LGBT News

The Texas Tribune reports: Two bills that would ban classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in Texas public schools before certain grade levels are poised to receive top Republican backing in this year’s legislative session. But critics warn that the legislation could further marginalize LGBTQ students and families while exposing teachers to potential legal threats. The two bills …

The Irish Mirror reports: Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman has committed to bringing forward plans this year to ban the use of conversion therapy for gay people. Mr O’Gorman, who is gay, previously branded conversion therapy “a cruel process rooted in the promotion of shame”. He said Ireland should join other European countries in banning the practice. “Obviously, legislation takes time …

Another action-packed year has come and gone for this here website thingy, which in a few months will mark its 19th anniversary. In this post last year, I wrote, “I want to sincerely thank all of you, longtime JMG flying monkeys and newbies alike, for being here during what for many of us will be the most memorable year of …

Washington DC’s CBS affiliate reports: D.C.’s Attorney General is taking the lead in a fight against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Karl Racine is leading a pack of 18 attorneys general who has filed a federal brief saying the law is unconstitutional. They also contend that the Florida Act is causing, by example, significant harm to students, parents and …

Politico reports: Designated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare rebuke of his new coalition allies on Sunday for saying they would advance laws allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people, pledging there would be no harm to their rights by his upcoming government. Netanyahu is set to form the most ultranationalist and religious government in Israel’s history between his Likud …

The New York Daily News reports: Henry Berg-Brosseau, a prominent transgender rights advocate and the son of Kentucky Sen. Karen Berg has died at the age of 24. His death was confirmed by the Democratic lawmaker in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “Last Friday morning my son Henry died by suicide. He was a beloved son, brother, nephew, dog parent …

The Associated Press reports: A judge dismissed the 2021 kidnapping case against the Colorado gay nightclub shooter even though she had previously raised concerns about the defendant stockpiling weapons and explosives and planning a shootout, court transcripts obtained Friday by The Associated Press reveal. Relatives, including the grandparents who claimed to have been kidnapped, had also told Judge Robin Chittum …

Law & Crime reports: A 53-year-old Michigan man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for murdering, dismembering, and eating the severed genitalia of a 25-year-old man he met on the Grindr dating app. Shiawassee County Circuit Judge Matthew J. Stewart on Thursday ordered Mark David Latunski to serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility …

The Mirror reports: LGBT+ football fans have launched a fund in an attempt to persuade FIFA where to hold the 2030 World Cup through ‘donations’. This year’s tournament is being held in Qatar, which is alleged to hunt, arrest and beat LGBT+ people. Considering a bid for the 2030 tournament is Saudi Arabia, another country which outlaws homosexuality and persecutes …

Reuters reports: Survivors of mass shootings targeting U.S. LGBT nightclubs detailed the violence they endured and criticized inflammatory political rhetoric in a congressional hearing on Wednesday. “We are being slaughtered and dehumanized across this country, in communities you took oaths to protect,” said Matthew Haynes, owner of the Club Q nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where five people were killed …

The Washington Post reports: Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety in June received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office: to compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s license and other department records during the past two years. “Need total number of changes from male to female and …

Pink News reports: On Monday, 12 December, the High Court of Barbados further undid its colonial-era homosexuality laws by scrapping Sections 9 and 12 of the Barbados Sexual Offences Act. Also known as “buggery” and “serious indecency” laws, which criminalised consensual same-sex intimacy, punishment ranged from life imprisonment under Section 9, and up to 10 years in jail under Section …

NPR reports: President Biden will sign into law Tuesday a bipartisan bill that will codify same-sex and interracial marriages with a large celebration on the South Lawn of the White House. “Today, Congress took a critical step to ensure that Americans have the right to marry the person they love,” Biden said in a statement Thursday after the House passed …

NBC News reports: Less than a month after a deadly shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, the House Oversight Committee will host survivors for a hearing on violence and threats against LGBTQ people. The Dec. 14 hearing will include testimony from bartender Michael Anderson and from James Slaugh, both of whom survived the Club Q shooting, as well as …

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: Progressive policy advocate Davante Lewis defeated three-term Public Service Commissioner Lambert Boissiere III on Saturday, handing the incumbent and utilities that backed him a stunning loss with the help of big money from environmental groups who want to shake up the commission. Lewis, 30, who lives in Baton Rouge and works for the left-leaning Louisiana …

NBC News reports: Xavier Kraus, who said he lived next door to the suspect and the suspect’s mother from August 2021 to September 2022, said he believes the claim that Aldrich is nonbinary is “a total troll on the community, and a total troll on the system.” Aldrich, he said, never used they/them pronouns with him or mentioned being nonbinary. …

Oregon Public Radio reports: In an unusual sight, people packed into the Crook County Library on Thursday night for a meeting of its board. The topic at hand had drawn the standing room crowd: namely, whether or not to segregate LGBTQ-friendly children’s books into a separate section. By the end of the night, the crowd had spoken overwhelmingly in support …

Yahoo News reports: Pennsylvania formalized nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people after a regulatory board approved new definitions of sex, race and religious creed in the commonwealth’s anti-discrimination regulations. The new regulatory changes provide a more comprehensive definition of the terms “sex,” “religious creed” and “race” as protected classes so that victims of discrimination can better understand how they are protected …

The Associated Press reports: The House is set to give final approval Thursday to legislation protecting same-sex marriages in federal law, a monumental step in a decadeslong battle for nationwide recognition of such unions that reflects a stunning turnaround in societal attitudes. A law requiring all states to recognize same-sex marriages would come as a a relief for hundreds of …

Speaker Nancy Pelosi writes for the Washington Post: In my first speech on the House floor, I declared that “we must take leadership of course in the crisis of AIDS.” During my first speakership, we erased the egregious “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy from the books — ensuring gay and lesbian Americans can openly serve their country. We advanced justice …