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LGBTQ Rights

Queer Students Fight Back; LGBTQ+ Housing Restored!

February 20, 2025 Fight Back! News. , , ,
At the start of the Spring 2025 semester, FSU Admin secretly axed LGBTQ+ Housing – which provides much needed accommodations to transgender and queer students living on campus without communicating their decision to any students, or even the Inter-Residence Hall Council (IHRC). This comes amid escalating attacks on the rights and autonomy of queer and trans people by the reactionary Trump administration and the ruling Florida Republican Party. As soon as the student body found out, Tallahassee SDS and other student organizations, including the IHRC and Pride Student Union, condemned FSU Admin for putting queer students in danger by removing this program which was meant to protect them from being forced into potentially unsafe gender-segregated living arrangements that don’t align with their gender.

New York City ‘Rises Up’ For Transgender Youth

February 11, 2025 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. , , , ,
On Saturday, February 8, roughly 1,000 people in New York City attended a “Rise Up For Trans Youth” rally organized by LGBTQ+ community organizations, including ACT-UP. While the Trump administration has issued many policies targeting trans people in the first three weeks of its term, this rally is specifically in response to the order to rescind federal funding from healthcare providers that offer gender-affirming care to trans people under the age of 19. “Rise Up For Trans Youth” followed an action earlier in the week organized by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and cosponsored by ACT-UP, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and several New York University (NYU)-based student groups and labor unions in protest of NYU Langone in particular.

Milei’s Attacks On LGBTQ+ Community Spark Call For National Mobilization

February 5, 2025 Pablo Meriguet, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
Argentine movements, unions, LGBTQ+ organizations, and political groups have joined together to call nationwide anti-fascist and anti-racist protests on Saturday February 1 in response to Javier Milei’s repeated attacks on the Argentine people. In his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos last week, Milei launched sweeping attacks on progressive ideas like feminism, environmentalism, and what he calls “gender identity,” and praised far-right leaders Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Viktor Orbán, and Giorgia Meloni. He also defended his harsh economic austerity policies, despite their impact on Argentina’s poorest communities.

I Entered Law To Protect My LGBTQ Community

January 2, 2025 Zane McNeill, Truthout. , , ,
On December 4, 2024, Chase Strangio became the first openly transgender person to orally argue a case before the Supreme Court. Strangio, a co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, appeared on behalf of the parents of a 16-year-old daughter challenging a law in Tennessee that banned puberty blockers, hormone therapies and gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth. While the presence of Strangio in the country’s highest court is so important, many trans law students like myself worry we may not have the same opportunity in the future with the way things are headed.

Queer Louisianans Are Fighting Book Bans And Winning

January 3, 2024 Katie Jane Fernelius, In These Times. , , ,
St. Tammany Parish, LA.— The governing board of St. Tammany Parish Library is meeting one August evening in the squint-inducing fluorescence of council chambers. The agenda includes the summer reading program, the latest financial reports, and whether a young adult novel about two teenagers seeking to break a world record for kissing should remain on shelves. There has been a public complaint. “We’ll move on now to the statement of concern regarding the title Two Boys Kissing,” says Rebecca Taylor, board president of the library, which is in southeastern Louisiana. ​“As a reminder, your public comment must directly relate to this agenda item.”

Win For LGBTQ+ Youth, Supreme Court Rejects ‘Conversion Therapy’ Case

December 12, 2023 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. , , , , , ,
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a lawsuit challenging Washington state's ban on the harmful practice of so-called "conversion therapy" for minors, a move welcomed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates. The nation's highest court rejected an appeal from Washington, where the 2018 law prohibiting therapists from attempting to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity has been upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Although right-wing Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas dissented, their votes fell one shy of the four needed to get the case on the court's shortlist for full review.

File Under ‘S’ For Solidarity: Union Members Defend Local Library

October 3, 2023 Stephanie Luce , Portside. , , , ,
When teens and librarians planned a Drag Make-Up Hour at the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, MA (a small town about 25 miles north of Boston) they drew fury from a handful of right-wingers—and heartfelt support from the community, including dozens of union members from the North Shore Labor Council. Holding rainbow signs that read “North Shore Labor Council: Where No Worker and No Union Stands Alone,” they joined hundreds of others from LBGTQ+, faith, peace, and environmental communities. Altogether, more than 350 counter-protestors formed a “wall of love” outside the library at the May 2023 event, greatly outnumbering the 10 protestors who held signs reading “Make America Great Again: Vote Republican” and “Straight Pride.”

Don’t Fall For The Traps In The Humongous Military Budget

July 22, 2023 Richie Merino, Workers World. , , ,
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a record-breaking military budget of $886 billion for the coming fiscal year. The National Defense Authorization Act was passed by lawmakers on July 14 by a slim margin of 219 to 210, with the majority of Democrats opposing it. However, the bill is unlikely to be approved in the Senate, as Republicans have introduced amendments that would restrict Pentagon funding to access abortions and prohibit gender-affirming medical care and hormone therapy for transgender personnel. In addition, the display of LGBTQIA2S+ Pride flags at military bases was banned. Rep. Greg Stanton from Arizona has pointed out that nearly 50% of women in the military do not have access to abortion care, largely due to state bans, making it difficult for them to obtain this necessary medical treatment.

