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☆ Supreme Court Stays Out of Dispute Over Drag Show at Texas University
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Adam Liptak | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request from an L.G.B.T.Q. student group at a public university in Texas to let it put on a drag show on campus over the objections of the university’s president, who had refused to allow it. Drag shows are increasingly a target of the right, with some Republican-led states, including Florida and Tennessee, seeking to restrict the performances. The student group, Spectrum WT, first sought to sponsor the drag show, a charity event to raise money for suicide prevention, in March 2023. Walter Wendler, the president of West Texas A&M University, canceled it, citing the Bible and other religious texts.

Persons: ’, Walter Wendler Organizations: Republican, WT, West Texas, M University Locations: Texas, Florida, Tennessee

☆ Why Democrats Are Hopeful in North Carolina and Nervous in Georgia
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Maya King | Nicholas Nehamas | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Democrats are starting to dream that President Biden can wrench North Carolina away from Donald J. Trump in November. They’re less confident that Mr. Biden can hold on to Georgia. The two Southern battlegrounds are creating a tricky strategic calculus for Mr. Biden’s campaign as it grinds into higher gear and decides where to direct its money, advertising and foot soldiers on the political map. The subtle, early tension is leading to no small amount of jealousy among Democratic allies of Mr. Biden in each state as they jockey for cash and attention. views, and Democrats hope he will drag down the Republican ticket to Mr. Biden’s advantage.

Persons: Biden, Donald J, Trump, They’re, Mr, “, ” Roy Cooper, Biden’s Organizations: Democratic, Republican Locations: Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, ” North Carolina

☆ Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill Allowing Police to Arrest Migrants
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Jack Healy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Katie Hobbs of Arizona vetoed a bill on Monday that would have authorized the state police to arrest undocumented immigrants. Her veto on highlights the election-year tensions over border security as border states and major cities grapple with a record number of migrants crossing the southern border. Ms. Hobbs has expressed frustration with the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis, but said the Republican-backed measure was anti-immigrant and most likely unconstitutional. The bill, called the Arizona Border Invasion Act, would have made crossing the border without authorization a misdemeanor state crime, and a felony for migrants who crossed after being deported or ordered to leave. It would also have allowed state law enforcement officials to detain migrants, and Arizona judges to order deportations.

Persons: Katie Hobbs, Hobbs Organizations: Arizona’s Republican, Biden, Republican, Arizona Locations: Arizona

☆ Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-03 | by ( Emily Bazelon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The procedure offers a chance to make a baby, with eggs that are fertilized and develop into embryos in a lab. came to a sudden halt because of a State Supreme Court ruling that achieved a central goal of the anti-abortion movement. The ruling vaulted the question of “fetal personhood” to the center of the debate that has followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The Alabama court decision made clear that this stance on the definition of life can broadly rewrite reproductive rights and send states, and perhaps the country, down unpredictable paths. In response, Alabama legislators, led by Republicans who have opposed abortion, rushed to pass bills last week so that I.V.F.

Persons: Roe, Wade Organizations: Court, Republicans Locations: Alabama, U.S .

☆ Texas Judge Temporarily Blocks Paxton’s Demand for Transgender Minors’ Records
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-03 | by ( Colbi Edmonds | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents on transgender minors and the gender-affirming care they may be receiving. In Texas, medical care for gender transition is prohibited for minors under a law passed last year. The judge added that such an ask would infringe on the group’s constitutional rights and that its members would be subject to “gross invasions” of privacy. In a statement, PFLAG’s lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said they were “grateful that the court saw the harm the attorney general’s office’s intrusive demands posed.”

Persons: Ken Paxton, Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel, Paxton, PFLAG, general’s, ” Organizations: Court, American Civil Liberties Union Locations: Texas, Travis County

☆ Vaccines Didn’t Turn Back Mpox, Study Finds. People Did.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Apoorva Mandavilli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Why It Matters: Vaccines often arrive too late to stamp out outbreaks. Public health messaging can “be really powerful to control epidemics, even as we’re waiting for things like vaccines to come,” he said. Some experts unrelated to the work were not convinced that behavioral change was largely responsible for stemming the outbreak. “Add in some vaccine-induced immunity in this group and a bit of behavior change, and it will be even more effective,” he said. “As we’ve seen with Covid, the behavioral change only lasts so long,” she said.

