Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law to protect educators who misgender transgender students, staff or any other person in their school districts, WBIR reported. The new statute—HB 1270, introduced by state Rep. Mark Cochran (R-Englewood)—could also make schools vulnerable to lawsuits if they use students’ preferred names or pronouns, effectively requiring educators to misgender transgender students. The Tennessee Equality Project warned that the law could leave the state “subject to numerous privacy violation claims.” It also said since the law does not have language on how it should be enforced, students and employees may be “forced to ‘prove’ their sex and gender through means other than birth certificates.”
ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Eden B. Heilman, ACLU of Virginia Senior Transgender Rights Attorney Wyatt S.M. Rolla and Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman were among those signing a letter asking the Virginia High School League (VHSL) to reverse the trans sports ban in the state. Addressed to Dear Director Billy Haun (who is retiring as of July 1) and his successor, current Assistant Director Ty Gafford, the letter stated, in part, “his ban is harmful, illegal, and bad policy. Restricting a student athlete’s access to school sports programming because she is trans runs afoul of clear, binding law that protects every student in Virginia. Trans-inclusive athletic policies do not decrease barriers to opportunities for all girls and women in school sports, but anti-trans sports bans like the one VHSL has adopted are dangerous for all girls and women.”
PEN America—the writers and free-expression group—hosted more than 600 supporters for its annual Literary Gala to celebrate the freedoms to write, read and speak and to honor defenders of these rights, per a press release. Hosted by queer late-night comedy star/writer Amber Ruffin, the honorees included actor/producer/independent publisher Sarah Jessica Parker, Macmillan Publishers CEO Jon Yaged (who received his award from actor Taye Diggs) and Wesleyan University President Michael Roth. Ruffin opened with a monologue that underscored the perils of the moment driven by government censorship: “Free speech is something we have to fight for. We can joke about it—until we can’t. That’s the reality of where we’re at right now.”
On June 1, the Philadelphia Gay News (PGN) will host the 2025 Stonewall Awards Brunch at the Arts Ballroom, the media outlet noted. Writer/actor Bruce Vilanch will receive the Visibility Award while Stonewall Sports will be honored with the Community Unity Organization Award; Zach Wilcha will receive the Business Leadership Award; and Philly Black Pride’s Jacen Bowman will receive the LGBTQ+ Empowerment Award. In addition, the Legacy Award will go to Bread & Roses Community Fund’s Casey Cook; Pennsylvania state Sen. Sharif Street will receive the Pioneering Ally Award; Ashleigh Strange, of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, will receive the Equality in Government Award; and activist Heshie Zinman will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The master of ceremonies for this year’s awards will be 6ABC’s Adam Joseph.
May 22 was noted as Harvey Milk Day in California and some municipalities—and the groundbreaking gay activist would’ve been 95 this year, per The Advocate. “He was my touchstone to my own authenticity,” said nephew Stuart Milk, who was 17 when his uncle died and came out as gay shortly afterward; Stuart never discussed the possibility of being gay with Harvey, but his uncle gave him the message that differences are strength. In 1977, Harvey became the first out gay person elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; he and Mayor George Moscone were shot to death on Nov. 27, 1978, by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White.
In Ohio, House Bill 262 aims to designate a month celebrating “natural families” with “a clear male leader”—which a leading advocacy group said invalidates single parents and “takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families,” NBC4i reported. The measure was introduced at the Ohio Statehouse on May 13 to recognize the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as “Natural Family Month.” Equality Ohio Executive Director Dwayne Steward criticized the bill as “discriminatory, dehumanizing legislation,” and “a calculated act of strategic erasure.” HB 262 comes ahead of Pride Month in June and the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges—the 2015 decision establishing the national right to same-sex marriage.
GLAAD released the results of a survey conducted by Ipsos using the probability-based KnowledgePanel that examined consumer sentiment regarding corporate engagement with LGBTQ communities and Pride Month, a press release noted. Key findings included that 70% of Americans say knowing a brand/store offers LGBTQ Pride collections/merchandise either has a positive impact or no impact on their purchasing decisions; 81% believe freedom means we all should be able to believe and behave as we choose, as long as it isn’t hurting anyone else; and 64% of Black Americans, 55% of Hispanic Americans and 60% of those ages 18-34 say they are comfortable with brands publicly supporting LGBTQ organizations and non-profits.
