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- A History of He/Him Lesbians

- Trans Gen Zers Are No Stranger to Family Estrangement. Here’s How Some Are Coping

- For Some Transmasculine People, Abortion Is Gender-Affirming Care

GENDER AND IDENTITY | JUN 27, 2025, 1:48 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

A History of He/Him Lesbians

Online discourse is divided about he/him lesbians, but they’ve always been a part of sapphic spaces.

Liz Coulburn/Them

Another day, another discourse. While he/him lesbians — and trans lesbians more broadly — are certainly nothing new in sapphic spaces, TikTok discourse about their validity and acceptance within lesbian spaces has unfortunately resurfaced.

From people not understanding how a lesbian can use he/him pronouns to other posts that are explicitly transphobic, a wave of unhelpful conversation about he/him lesbians has once again taken over the short-form video app. Luckily, many he/him lesbians and the people who love them are turning this into a teaching opportunity — as well as an opportunity to make (and admire) thirst traps.

For those unfamiliar, a he/him lesbian is exactly what that sounds like: a lesbian who uses he/him pronouns. Sometimes, he/him lesbians are trans men and transmasculine people who also identify as lesbians, but there are also he/him lesbians who use he/him pronouns but ultimately do not identify as trans. This can extend more broadly to lesbian boyfriends, which is also exactly what it sounds like: lesbians who prefer to be referred to as boyfriends.

While the online discourse around he/him lesbians often narrowly reduces the definition of lesbians to women who love women, the broader lesbian community — despite well-known struggles with transphobia among trans-exclusionary radical feminists — has historically been inclusive of trans people, genderqueer folks, and masculine lesbians who like to play with their gender. To learn more about the history of he/him lesbians, read on.

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What is a he/him lesbian?

As we’ve established before, the definition of a he/him lesbian is simple: a lesbian who uses he/him pronouns. Beyond that, there is a lot of variety within the broader umbrella of he/him lesbians. Some are trans men who are lesbians. Others are genderqueer and transmasc people identified with lesbianism who use he/him pronouns. Others don’t align themselves with transness but instead are cis lesbians who like to use he/him pronouns and terms like “boyfriend” or “husband” to refer to themselves.

What’s important to understand is that although many trans people do update their pronouns to better reflect their gender, pronouns do not necessarily equate to gender identity, so while some he/him lesbians are trans men, many are not!

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What is the origin of he/him lesbians?

While broader understandings of pronouns have entered the popular zeitgeist since the mid 2010s, lesbian communities have a rich internal history of gender play and expansiveness.

The term “lesbian” was first used to refer to sapphic communities in the early 1900s when sexologists began using it to categorize people they studied. During the same time “lesbian” as a term was gaining traction, sapphic communities began developing their own language to describe gender variance and dating dynamics within these spaces.

For Black lesbians in the 1920s, particularly in Harlem, the terms “mama” and “papa” were used as a way to describe the relationship between masculine and femme lesbians at the time. In the 1940s, working class lesbians began using “butch and femme” to describe a similar dynamic. While many papas and butches did not use he/him pronouns, others did, often for safety due to drag bans that prohibited people from wearing clothing that did not fit their assigned sex. Passing offered a form of protection that many masc lesbians needed to survive.

Beyond passing for safety, many lesbian spaces have long included and drawn in trans and genderqueer people. One of the most formative novels in the transmasculine literary canon, Stone Butch Blues, was published in 1993 by Leslie Feinberg, a trans lesbian hirself. While Feinberg does not exclusively use he/him pronouns, the novel follows a stone butch as they navigate transition, passing, and the loss of community that can come from it all. The novel’s popularity in great part is due to how the experience of transness in lesbian spaces is both common and underrepresented.