Persons: Miguel Paredes, Paredes, ”, Bill Hanage, Thomas Skinner, Virginia Pitzer, we’ve Organizations: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Food and Drug Administration, Vaccines, Harvard, of Public Health, Disease Control, Yale School of Public Health Locations: Seattle, North America, Chan, resurging

Ghana’s Parliament on Wednesday passed a bill that imposes jail terms on people who identify as L.G.B.T.Q. or organize gay advocacy groups, measures that Amnesty International called among the harshest on the African continent. issues could get five years, and those who engage in gay sex would receive five years instead of the three years under previous legislation. The bill is the latest in a wave of anti-gay legislation passed in Africa: Tanzania, Niger and Namibia have tightened such laws in recent years, while Uganda has adopted an anti-gay law that includes the death penalty. Many have experienced a surge in homophobic attitudes, behaviors and rhetoric in recent years, the rights group said in a report last year.

Persons: Nana Akufo Organizations: Amnesty Locations: Africa, Tanzania, Niger, Namibia, Uganda

☆ Russia’s Brutal War Calculus
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Paul Sonne | Josh Holder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

Russia’s Brutal War Calculus Freedoms Wages The costs of two years of war in Ukraine have been enormous. Here is a look at how Russia at war has changed — suffering enormous costs by some metrics but faring better than expected by others. But Mr. Putin has convinced many that in invading Ukraine, Russia is defending itself against an existential threat from the West. Blood and TreasureIn the early months of the war, Mr. Putin’s military made grave mistakes, but it has regrouped. But despite their stated support for the war, many Russians would be happy for it to end.

Persons: languish, Instagram, Vladimir Putin, Putin, ”, “, Putin’s, Aleksei A, Navalny Organizations: Daily Life People, Facebook, Travel, Trade, Russia, Military Locations: Ukraine, Russia, China, Soviet Union, India, Moscow, Europe, Turkey, Ukrainian

☆ Alabama Lawmakers Move to Protect I.V.F. Treatments
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Eduardo Medina | Emily Cochrane | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Alabama lawmakers are considering legislation that would protect in vitro fertilization, after a State Supreme Court ruling last week led some clinics to halt I.V.F. But its wording — paired with a fiery opinion from the chief justice encouraging lawmakers to push its scope further — has left many wondering about the possible wider implications for people seeking I.V.F. At least three major fertility clinics in Alabama have halted I.V.F. treatments this week as doctors and lawyers assess the possible consequences of the ruling. On Friday, a major embryo shipping company said that it also was “pausing” its business in Alabama.

Locations: Alabama

☆ Navalny Is Dead, but Putin Can’t Kill His Vision of the Future - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Nadya Tolokonnikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I hear my quiet voice join others screaming, “Russia without Putin.” We lock our arms and together push the police out of the street. He gave us something else, too: a vision he called the “beautiful Russia of the future.” This vision is immortal, unlike us humans. President Vladimir Putin may have silenced Aleksei, who died last week. But no matter how hard he tries, Mr. Putin won’t be able to kill Aleksei’s beautiful dream. For all of us in that packed room, Aleksei made it feel not only that a free Russia was possible but also that we could get there with joy, laughter and camaraderie.

Persons: Putin, Aleksei Navalny, Aleksei, Vladimir Putin, Putin won’t, Young, ” Organizations: Mr Locations: Moscow, Russia

☆ ‘We’re Going to Stand Up’: Queer Literature is Booming in Africa
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As a queer teenager growing up in northern Nigeria, Arinze Ifeakandu often found himself searching for books that reflected what he felt. He scoured the book stands in Kano, the city where he lived, hoping to find stories that focused on L.G.B.T.Q. Ifeakandu wanted more. “I knew I wanted to write characters who are queer. That’s the only way I am going to show up on the page.”