Former Transportation Secretary (and 2020 presidential candidate) Pete Buttigieg is back in Iowa, and he held a town hall event in Cedar Rapids—setting off talk of a possible 2028 presidential run, LGBTQ Nation noted. Buttigieg became the first out gay major party candidate to win a state primary contest in 2020 when he took the Iowa caucuses. Buttigieg told the crowd that Democrats need to have a message that doesn’t center on the current president. “There’s this theory that we should just hang back and let them screw up,” he said. “I disagree.” Among other things, Buttigieg mentioned restoring the federal right to an abortion—which got him a 30-second standing ovation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was confronted about the Trump administration sending a gay man to a prison camp in El Salvador and not even knowing if he’s still alive—and she said that it wasn’t a situation she could address, per LGBTQ Nation. She appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee for a hearing, where U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia asked her about gay hairdresser Andry Hernandez Romero, who escaped from Venezuela and came to the U.S. legally to escape anti-LGBTQ+ violence. Noem said she doesn’t “know the specifics” of Hernandez Romero’s case, adding that since he’s in El Salvador, Garcia should be asking El Salvador’s government about him.
In Nebraska, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert, a Republican seeking re-election in one of her party’s few big-city strongholds, used an anti-trans playbook—and promptly lost to Democratic mayoral candidate John W. Ewing Jr., according to The Nation. In what was broadly described as a major upset, Ewing scored a sweeping 56-44 victory over the incumbent—and he will now become Omaha’s first Black mayor. But Ewing and his supporters did not simply call out the incumbent’s election-season scheming, as the Democrat actively campaigned for the support of LGBTQ+ voters.
Openly LGBTQ+ Pennsylvania state Rep. and Democratic National Convention (DNC) Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta is pushing back against claims made by David Hogg, who is also a DNC vice chair, per CBS News. Hogg—who gained national prominence for his gun-control activism after he survived the 2018 Parkland school shooting—has argued the DNC is trying to oust him after a committee recommended a new DNC vice chair election to be held due to a procedural error made during the last vote. (Either Kenyatta or Hogg could lose their position.) Kenyatta said that while he’s frustrated there will have to be another vote, he believes Hogg is wrong, pointing to the procedural issues with the vote, stating, “This is about the facts. So, you know, David doesn’t have a debate with me, and I don’t have a debate with David.” However, Kenyatta also said the drama within the party is distracting from issues the Democratic Party is trying to tackle.
In Georgia, the fallout from a fatal March shooting of a gay man in Savannah has some LGBTQ+ people questioning the city’s commitment to keeping the community safe, GPB noted. Chris Allen Villegas Fentress, 29, was fatally shot two days before St. Patrick’s Day, and Michael Bell of the Savannah Pride Center said the killing should be investigated as a hate crime. “When the shooter has a history of anti-gay messages that they’ve posted on their social media, when the victim is visibly, identifiably part of our community and anti-gay slurs were thrown, absolutely, it’s time for an investigation,” Bell said. However, the Savannah Police Department said there’s no evidence the killing meets that criterion—although authorities haven’t reported any hate crimes in the city since 1991, which some find hard to believe. Johnathan Manson, 27, was charged with the murder.
One of the casualties of the current anti-DEI backlash is NYC Pride (or Heritage of Pride), which is scaling back its annual event, per Gay City News. MasterCard is not renewing its corporate sponsorship of this year’s march after it spent about a decade as a “platinum” sponsor, while PepsiCo, Nissan, Citi and PricewaterhouseCoopers are also not returning this year, the Wall Street Journal noted. NYC Pride announced on May 21 that the organization is facing a $750,000 budget shortfall. NYC Pride spokesperson Kevin Kilbride said that about 75% of sponsors are back this year, and he said the “actual total number of partners is actually up a little bit.” The revenue dip comes after NYC Pride was already feeling squeezed by the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.