All of which to say, the idea that he/him lesbians are a new development is ahistorical, nor is their acceptance a new issue that only arose with the mainstream recognition of trans identity. Fortunately, in recent years, an expansive definition of the term “lesbian” that includes more gender identities has become more common than ever before, with more famous lesbians openly talking about top surgery, gender variance, and, yes, lesbian boyfriends. Hopefully, one day, we can put tedious and exclusionary online discourse to the side, touch grass, and spend our time actually meeting lesbians instead of arguing about them.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/he-him-lesbians-pronouns-history-community on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

ANSWERS & ADVICE | JUN 26, 2025, 4:55 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trans Gen Zers Are No Stranger to Family Estrangement. Here’s How Some Are Coping

LGBTQ+ young people are more than twice as likely to be homeless due to estrangement than their straight cisgender peers.

Mavocado via Getty Images

This story originally appeared on Teen Vogue. Read an excerpt below.

*Indicates that names have been changed for privacy.

TikTok creator Gabbi Hegedus says she hasn't spoken to her biological father in five and a half years. He had been in and out of her life since she was 3 years old, when her parents separated. When Hegedus went to college, she says he stopped reaching out to her completely.

"Me reaching out to him and just never getting a response or a call was hurting me more than helping me. So eventually, I just stopped doing that all together. As soon as I stopped trying, that's when there was no other contact again," she tells Teen Vogue in a Zoom interview.

Years went by and the Lexington, North Carolina native began dabbling with social media content creation on TikTok, mainly lifestyle videos. But in 2022, after a big move from her home state to San Diego, Hegedus felt compelled to make a different kind of video. Hegedus talked about her estrangement publicly for the first time.

"My fiancé was on FaceTime with his dad showing him our new apartment and it hit me. '[My dad] doesn't even know what state I live in.' So I posted that, essentially saying that feeling was weird," she says. "I think within an hour or two, it had over a hundred thousand views." Eventually, that video would reach 1.2 million views.

“I got really overwhelmed at first..I didn't want this to be part of my identity. But the comments I started to get were like ‘thank you for saying this, this is exactly how I feel.’ I started getting DMs from girls who were in high school and younger asking me [for] advice,” Hegedus says. "I was kind of shocked. I think it had 15,000 saves. What’s interesting is that half the people were in the same situation as me and the other half were significant others of people who were going through that."

The self-proclaimed Millennial/Gen Z-cusper had found, or maybe even helped create, an online community of estranged young people that she didn't even know existed, and it turns out, that community is pretty big.

At least 27% of adults over the age of 18 are estranged from a relative, according to a survey published in the 2020 book Fault Lines by Karl Pillemer, a Cornell professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology.

Research on estrangement has been, up until recently, sparse, particularly when it comes to estrangement data that focuses specifically on Gen Z (which is odd, considering that another study found that the average age of first paternal estrangement is 23 years old). But where the data lacks, the topic of toxic family dynamics seems to be increasing rapidly among younger generations.

There’s rapt interest in the lives of public figures with strained familial relations, like Miley Cyrus and father Billy Ray and Vivian Wilson and father Elon Musk (not to mention the explosive popularity of books like Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson and I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.)

Then, there’s social media. The phrase “parents estrangement” on Instagram populates an endless flow (probably hundreds or thousands) of quote and advice posts and videos that range from a couple hundred to millions of views per post. On TikTok alone, the phrase “no contact” is attached to at least 299,000 posts. The subreddit /EstrangedAdultchild boasts over 51,000 members.

It appears that for the first time, estranged people, especially the younger ones, are not just feeling seen after consuming media or reading a book on the topic. They've finally dedicated spaces to go to share their own stories with one another — and they’re going there to cope.

Whitney Goodman, a content creator and licensed therapist with a focus on toxic family relationships, runs an Instagram account called @sitwithwhit dedicated to unpacking estrangement among other therapy topics from a clinical level that has over half a million followers.

Followers can simply visit her page for static posts that explain how to handle difficult familial dynamics or videos with experts she interviews on her podcast that break down topics such as “When parents and adult children disagree about politics.” Or, they can join one of her support groups or chats, including an online community she founded for estranged people called “Calling Home” and an Instagram Broadcast support channel from her page named “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature, Narcissistic, and/or Abusive Parents.”