Persons: Arinze Ifeakandu, Ifeakandu, “, ” Ifeakandu, ” Locations: Nigeria, Kano

☆ How Texas Billionaire Tim Dunn Is Showing How Our System Works - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( Jamelle Bouie | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This week in The Texas Monthly, I read a troubling profile of Tim Dunn, a 68-year-old billionaire Texas oilman and lavish financier for right-wing extremists in the state. I highly recommend reading the entire profile, which is a comprehensive look at a very powerful man. Dunn makes an unfavorable comparison between human societies and bee hives:“When everybody does what they do best for the hive, it prospers,” he said. If you’re a scout, be a scout.” Dunn then contrasted the cooperation of the hive with the inexorable tumult of modern politics. But when read with Dunn in mind — a straightforward Christian nationalist whose allies in Texas politics are leading the charge to ban books, suppress the rights of L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Tim Dunn, Texas oilman, ” Russell Gold, “ Dunn, don’t, Dunn, ”, ” Dunn, “ Organizations: Texas, Texans Locations: “, Texas, L.G.B.T.Q

☆ Opinion | The Meaning of the Super Bowl ‘He Gets Us’ Ad
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( David French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

During Super Bowl Sunday, a 60-second ad aired about Jesus Christ, and no one seemed angrier about it than Christians. The ad depicts a series of images of one person washing another person’s feet. A cop washes the feet of a young Black man. An older woman washes the feet of a young woman outside an apparent abortion clinic, while anti-abortion protesters look on. He washed feet.”The ad came from a group called He Gets Us that is running a multimillion-dollar ad campaign with the aim of essentially reintroducing America to Jesus.

Persons: Jesus Christ, Jesus didn’t, “, Jesus, I’ve, they’ve, ” Organizations: Super, Jesus, Hobby, United, and State Locations: America

☆ Report Says 17 Percent of Gamers Identify as L.G.B.T.Q.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( Zachary Small | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Less than 2 percent of console video games include L.G.B.T.Q. characters or story lines even though 17 percent of gamers are queer, according to GLAAD’s first survey on the industry. But it also found that many queer gamers saw virtual worlds as an escape in states where recent legislation has targeted L.G.B.T.Q. “The statistic is driven largely by young gamers. Its latest report found that 10.6 percent of series regulars in prime-time scripted shows identified as L.G.B.T.Q., which researchers said helped put their video game study in perspective.

Persons: GLAAD’s, ”, Blair Durkee Organizations: Nielsen

☆ Opinion | The Debate Over Transgender Care and Detransitioning
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-10 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ms. Paul cites stories of detransitioners as if they are damning to the practice of gender-affirming care as a whole. Not all detransitioners regret their transition, and not all transgender people will medically transition. By writing this article, Ms. Paul further stigmatizes health care for transgender people. What we do know is that transgender youth are under attack across the nation. Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, last month demanded records from providers outside his state to single out hospitals or clinics that have treated transgender youth from Texas.

Persons: Pamela Paul, Ms, Paul, Ken Paxton Locations: Netherlands, Texas

☆ Putin to U.S.: Let’s Make a Deal on Ukraine (on My Terms)
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Paul Sonne | Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia kept returning to one message over and over in his meandering, two-hour interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson: Russia wants to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine, albeit on the Kremlin’s terms. That message seemed aimed at the American right and Republicans in Congress, with an eye to undermining support for aid to Ukraine. If so, the day after the long-anticipated interview, it seemed lost in the muddle. The Russian leader’s discursive historical diatribes, delving into everything from the Rurik dynasty to the Golden Horde, dominated commentary about the interview online and overshadowed the message he intended to deliver. In Russia on Friday, experts and even some of Mr. Putin’s allies were also puzzling over why he gave short shrift to his main ideological commonality with Mr. Carlson’s followers: opposition to L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Tucker Carlson, Rurik, Putin’s, Carlson’s Organizations: Fox News, Golden Horde Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ At This California Radio Station, the Call Letters Say It All
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fog clouded the San Jacinto Mountains recently as Brad Fuhr approached the headquarters of KGAY, a radio station in an undistinguished Palm Springs, California, strip mall. KGAY’s call letters aren’t a fluke but a savvy marketing tool. It’s the only terrestrial radio station in America geared toward L.G.B.T.Q. (There’s WGAY, a “party station” in the Florida Keys, but it doesn’t market itself as gay.) Three other D.J.s — Eric Ornelas, Galaxy and ModGirl — provide the station with homemade mix shows that play around the clock.

