House GOP Tries Again to Pass National “Don’t Say LGBTQ” Bill
Pro-equality forces are mobilized this week to voice strong opposition to H.R. 2616, the federal so-called ‘Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act’, a bill that would strip schools of federal funds for even acknowledging the existence of transgender people.
H.R. 2616 would ban schools across the country from teaching about gender identity, having books with transgender characters, or using the correct names and pronouns for transgender students.
Trans students deserve to feel safe and welcome in school. Policies like these that denigrate them just make their lives immeasurably harder, advocates insist. “Transgender students exist and deserve to live their lives with dignity. H.R. 2616 would make their lives immeasurably harder,” according to a statement from the D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign. “Schools have a legal and moral duty to keep all students safe, and the data is clear: bills like this fail that test. They target kids for harassment and exclusion, put them at risk at home and in school, and tell teachers what they can and cannot teach. Beyond being completely out of touch with the priorities of the American public, it’s a deeply cynical – and harmful – piece of legislation.”
Section 2 of the bill would require parental consent before schools may update a student’s gender designation on records or allow bathroom/locker room access consistent with their gender identity. Schools that fail to comply lose federal ESEA funding.
According to the HRC, “for trans students whose families are unsupportive or unsafe, this would strip away one of the few spaces where they may have felt affirmed. It forces schools to out students to their parents if the student takes certain steps to affirm their identity, putting some youth in impossible and sometimes dangerous situations.”
Online Panel Discusses History of Gay Newspapers
Last weekend, the LGBTQ History Project led by August Bernardicou hosted an online panel of veterans of the earliest Stonewall era newspapers that arose to advance the equality movement. Participants included Martha Shelley of the Come Out! newspaper in New York, Allen Young, Perry Brass, Kevin McGirr of the Boston Fag Rag, and Gary Alinder of the San Francisco area Gay Sunshine.
After the Stonewall riots in June 1969, gays across the U.S. in an amazingly fast period of time arose to affirm their identities, ending eons of living double lives they affirmed a shared concern to stand against racism, for feminist goals, against the war in Vietnam, and for more progressive domestic policies, the panelists noted, which made identifying with something broader than gay rights, alone, a clear choice, thus forging the Gay Liberation Front movement.
Brass noted resistance to this came from some traditional closeted gay groups who wanted to perpetuate a “private club” approach to their lives. In New York, repression of gay gatherings and clubs had been in effect since 1964 when the New York mayor ordered gay bars closed for the World’s Fair there that year.
Shelley said her group’s Come Out newspaper said it all in its title, alone, and with a 4,000 circulation was republished and quoted worldwide. “Out of the closet and into the streets,” was the radical political cry of that period.
Alinder said that in the Bay Area, the movement dovetailed with wider causes for social change, the name of the Gay Sunshine being a takeoff from the wider consciousness-expanding movement of that era.
Gay newspapers were needed because a lot of the so-called underground press of that era were bastions of sexism and racism. Even so, it was the coverage of gay protests in the Berkeley Barb alternative newspaper in the years leading up to Stonewall that began the elevation of wider awareness of the movement.
–Nicholas F. Benton
Christopher Street Magazine Feted at Gay Book Awards
Tom Steele, Chuck Ortleb, Patrick Merla, and Michael Denneny were presented with the Publishing Triangle Leadership award last week for their work on the groundbreaking literary magazine Christopher Street.
The 38th annual Publishing Triangle awards were given out at the New School honoring writers, editors, agents, publishers, and readers recognizing achievement across the breadth of LGBTQ literature.
Founded in 1988, the Publishing Triangle presented its first awards in 1989 and has since worked to promote LGBTQ+ literature and support the LGBTQ+ publishing community. Through its annual awards, public programs, and networking opportunities, the organization fosters greater recognition, visibility, and appreciation for LGBTQ+ voices and stories.
Will TV Ratings Reflect LGBTQ Content? Inquiry Begins
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr has announced a public inquiry into whether television ratings should be modified to specifically flag LGBTQ+ content.
The Gay and Lesbian Association Against Discrimination (GLAAD) has noted that 23 percent of Americans under 30 identify as LGBTQ+ and that “more than 5 million children have LGBTQ+ parents,” calling the move government overreach designed to “reshape culture, limit storytelling, and undermine free expression.“
Russian Court Designates LGBTQ Publication ‘Extremist’
A court in Russia’s Oryol region declared Parni+, an LGBTQ+ publication active for nearly 18 years, an extremist organization — meaning its organizers could face prison and are legally required to cease operations.
The outlet’s Telegram channel has more than 30,000 subscribers. Editor-in-Chief Yevgeny Pisemsky, already on Russia’s “foreign agents” list since 2020, said the ruling amounted to an admission that “the truth about LGBT people is more dangerous to the state than any propaganda.”
The ruling follows the designation of gay journalist Vadim Vaganov as an individual “extremist” — the first such designation for LGBTQ activism specifically.