Goodman says her clients and followers range in age because estrangement impacts people across generations, though she can see that some of her younger clients have a different definition of what family is supposed to be in their lives than the older ones.

“There's certainly much more of a culture of ‘this is something that I'm able to do. I'm allowed to assert more authority over my life’,” she tells Teen Vogue.

In other words, young people are not the first to experience family estrangement, but they're not going to keep quiet about it, and they certainly don't want to experience this dynamic alone.

Callum*, a 23-year-old college student, says his estrangement from his family happened quickly. The Los Angeles resident identifies as transgender, and says that his immediate family’s invalidating behavior toward his expressed gender identity through both their politics and their micro-aggressions towards him played a big role in his decision to cut off contact with them when he was 21.

“One day I was just like ‘I’m going to leave, because I can’t take it anymore,’” he tells Teen Vogue in a Zoom interview from his dorm in LA, explaining that he was experiencing suicidal ideation at the time. “The thing that honestly made me be able to go was me thinking, ‘if I do nothing, if I stay here in this environment with these people, I guarantee I don't get better and they don't change. If I leave, I at least ensure I can get better.’ Me leaving wasn't just for myself. I think it was for them on some level too.”

“I felt like I had two options and it was to end my life or rip it up into a million pieces,” he adds. “At least if I made a mess of it, I could clean it up, you know? So I was like, ‘I'm gonna choose to make a mess of it.’”

Callum now pays for his college education on his own and has a support system in the form of a friend group, sharing that he spends holidays with his girlfriend or friends. But something was still missing; it’s a feeling that’s pronounced during those times of year, he says, but also in the small moments, like someone mentioning in passing that they need to call their mom.

"Obviously friends are a community, but it's really difficult when their lives look so different from yours,” he says, explaining what led him to make a post on Reddit, seeking out a place to vent, and advice, among other estranged Gen Z. “I just wanted to be affirmed I wasn’t crazy for feeling the way that I was feeling.”

“I felt like I had two options and it was to end my life or rip it up into a million pieces.”

While his post did get a few replies, Callum felt they were mostly from older people who kind of “mothered” him instead of forming solidarity with him. It was a reply to a comment on another platform that helped him feel the most seen.

“There was a girl on TikTok and we exchanged a couple words. She was sharing about how she was from Texas and her parents put her in conversation therapy, because she’s gay. Eventually she went to college and she half ghosted them or semi-estranged herself. And that was the closest I felt to being understood by somebody, especially in that relationship to estrangement.”

“There was a lot of commiserating over things our parents would say about us being queer. But also, ‘I feel alone,’ craving family, not just in a sense of craving community…” he pauses for a minute then clarifies: “Craving…‘shit, I wish I had a f*cking adult to talk to right now.’”

LGBTQ+ young people are more than twice as likely to be homeless due to estrangement or strained relationships with family than their straight cisgender peers. Queer youth of color are even more likely to face familial rejection. For estranged youth who may also be trans or queer like Callum, or deal with religious, geographical, or racial disparities, the desire to find people who just get it can be even stronger.

Ronan* also identifies as trans, but he tell Teen Vogue that, despite others’ assumptions, that wasn’t the only factor that played a role in his choice to go "no contact” when he came out at 20 years old. His southern, ultra-religious upbringing, and controlling mother contributed, in his opinion.

“Coming out was the catalyst [for estrangement] — I was not respected as a person, period,” he says over Zoom. “I was being forced to go to church. [My mom] was taking my phone away, controlling my friends and who I could spend time with. I was getting depressed and asking for mental health care and she wouldn’t even let me pick my own therapist… My parents told me that the world as a whole was going to be so unkind and brutal and soul-crushing if I ever stepped out of their love and care.”