Persons: Brad Fuhr, ” George Lamond’s, ”, KGAY, “, Chris Shebel, John Taylor, Eric Ornelas, — Organizations: Volvo, coeur, iHeart’s Pride, KGAY Locations: Jacinto, KGAY, Springs , California, Britain, America, Cincinnati, Florida

☆ Cast as Criminals, America’s Librarians Rally to Their Own Defense
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Elizabeth Williamson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

During 12 years as a youth librarian in northern Idaho, Denise Neujahr read to and befriended children of many backgrounds. Members of a local church waved signs with images of hellfire and used a bullhorn to shout Bible verses and accusations about sin and pedophile “groomers” in the library. Parents had to escort the teens inside that night, and the library beefed up security. But the next month police arrested a protester outside the doors who was carrying a knife and a loaded gun. youth and their parents, said she was told the group’s funding was in danger.

Persons: Denise Neujahr, ”, groomers, Ms, Neujahr, L.G.B.T.Q Locations: Idaho

☆ Attacking, and Defending, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “Inside the Crusade Against D.E.I.” (front page, Jan. 21):The conservative activists featured in this article aim to eliminate equality of opportunity for the majority of Americans. These ideologues are creating a dangerously false and extremely narrow view of diversity, equity and inclusion — one that equates the “D” in D.E.I. In the U.S., diversity is widely acknowledged to encompass numerous communities, which collectively constitute the majority of our nation. programs advance considerations relating to women; Black, Indigenous and people of color communities; veterans; people with disabilities; L.G.B.T.Q. It is a shame that conservative activists seek to shatter a bedrock principle of our nation: equality.

Locations: D.E.I, U.S

☆ How to Exercise When You Just Do Not Want To
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Danielle Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +10 min

You set a goal to exercise regularly, but when the moment comes to get moving, your mind unleashes a torrent of excuses: I’m tired. I asked experts in exercise science and psychology to share their best advice for conquering common reasons people struggle to build an exercise habit. If you face a jam-packed daily schedule, try starting small, said Kate Baird, an exercise physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. When even the word “exercise” makes you feel tired, experts recommend meeting your body where it is — in a few different ways. Exercise carries some risks, but remind yourself that the benefits of physical activity outweigh them, Dr. Phillips said.

Persons: Katy, ”, Kate Baird, you’re, Baird, Kelly Roberts, Roberts, Grayson Wickham, “, Wickham, —, Edward Phillips, I’ve, ’, “ You’re, that’s, Phillips, Dr, “ It’s, Ms, Kelly McGonigal, McGonigal, haven’t, Tamanna Singh Organizations: University of Pennsylvania, Hospital for Special Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Stanford University, Sports Cardiology Center, Cleveland Clinic Locations: New York, New York City, Dr

☆ ‘Heartstopper’ Star Joe Locke Has a Soft Spot for ‘The Goonies’
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-20 | by ( Sarah Bahr | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Joe Locke was so moved when he saw “Next to Normal” at the Donmar Warehouse in London last fall that he called his agent with a request. “I was like, ‘I want to do a musical so bad,’” said Locke, 20, who for two seasons has played the sensitive teenager Charlie Spring in Netflix’s L.G.B.T.Q. coming-of-age drama “Heartstopper.”Soon after, his agent said he’d gotten an email from the casting team of Broadway’s “Sweeney Todd,” and the show was looking for a new Tobias Ragg, an urchin taken in by the scheming pie-maker, Mrs. Lovett. “The easiest way to play him is that he’s a bit simple — he’s not a full egg, as the Irish would say,” Locke said in a phone conversation in early January from his Manhattan apartment, before one of his first rehearsals. “But I think he’s a very street-smart character who’s survived in a world where people like him shouldn’t survive.”