The LGBT Health Workforce Conference—the largest event of its kind in the United States—took place May 1-3 in New York City, per BNGAP’s (Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians’) website. The annual conference provides an overview of up-to-date practices (climate, educational, research and clinical) in preparing the healthcare workforce to address the health concerns and disparities of the LGBTQ+ community. This conference is designed for health professionals, researchers, educators, administrators and students (pre-health professions, professional schools and graduate), but all interested people are invited to attend. This year’s event featured an LGBT Allies training course and several modules, such as “Best Practices in Mental Health Care for LGBTQ+ Patients.”
In a full-page ad that ran in The New York Times on May 21, Planned Parenthood gathered 250 well-known signatories under the phrase “I’m For Planned Parenthood,” USA Today noted. Megan Thee Stallion, Alfre Woodard, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, Billy Eichner, Kerry Washington, Ella Emhoff (daughter of former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff), Tegan and Sara, Alan Cumming, Cara Delevingne, Jurnee Smollett, Lily Tomlin and Charlize Theron were among those who signed the letter. Planned Parenthood—which consists of a network of nonprofits—is the single largest provider of sexual and reproductive care for people in the United States.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is changing the way it approves COVID-19 vaccines—a move that may limit future shots to older Americans and people at higher risk of serious infection, CNN noted. The agency is changing the type of evidence it will accept from vaccine manufacturers to approve updated COVID-19 shots, Dr. Vinay Prasad, the new director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The change means the updated shots will probably be available this fall for adults 65 and older and those with underlying conditions that may put them at higher risk of a severe COVID-19 infection—but they may not be for everyone who was previously eligible.
Three men who were convicted of robbing and fatally drugging men outside of Manhattan gay bars in 2022 received sentences of decades to life in prison, Gay City News reported. Jayqwan Hamilton, 37, and Robert Demaio, 36, were sentenced to 40 years to life in state prison, while Jacob Barroso, 32, was sentenced to 20 years to life, also in state prison. The defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and fourth-degree conspiracy; Hamilton and Demaio were also convicted of first-degree burglary. All three men—who were convicted in February—were found to be responsible for the deaths of Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old gay social worker, and DeMaio and Hamilton were also convicted of killing 33-year-old John Umberger, of D.C.
The University of Utah said it has had to shut down its popular health clinic for LGBTQ youth, citing a drop in patients after the state legislature’s 2023 ban on doctors providing gender-affirming care for transgender minors, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The Gender Management & Support Clinic, which had been operating out of Primary Children’s Hospital, informed all patients of the closure this month, and canceled any appointments that had been scheduled for May. University health spokesperson Kathy Wilets confirmed that people who are eligible to continue receiving care have already been transferred to the more general Adolescent Health Program at the university. The Utah Legislature passed its ban during the 2023 session, under SB16, and Gov. Spencer Cox quickly signed it into law; the measure bars trans minors from receiving gender-affirming care in the state.
New York University (NYU) administrators withheld the diploma of Black trans undergraduate student Logan Rozos pending “disciplinary actions” after Rozos criticized the “atrocities currently happening in Palestine” during his commencement address for the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, according to Them. “I do not wish to speak only to my own politics today, but to speak for all people of conscience, and all people who feel the moral injury of this atrocity,” Rozos said. “And I want to say that I condemn this genocide, and complicity in this genocide.” In a statement, NYU Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Strategic Communications John Beckman said the university is withholding Rozos’ diploma while administrators pursue “disciplinary actions.” Beckman did not specify what rules Rozos allegedly broke or what manner of disciplinary action the school will pursue.
LGBTQA+-rights activists unveiled a 55-by-35-foot trans Pride flag on El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park, The Advocate noted. The flag display is part of a project called “Trans Is Natural,” and the flag is the largest one ever hung on El Capitan, which is popular with climbers. The display is “a celebration of trans belonging in nature, in community, and everywhere,” according to a press release from the organizers, and counters the Trump administration’s efforts to erase trans people from government websites and more as well as its discrimination against queer and trans rangers in the National Park Service.