A gay teacher and a parent ally were awarded over $1M in compensatory damages in June after suffering years of defamation at the hands of a right-wing Virginia political action committee. The Virginia Project PAC and its founder, David Gordon, were found liable for falsely claiming that the teacher,
Story not found
Back to all storiesRecent reporting and curated coverage across every beat we cover.
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) signed a law last week that will force state-credentialed public school educators to out transgender students to their parents. Though the law has an exception to protect child safety, the law also flies in the face of a 2024 state Supreme Court ruling, which uphe
South Carolina state Rep. RJ May (R) — an anti-LGBTQ+ politician who has accused drag queens and transgender people of harming kids — pleaded guilty last Friday to distributing child sex abuse material (CSAM) after first denying it, Newsweek reported — including images of adults sexually abusing sev
A gay teacher and a parent ally were awarded over $1M in compensatory damages in June after suffering years of defamation at the hands of a right-wing Virginia political action committee. The Virginia Project PAC and its founder, David Gordon, were found liable for falsely claiming that the teacher,
This article originally appeared on Out.One week after coming out as bisexual on a podcast, Layla Taylor is teasing a new relationship with another woman with a video post on Instagram.The ex-Mormon reality TV star appeared in a video that shows her holding hands with what People magazine called "th
Andrew Gillum, the former Democratic nominee for governor of Florida and former mayor of Tallahassee, was arrested on drug possession charges in Alabama last week. Police in Daphne, Ala., said they pulled Gillum over for erratic driving and found marijuana and methamphetamine in his vehicle. He was
Radical hate pastor Tony Spell was recorded on police bodycam on June 25 calling his neighbor's 20-year-old son a "fa**ot," just two days after Spell was recorded on video attacking the young man. The attack required the young man to get stitches and resulted in Spell facing a second-degree battery
A U.K. appeals court began proceedings on Wednesday over the country of Trinidad and Tobago's colonial-era gay sex ban that remains in effect today. The lawsuit was brought in 2017 by LGBTQ+ activist Jason Jones, who argued that Sections 13 and 16 of the country's Sexual Offenses Act are “irrational
"Bring back the ‘60s. I don’t give a s**t who you love, but don’t shove your ideology down my throat and tell me that I need to use pronouns." Rose Milner, Canadian far-right activist Last October, on a Sunday evening, workers from the Florida Department of Transportation bulldozed and sledgehammere
Apparently, when Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton isn’t busy attacking his political opponents for supporting transgender people, coming after gender-affirming medical care, and suing out-of-state companies for selling binders, he likes to summer in Europe. Everyone
Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten is scheduled to open this year’s World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam. Organizers in a July 1 press release said Jetten will open the conference on Aug. 5. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema; South African Deputy Minister for Women, Youth, and People with Disab
A judge in Northern Ireland found three men not guilty of murdering queer journalist and author Lyra McKee. The 29-year-old McKee was struck by a bullet while covering an April 2019 riot in Derry. While the actual gunman has never been identified, Irish republican paramilitary group the New IRA clai
A new trailer for Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender seems to have put rumors about a beloved character’s sexuality to bed. Released on Tuesday, the trailer for the upcoming animated film, which takes place after Aang brought warring nations together in peace, finds Team Avatar encountering a mysteriou
Florida's so-called Stop WOKE Act, championed by anti-LGBTQ+ Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), received a major blow on Tuesday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a 2022 injunction against applying the law to colleges and universities. In the 2-1 decision, the judges called the law "a
CNN data analyst Harry Enten showed a promising sign that Democrats will take back the House in November's elections. Enten showed data from primaries held so far this year, which shows that more Democrats have been turning out to vote in their primaries than Republicans have in theirs. Related Anal
Police seek the public’s support in finding a suspect wanted in connection with three Philadelphia shootings, including two murders, who may have targeted his victims because they were gay. All three shootings took place near Hunting Park Recreation Center between May 29 and June 26. The suspect is
CNN host Laura Coates called out a conservative pundit who was raging against Democrats who supported Senate candidate Graham Platner's campaign prior to a woman he dated publicly accusing him of raping her. Now Democrats are calling for Platner to drop out of the race, while Republicans are gloatin
The board of directors for Mary’s House for Older Adults, DC’s first official home dedicated to providing affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors, announced on July 7 that its founding president and CEO, Dr. Imani Woody, has retired. Woody, who holds a PhD in Human Services, is credited with playing a
We’re deep into dream blunt rotation territory with this. Inde Navarette, the openly bisexual star of the summer box-office horror sensation Obsession, made a recent appearance in an Instagram story posted by none other than Ethel Cain. In the story, posted to Cain’s social media on Tuesday, Navaret
The White House called transgender people "insane" in an official press release on the last day of Pride Month. Donald Trump did not issue a proclamation celebrating Pride Month this year or last year, breaking from his predecessors. The press release, intended to celebrate the Supreme Court's decis
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to enforce laws barring transgender students from participating on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity, a decision LGBTQ advocates say could encourage additional restrictions across the country. While neither Marylan