Persons: Joe Locke, “, ’ ”, Locke, Charlie Spring, ”, he’d, Broadway’s “ Sweeney Todd, Tobias Ragg, Lovett, ” Locke Organizations: Donmar Locations: London, Netflix’s L.G.B.T.Q, Manhattan

was exemplary, slashing the country’s death rate by nearly 90 percent from 1990 to 2019. Now a sweeping law enacted last year, the Anti-Homosexuality Act, threatens to renew the epidemic as L.G.B.T.Q. It also requires all citizens to report anyone suspected of such activity, a mandate that makes no exceptions for health care providers tending to patients. Under the law, merely having same-sex relationships while living with H.I.V. Scores of Ugandans have been evicted from homes and fired from jobs, according to interviews with lawyers and activists.

Organizations: H.I.V

☆ Why Anonymous Sperm Donation Is Over, and Why That Matters
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( Emily Bazelon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

A 2010 survey, called “My Daddy’s Name Is Donor” and funded by the Institute for American Values, a conservative group, claimed that many donor-conceived children felt hurt and isolated by their origins. The study wasn’t peer reviewed, and other research has showed that donor-conceived children generally do as well as their peers. They say this creates the possibility of conflicts between how teenagers define their families and how their parents do. Lowering the age “leaves family more legally vulnerable,” says Courtney Joslin, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. “And it impacts both the social perception of the family and maybe how kids and parents see each other.”

Persons: ”, Douglas NeJaime, “, ” Malina Simard, Simard, Halm, Levy, ’ ” Simard, Courtney Joslin, Davis Organizations: Yale, Institute for American, University of California Locations: Halm

☆ Review: A Shady Documentary Becomes a Weapon of War in ‘Spain’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Jesse Green | More About Jesse Green | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In Silverman’s telling, the filmmaker, Joris Ivens, a Dutchman working in the United States, is already an undercover infiltrator for Soviet interests when the Spanish Civil War breaks out in 1936. Ivens was a real filmmaker, and his movie “The Spanish Earth,” released in 1937, was a real cause célèbre among leftists and artists. The frenemies Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos did write the screenplay, as Silverman relates. (He imagines shooting part of the documentary from an ant’s point-of-view, or a raindrop’s.) Nor, for all his faults, was Hemingway (Danny Wolohan) so complete a buffoon, given to shouting such hollow nonsense.

Persons: ”, Jen Silverman’s “, ” That’s, Joris Ivens, “, Rich, Franco, Ivens, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Silverman, Andrew Burnap, Hemingway, Danny Wolohan, Dos Passos, Erik Lochtefeld Organizations: Republican, Rich Fascist Locations: Jen Silverman’s “ Spain, United States, Spanish, Spain, Dos

☆ Russia Moves to Label Gay Rights Movement as ‘Extremist’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent years, L.G.B.T.Q. people in Russia have lived under increasing fear as the Kremlin has ratcheted up measures curtailing gay and transgender rights in tandem with the repressive search for “internal enemies” during the war in Ukraine. In the latest threat, the Ministry of Justice will seek a court order on Thursday to declare the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization.”Gay rights activists and other experts say that a ruling in favor would put gay people and their organizations under the threat of being criminally prosecuted at any time for something as simple as displaying the rainbow flag or for endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights.”That prospect has heightened angst and alarm in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities. “It is not the first time we are being targeted, but at the same time, it is another blow,” said Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at University College Dublin, who studies the intersection of law and security for the L.G.B.T.Q. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”

Persons: ”, Alexander Kondakov Organizations: Ministry, Justice, ” Gay, University College Dublin Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian

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