LGBT News

The Associated Press reports: The number of monkeypox cases reported globally dropped by 21% in the last week, reversing a month-long trend of rising infections and a possible signal the outbreak in Europe may be starting to decline, according to a World Health Organization report issued Thursday. British health authorities said last week after seeing a decline in the number …

Rolling Stone reports: Weeks after putting on a production of Hamilton without permission and lacing it with homophobic teachings, a church in McAllen, Texas has apologized. The church will also pay damages to Hamilton‘s creators. Hamilton will donate the money to support a local gay rights organization. On Tuesday, nondenominational church The Door McAllen issued a statement on Instagram apologizing …

Spectrum New York reports: New York City has seen a significant decline in its daily monkeypox case count in recent weeks, but vaccination disparities remain a cause for concern, health officials said Tuesday. The five boroughs’ seven-day average case count fell from a peak of 72 on July 30 to 16 on Monday, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene data …

Human Rights Watch reports: Vietnam’s Health Ministry officially confirmed that same-sex attraction and being transgender are not mental health conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. The decision brings Vietnam’s health policy in line with global health and human rights standards. Vietnam’s new directive states that “the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization (WHO) have confirmed that homosexuality is …

ABC News reports: Singapore announced Sunday it will decriminalize sex between men by repealing a colonial-era law while protecting the city-state’s traditional norms and its definition of marriage. During his speech at the annual National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he believed it is the “right thing to do now” as most Singaporeans will now accept it. …

Matt Tracy reports at Gay City News: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced that 63,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine have been administered in the city, but officials are also pointing to racial disparities and vowing to dole out $5 million to community groups to address inequities in the next phase of the vaccine rollout. …

The Deseret News reports: After one competitor “outclassed” the rest of the field in a girls’ state-level competition last year, the parents of the competitors who placed second and third lodged a complaint with the Utah High School Activities Association calling into question the winner’s gender. David Spatafore, the UHSAA’s legislative representative, addressing the Utah Legislature’s Education Interim Committee on …

Fort Lauderdale’s ABC affiliate reports: A man was tackled outside a bar Tuesday in Wilton Manors after witnesses say he carried a grenade into the business. The incident happened at The Corner Pub, which is located at 1915 N. Andrews Ave. “He showed me a grenade. He said, ‘Don’t be scared.’ It kinda freaked me out a little bit,” bartender …

Via press release: Today, Governor Tom Wolf signed Executive Order 2022-2 to protect Pennsylvanians from conversion therapy. “Conversion therapy is a traumatic practice based on junk science that actively harms the people it supposedly seeks to treat,” said Gov. Wolf. “This discriminatory practice is widely rejected by medical and scientific professionals and has been proven to lead to worse mental …

Yahoo Sports reports: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have reached agreement with free-agent defensive end Carl Nassib on a one-year deal, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. Nassib, 29, most recently played two seasons with the Las Vegas Raiders. He’s best known for coming out in 2021 as the NFL’s first active openly gay player. The stint marks the second in Tampa for …

Yahoo News reports: Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 16 attorneys general from across the country in filing an amicus brief opposing Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education Act,” otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Nessel, a Democrat who is Michigan’s first openly gay top statewide official, says that the law, which prevents classroom discussion …

The Taipei Times reports: The organizers of WorldPride 2025 have canceled the Kaohsiung event because its licensing group, InterPride, demanded that it remove “Taiwan” from the event’s name, they said in a statement yesterday. Kaohsiung was to host WorldPride Taiwan 2025 after being granted the right by the global LGBTQ advocacy group. However, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee said …

The Hill reports: A librarian in Louisiana filed a lawsuit against two men and a conservative organization, alleging they defamed her when they attacked her for supporting the teaching of books involving the LGBTQ community. Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian and the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, alleged in the lawsuit that a “public campaign” against …

Spectrum News reports: Following the city’s bumpy rollout of monkeypox vaccines this summer, the New York City Council LGBTQIA+ Caucus unveiled legislation Thursday morning aimed at combating the outbreak across the five boroughs. If passed, the package, which consists of three bills, would require the city to establish a multi-pronged monkeypox response plan, create an education and outreach strategy, ensure …

Politico reports: Florida’s Medicaid regulator has finalized new rules banning health care providers from billing the taxpayer-funded program for gender-affirming medical treatments, a move that comes as the state has sought to block such therapies for young people. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration on Thursday added new language to the rules governing the state’s $36.2 billion Medicaid program. …

The Washington Post reports: The manufacturer of the only vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to protect against monkeypox privately warned senior Biden health officials about their plan to split doses and change how the shots are delivered. “We do have some reservations … due to the very limited safety data available,” Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin wrote …

Sports Illustrated reports: Minor league pitcher Solomon Bates publicly came out as gay in an Instagram post on Tuesday, the same week that he was released by the Giants. He is the second minor league baseball player to publicly come out as gay, after David Denson did so in 2015. Bates was an eighth-round pick out of USC in 2018, …

Politico reports: The Florida Department of Health counted 985 people infected by the monkeypox virus as of Tuesday, marking a jump from the 525 infections reported by Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo one week ago. The agency also ordered the full 72,000 vaccine doses allocated by HHS. The HHS allocation is not enough to keep up with the outbreak of …

“With regards to informing parents with most important decisions about their children, I think everybody knows where I stand, parents matter.  “Parents should be at the forefront of all of these discussions. And I firmly believe that teachers and schools have an obligation to make sure that parents are well informed about what’s happening in their kids’ lives. “And one …

The Washington Post reports: Biden administration officials are set to announce Tuesday a new strategy to split monkeypox vaccine doses in hopes of vaccinating up to five times as many people against the virus, according to officials with direct knowledge of the plan. Rather than inject doses of Jynneos subcutaneously, a traditional way of delivering vaccines into the fatty tissue …