. Smith by continuing the work of building a more just, inclusive, and informed society.”
A memorial to the gay people who were sent to concentration camps during the Third Reich was unveiled in Paris this weekend.
The monument is a giant steel star created by artist Jean-Luc Verna and is located near Place de la Bastille in a park. The monument recognizes the estimated 5000 to 15,000 people sent to concentration camps during World War II for homosexuality.
“Recognition means saying ‘This happened’ and saying ‘We don’t want this to happen again,’” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said at the inauguration ceremony. She said that there is still an “obligation to fight against denial and mitigation” and that there “are, today, extremely dangerous, strong, opposing winds that would like to deny the diversity of the victims.”
The memorial is “a big thing so that it’s seen, so that it’s finally seen,” artist Verna told the French LGBTQ+ magazine TETU, describing the symbolism of the memorial. “The black side of the star is the bodies that were burned, it’s grief, it’s also a shadow that tells us that these things can happen again. The other side, the mirror, is the present, with colors from the weather and the sky of Paris that change as fast as public opinion can turn backwards.”
The memorial was unveiled on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), and comes after France started recognizing in recent decades that gay people were also victims of the Holocaust.
According to TETU, for years after World War II, people didn’t discuss the pink triangles that were used to designate people put in concentration camps due to their sexuality, until the 1990s when testimony from Pierre Seel was published. Seel was sent to the Schirmeck Concentration Camp in Alsace in 1941 after the Third Reich took over that part of France. In 2010, a memorial plaque was installed in Seel’s hometown of Mulhouse in “memory of Pierre Seel and other anonymous Mulhousiens arrested and sent to concentration camps due to homosexuality.”
“We are here to remember that the Nazis wanted to eliminate the most weak, the most fragile, the people suffering from handicap whose existence was considered an affront to their concept of man and society,” former French President Jacques Chiarc said in 2005. “In Germany, as well as in our territory, those who were different, I’m thinking about the homosexuals, were hunted down, arrested, and sent to concentration camps.”
Today, historians estimate that there were anywhere between 60 and 200 people sent to concentration camps due to their sexuality from France.
There are also monuments to the gay victims of the Holocaust in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, and Sydney, all in the shape of a pink triangle, the symbol that the Nazis had sewn to the people held in concentration camps for homosexuality.
Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill that would dramatically redefine the U.S. legal definition of “obscenity” to include any sexual content, escalating the right-wing campaign to define transgender people as inherently pornographic and obscene.
The bill would add a new definition of “obscene” speech to the Communications Act of 1934: if passed, obscenity would be redefined as anything which “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion”; “depicts, describes, or represents, an actual or simulated sexual act […] with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person”; and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” (Legally, appealing to the “prurient interest” means that something elicits sexual desire in the viewer.)
The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This is the third time Lee has introduced IODA, as Mashable noted, following IODA’s defeat in 2022 and 2024.
IODA had not yet received any cosponsors at time of writing, meaning it’s uncertain whether the bill will gain enough Congressional support to pass. But its intent is nevertheless chilling for U.S. free speech law, advocates say. “Obscene” speech — which is not protected by the First Amendment — was defined in the 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California, in which the Court established a three-pronged test to determine whether a given image or statement is legally obscene. Under the “Miller test,” speech is considered obscene if “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would consider it appealing to the prurient interest, and if it also depicts sexual activity “in a patently offensive way.”
IODA’s text would effectively remove the Miller test’s reliance on “community standards” and whether material is “patently offensive” from obscenity law, making it significantly easier to bring legal cases against any depiction of sexual activity — whether through photography, film, or even the written word.
Jacob Mchangama and Ashkhen Kazaryan, representing the think tank The Future of Free Speech, called IODA “dangerous” in an editorial for MSNBC on Tuesday. “By discarding the concept of community standards, the IODA removes a key safeguard that allows local norms to shape what counts as obscenity,” Mchangama and Kazaryan wrote. “Without it, the federal government could impose a single national standard that fails to account for regional differences, cultural context or evolving social values.”
By making standards for obscenity more subjective, IODA could also open the door for conservatives to legally declare trans people in general to be “obscene.” Lee is a longtime ally of the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank responsible for drafting Project 2025, a massive policy blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term. (Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget in February.) The sprawling 920-page document falsely declares that trans people are a threat to children, that transitioning itself is equivalent to pornography, and that pornography must be outlawed in the U.S.
“Pornography [is] manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children,” Project 2025’s forward reads in part. “Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women [….] Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” The document also claims that children in public schools “suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” referencing right-wing campaigns against Drag Story Hour events and LGBTQ+ books of any kind.
“If you pull back and you look at the broad picture of censorship that’s going on, from any information about trans people to sexual health information, certainly to anything that has adult content, they are following their promises in Project 2025. And this is just another attempt,” Ricci Levy, president and CEO of the sexual freedom nonprofit Woodhull Freedom Foundation, told Mashable this week.