By LIZ BOWIE | Somerset County’s school board is considering barring students under the age of 18 from reading any young-adult literature in school libraries, essentially restricting all but 12th graders from checking out books written for teens and tweens. The proposed policy also calls for the sup
Juries in two separate civil trials in Fairfax County, Va., last month awarded a gay teacher and an LGBTQ-supportive parent a combined total of just over $1 million in damages from a conservative group and its leader accused in their lawsuits of falsely and maliciously linking the two to a “child ab
A transgender influencer refused to let Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) have the last word after the anti-trans congresswoman publicly bullied her. Sabre, who goes by Bottleneckloser on Instagram, recently posted side-by-side photos of herself on X depicting her pre- and post-transition. "God I love estrogen
A 60-year-old history teacher was banned from teaching for six years yesterday after he allegedly made comments calling LGBTQ+ people "mentally ill" and claiming that "billionaires are the cause of transgenders." Neither of his claims are true. The Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) within England's D
Belgium's World Cup soccer team mocked the two-handed fist pump dance of U.S. President Donald Trump while celebrating on-field in a Seattle stadium after the team defeated the U.S. men's team with a score of 4-1 on Monday evening. The U.S. men's team defeat followed a scandal in which Trump persona
A far-right political party leader in British Columbia, Canada is facing criminal charges after he and another man defaced a Pride crosswalk in the city of Surrey, south of Vancouver. On May 30, Amrit Birring, leader of the Freedom Party of B.C. and a perennial and losing candidate in the province,
The FBI arrested 44-year-old New Mexico resident Michael Thompson on June 28 for allegedly threatening to carry out a mass shooting at Lubbock Pride Fest in West Texas. He has now been federally charged with interstate threatening communications, though it's unclear if he had concrete plans to actua
A man accused of shooting two people to death because they're gay – and trying to kill a third as well – is at large in Philadelphia. Police are looking for 21-year-old Jahylin Melchur, who is a suspect in the three shootings. In the first, which took place on May 29 at 9:50 p.m., the suspect shot a
As President Donald Trump's second administration has pushed the federal government further to the right on issues ranging from immigration to LGBTQ rights, a different political movement has been gaining momentum inside the Democratic Party. From industrial communities in upstate New York to Colora
Jeremy Carl, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, deleted thousands of social media posts before his nomination. One was a May 2023 post calling for the killing of Randi Weingarten, the lesbian president of the American Federation of Teachers, a
The gay Filipino man photographed on July 4 surrounded by masked members of Patriot Front on the DC Metro is speaking out about the terrifying incident. DC resident Roswell Encina was on his way to an Independence Day celebration in Maryland on Saturday when his train filled with members of the desi
The creator of a popular cat-focused Instagram account devoted to trolling JD Vance filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging that she was denied entry to a public-facing event featuring the vice president over her political views.“The government can’t exclude me from official vice-presidential events just b
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last week handing broad authority to fire heads of independent agencies to the president, former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) member Jocelyn Samuels has dropped her lawsuit challenging her termination by President Donald Trump. The presid
(Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a three-part series profiling the candidates for mayor of Rehoboth Beach, Del.: Commissioners Suzanne Goode, Susan Stewart, and Craig Thier; a fourth candidate, William Raak, filed to join the race but has not responded to Blade inquiries.) Residents
Amid calls for Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner to drop out of the race after a sexual assault allegation, one Republican's take on the matter has sent social media into a frenzy. During an appearance on Fox News, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) declared, "The one thing I
If you’re sapphic and love cinema, this is not a drill: Maya Hawke and Victoria Pedretti starred in a steamy sapphic short film together and it’ll soon be available for streaming.The Non-Actor, which garnered high praise during its festival run in 2025, is an 18-minute short during which Eliot (Pedr
Uncloseted Media published this interview on July 7. By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON, ISABEL STOKES, and BELLA SAYEGH | After appearing on the 11th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World,” the sixth season of “RuPaul’s All Stars” and now the 11th season
During a livestream on Sunday, YouTuber and artist DDG spoke about feeling unable to watch Love Island alone because he is single. “I haven’t watched Love Island,” he said. “You know why? Cuz I don’t have anybody to watch it with.” He continued, “I think it’s gay to watch Love Island by yourself. If
A gay activist who lost a landmark 2000 Supreme Court case has penned a moving letter to the 16-year-old trans plaintiff at the center of the Court's recent ruling that schools can exclude trans girls from playing on teams for “biological females.” On June 30, the Court released its decision that "T
Madonna isn’t just back, she’s ubiquitous. From a Times Square takeover to Graham Norton’s couch, the pop legend is busy promoting her new album, “Confessions II,” a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” that is earning rave reviews. “Madonna’s back in peak form with a fresh and honest da
Free weekly digest. Local news that actually matters — no spam, no clickbait, easy unsubscribe.
By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. We never sell your data.