Tallahassee Community Pushes For LGBTQ Sanctuary City

July 17, 2023 Fight Back News. , , ,
Tallahassee, FL - On July 13 Tallahassee community organizers and experts gave presentations at the Mayor's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council at City Hall. The presentation's focus was the demand to transform Tallahassee into an LGBTQ sanctuary city. The Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC), represented by its president, Delilah Pierre, and communications director, Regina Joseph, led the program. The presentation was created in response to the anti-LGBTQ policies enacted under Governor Ron DeSantis' administration. These laws include the anti-trans law that forces people to use the bathroom associated with their assigned sex at birth and the ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Workers At The Trevor Project Unionize

July 14, 2023 Sara Van Horn, In These Times. , , ,
A majority of workers at The Trevor Project, a widely-praised nonprofit dedicated to preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth, decided to come together this spring and unionize as Friends of Trevor United. About a month later, they celebrated when management at the nonprofit agreed to voluntarily recognize their union. The Trevor Project has grown exponentially over the past few years, leading to what one union organizer describes as difficult workloads for crisis counselors dealing with increasing numbers of distress calls. Amy Solar-Greco, an organizer with Communications Workers of America — the union representing Friends of Trevor United — says Trevor’s rapid growth was ​“unsustainable and burdensome” for employees who are tasked with ​“performing intense, highly stressful and lifesaving work.”

Students Sue Idaho Officials To Protect Transgender Youth

July 9, 2023 Mia Maldonado, Idaho State Journal. , , , ,
Students in the Boise School District have filed a federal lawsuit against Idaho school officials to keep them from enforcing a new law meant to prevent transgender students from using school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Signed into law by Idaho Gov. Brad Little on March 22, Senate Bill 1100 requires that public schools maintain two separate multi-occupancy restrooms, showers, changing facilities and overnight accommodations for students based on their sex assigned at birth. The law took effect July 1. According to the law, “no person shall enter a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility that is designated for one sex unless such a person is a member of that sex.”

How The Labor Movement Is Showing Up For LGBTQ+ Rights

June 28, 2023 Sam Carliner, Waging Nonviolence. , , , ,
At any march for rights there’s no shortage of creative chants. This year in New York City at the annual Queer Liberation March, a new one debuted. Playing on the lyrics to RuPaul’s “Cover Girl,” queer rights activists chanted “Socialists, put that bass in your walk! Unionize, let the whole workplace drop!” This was one of several labor-themed chants from a Left and Labor contingent which formed to amplify a labor movement that increasingly represents the LGBTQ+ community and is organizing for LGBTQ+ rights. Left Voice, an all-volunteer socialist publication, initiated the contingent. Around two dozen unions and politically left organizations joined the initiative, endorsing it, bringing out their members and publicizing the march.

Thousands Strike Over Starbucks Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies

June 28, 2023 Arjae Red, Workers World. , , , ,
In addition to firings, Starbucks has leveraged its own benefits against LGBTQ+ workers. Starbucks has offered various types of coverage for gender-affirming health care procedures, which were then held hostage against workers after the launch of the union campaign. Many LGBTQ+ workers were told that if they voted for the union, they might lose their coverage — the implication being “vote no, or we take it away.” Many of these procedures can be lifesaving, and for Starbucks to hold them over trans workers’ heads is violent and coercive.

Moranda Smith, Food And Tobacco Workers Fight To Expand Democracy

June 24, 2023 Jonathan Kissam, Labor Notes. , , ,
June is Pride Month, which celebrates and commemorates the struggles of LGBTQ+ people for freedom. It is held in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, several days of protests that began on June 28, 1969, and launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights. This June also marks the 80th anniversary of a remarkable strike at the giant R.J. Reynolds tobacco plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which established Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA). One of those strikers, a sharecropper’s daughter named Moranda Smith, would be elected to the national union’s executive committee three and a half years later, making her the first Black woman in the national leadership of a U.S. union.

‘These Bills Will Make Children Less Safe, Not More Safe’

June 14, 2023 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , ,
Louisiana just banned abortion at six weeks, before many people even know they’re pregnant, while also saying 16-year-old girls are mature enough to marry. Arkansas says there’s no need for employers to check the age of workers they hire. As one state legislator put it, “There’s no reason why anyone should get the government’s permission to get a job.” And Wisconsin says 14-year-olds, sure, can serve alcohol. Iowa says they can shift loads in freezers and meat coolers. Simultaneously and in the same country, we have a raft of legislation saying that young people should not be in charge of what they look at online. Bone saws: cool. TikTok: bad.
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