Ronan says that once he realized he was being manipulated, he decided to cut contact and leave home, putting faith in people to help him break free (by letting him crash on their couch for a while). Afterward, he posted to Reddit seeking support with the estrangement.

Continue reading this story on Teen Vogue.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/gen-z-family-estrangement-story-trans-kids on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

HEALTH | JUN 24, 2025, 5:29 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

For Some Transmasculine People, Abortion Is Gender-Affirming Care

In a post-Roe v. Wade world, photojournalist Ale Pedraza Buenahora wants to show that reproductive justice is gender-affirming care through the Repro Masculinity zine.

Ale Pedraza Buenahora/Transgender Law Center

This story is part of a collaboration with the Transgender Law Center highlighting how reproductive healthcare is gender-affirming care. You can read the full Repro Masculinity zine here.

Jo E. took their last round of abortion pills the same day they packed all their belongings into a crammed car to move across the country. Then a busy college student, Jo E. thought they could push through their abortion symptoms as they juggled a freelance photo assignment for a local paper, their move, and the start of a new job.

The following days were an awful marathon sprint, but Jo E. doesn’t regret a thing, because ultimately, their abortion catalyzed so many important moments in their life, including their transition.

“If I had missed that internship because I was pregnant, it would have absolutely changed the trajectory of my entire life and career,” Jo E. tells photojournalist and artist Ale Pedraza Buenahora in their new project Repro Masculinity. “The fall after my abortion, I won a pretty big award for College Photographer of the Year and later on, I started my transition.”

While narratives around abortion have expanded over the years, broader discussions on reproductive justice and bodily autonomy still often exclude trans people. In fact, transmasculine reproductive health broadly is understudied and overlooked, with damaging consequences for trans men and nonbinary people who are turned away at gynecologists or who find themselves at a loss to find reliable resources outside of Reddit or word of mouth.

It’s this informational gap that Buenahora wanted to address when they first pitched the Repro Masculinity Art Project and Digital archive to the Transgender Law Center. A zine composed of photos, videos, and interviews, Repro Masculinity spotlights genderqueer and transmasculine people like Jo E. speaking on their own experiences with reproductive health. When Buenahora initially started the project, they didn’t set out to create a living archive of community-sourced knowledge, but after months of work, that’s what Repro Masculinity metamorphosized into. Featuring 15 testimonies spanning topics such as abortion, pregnancy, IVF, hysterectomies, HRT, and vaginal atrophy, the online zine contains a wealth of information that is often left out of conversations on reproductive justice.

“This art project was born out of pure necessity,” Buenahora writes in their project foreword. “Out of wanting to find affinity about the problems my trans and queer friends have been talking about, but were made to feel embarrassed, invalidated or categorically gaslighted whenever we’d bring them up. Problems that have been major sources of pain throughout our entire lives, but that landed like a rock in the bottomless pit of cisheteronormativity.”

Repro Masculinity couldn’t come amid a more difficult legislative and juridical environment for trans people. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision inU.S. v. Skrmetti, effectively allowing individual states to continue passing bans on gender-affirming care for trans minors. That’s precisely why Repro Masculinity made its debut on June 24, marking the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned the national abortion protections outlined in Roe v. Wade. In the years that have followed that 2022 decision, it has become abundantly clear that abortion access and trans healthcare are intrinsically linked struggles interconnect within the fight for our bodily autonomy. But the project asserts that trans healthcare isn’t just linked to the fight for reproductive justice; Rather, reproductive healthcare like abortion, in many cases, is life-saving, gender-affirming care.

“I absolutely do not regret it,” Jo E. tells Buenahora in the zine. “Never in a million years did I think I would have a limited-edition Roe v. Wade abortion, but here I am.”

Trans people are intimately familiar with the state and medical establishment policing personal decisions of bodily autonomy. In the mid-1900s through the early 2000s, many trans people seeking hormones and surgery had to perform rigid gender expectations as a barrier to entry for care. It’s this limited understanding of gender that still underscores the way many trans people are told to or expected to perform gender today. That’s why Buenahora wanted to highlight experiences that have been societally framed as an impossibility, such as trans men giving birth.