The right-wing campaign against “obscenity” and anything deemed “pornographic” is moving forward at the state level as well. In January, Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers, a Republican, introduced legislation that would ban all pornography across the board and establish a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for “trafficking” in porn. New age verification laws made Pornhub inaccessible in 16 states earlier this year, covering most of the Southern U.S.
It’s not just Republicans who are pushing for such laws, however. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed another such age verification bill into law earlier this week. And in Congress, Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Majority Leader John Thune joined with Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act on Wednesday, which free speech advocates say would threaten LGBTQ+ speech while failing to protect children online.
“Its outrageous that Democrat lawmakers are still willing to go along with this charade just to score ‘protect the children’ political points,” wrote Evan Greer, director of the free speech nonprofit Fight for the Future, in a Bluesky post reacting to KOSA’s return on Wednesday.
We sit down and chat with Josh Polanco, an expat living and working as a real estate agent in Lisbon.
More and more LGBTQ Americans are choosing to move abroad—and Portugal is rising to the top of the list. In this video, we explore why Portugal is becoming a haven for LGBTQ individuals seeking safety, civil rights, and a better quality of life amidst growing political threats in the United States.
From inclusive laws and national healthcare to thriving queer communities in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal offers a refreshing contrast to the increasingly hostile policies emerging in red states across the U.S. This video is part of the Flee Red States project, a movement dedicated to helping LGBTQ people identify safer, more welcoming places to live—both within the U.S. and abroad.
As the Trump administration and the Republican Party work to dismantle LGBTQ civil rights protections, Flee Red States provides tools, support, and real-world stories to empower our community to make informed decisions about relocation. Whether you’re just curious or seriously planning your next chapter, this video is for you.
*This is reported by New Republic Opinion via Yahoo News.
A MAGA judge in Texas has issued a sweeping ruling that destroys workplace discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in the United States.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who holds a reputation for being a far-right activist judge, declared that while Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not protect LGBTQ people from workplace harassment based on their sexual or gender orientation. The case was brought forth by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right, culturally conservative organization that heavily influenced the writings and goals of Project 2025.
Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, specifically targeted transgender people in his ruling, stating that they had to simply deal with any kind of discriminatory treatment in their workplace. He deduced that “a male employee must use male facilities like other males,” an assertion that completely invalidates transgender identity in its entirety rather than actually acknowledging the issues they face at work. Kacsmaryk even went so far as to order federal employment policy to remove“all language defining ‘sex’ in Title VII to include ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.”.
This all directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County ruling, which stated plainly that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers from identity-based firing and harassment.
Kacsmaryk is not new to this. He has been referred to as the “go-to jurist” for right wingers looking for judicial validation for cruel, oppressive, and deeply culturally conservative policy. He attacked LGBTQ protections in the Affordable Care Act, suspended FDA approval of the live-saving abortion pill mifepristone, and tried (and failed) to make Planned Parenthood pay $2 billion to Texas and Louisiana on the grounds that they were “defrauding” Medicaid. This is yet another coordinated attack from the right intended to erode hard fought social justice victories.
More than two dozen Ohio lawmakers are supporting a bill that would designate the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day “Natural Family Month.”
Though the bill, introduced by Republican state Reps. Josh Williams and Beth Lear, doesn’t define “natural family” in its text, critics say it is intended to exclude LGBTQ families and promote marriage and childrearing between heterosexual, monogamous couples only.
When asked whether “Natural Family Month” will also recognize gay couples and parents with adopted children, Williams said in an emailed statement to NBC News that “the purpose of the month is to promote natural families—meaning a man, a woman, and their children—as a way to encourage higher birth rates.”
He added, “This is not about discriminating against other family structures, but about supporting the one most directly tied to the creation and raising of children.”
Lear did not return a request for comment.
After introducing the bill earlier this week, Williams and Lear said in joint statements that the initiative is intended to promote child rearing.
“At a time when marriage is trending downward and young couples are often choosing to remain childless, it’s important for the State of Ohio to make a statement that marriage and families are the cornerstone of civil society, and absolutely imperative if we want to maintain a healthy and stable Republic,” Lear said.
Dwayne Steward, the director of statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Ohio, told a local queer news site that the bill is both bad policy and a “calculated act of strategic erasure.”
“It not only invalidates the existence of single parents and countless other caregivers, but it takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families across our state,” Steward told the Buckeye Flame. “The so-called ‘Natural Family Foundation,’ the group pushing this legislation, has made their ideology clear: if you’re not a heterosexual, monogamous couple with children, you don’t count as a family at all.”
Steward, who did not immediately return NBC News’ request for comment, added, “As an adoptive parent, myself, I feel this erasure personally. This bill is not just offensive; it’s dangerous.”
Last year, Ohio considered eight bills targeting LGBTQ people, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. Two of those — a provision that requires school personnel to notify parents of “any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s” birth sex, and a measure that prohibits certain transition-related medical care for minors — became law.
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