Derek, for example, was freshly 20 when he found out he was pregnant. As a college sophomore, he had a choice to make. While he knew a planned pregnancy in the future was something that he didn’t want to experience, Derek also knew if he wanted a child, this was the only time it was going to happen. What he didn’t necessarily expect was how experiencing pregnancy would lead to his trans “aha” moment.

“I always tell people that I love my son with everything in me, but I hated pregnancy with everything in me,” Derek tells Buenahora in Repro Masculinity. “That was my moment [...] Although it took me four more years to vocalize that, being pregnant was that moment where I could finally put words to how it was feeling.”

Ultimately, Buenahora wants to underscore that the goal of the project isn’t just to simply state that trans men and transmasculine people can give birth, have abortions, and receive other types of reproductive healthcare; it’s to prove that these experiences with reproductive healthcare are themselves intrinsically formative trans experiences. Whether it’s someone getting their Fallopian tubes removed, undergoing a hysterectomy, starting birth control, or beginning IVF, all of these experiences can be trans experiences.

“Just like with my abortion, I didn’t think [getting my Fallopian tubes removed] was going to be gender-affirming, but what I realized immediately after is that my body felt less woman and I love it,” Jo E. says.

The Repro Masculinity zine is a love letter to transmasculine and genderqueer people, and a rejection of the societal femininity projected onto us. Most importantly, in the midst of the fight for bodily autonomy across the United States, the collection of testimonials is a call to action and reminder that all of our struggles are delicately interlinked.

“My hope for this project is to bust all people who care deeply about bodily autonomy out of our silos, and offer some resonance for those of us who have borne the brunt of a medical and political system that has no regard for our well-being,” Buenahora writes.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trans-men-abortion-repro-masculinity-zine-dobbs-anniversary on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

News

- Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Parents Who Objected to LGBTQ+ Books in Schools

- A Chicago Restaurant Made Knock-Off Chick-fil-A to Fundraise for LGBTQ+ Center

- The Supreme Court Is Making It Easier for States to Defund Planned Parenthood

- Them’s Pride Party Featured Trans Rock Band Um, Jennifer? and an Appearance From Anna Wintour

- Trump Advisor Kari Lake Reportedly Invented a Story About Democratic Lawmaker's “Gay Lover”

- This San Francisco Bookstore Has Stopped Selling the ‘Harry Potter’ Series

- The Summer’s Hottest Trend Is Overcoming State Oppression

- Police Arrest 75 People in Indonesia After Raid on What They Call a “Gay Party”

- Democratic NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Is Pledging $65 Million for Trans Health Care

- Stonewall Monument Instructed to Lose Trans Flags. Now Visitors Are Planting Their Own

NEWS | JUN 27, 2025, 12:10 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Parents Who Objected to LGBTQ+ Books in Schools

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “[t]he reverberations of the Court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.”

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The Supreme Court has sided with a group of Maryland parents seeking the option to remove their children from classrooms with LGBTQ-inclusive books. The ruling threatens to escalate LGBTQ+ book bans across the country and could potentially implement policies similar to Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law across United States public schools.

The Court issued a 6-3 ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor on Friday, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The case centered on a group of six Christian and Muslim parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, who sought the ability to be notified if their elementary school-aged children will be taught LGBTQ-inclusive books and remove their children from classrooms where these books are present, even as non-mandatory supplementary learning materials. The plaintiffs are represented by Becket, a Catholic legal group listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website as one of several “hardline groups promoting ‘religious freedom restoration acts’ to justify anti-gay discrimination.”

In a concurring opinion with the court’s conservative majority, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that the Board of Education of Montgomery County’s refusal to allow parents to opt their children out of lessons where these LGBTQ books might be present “contravenes the parents’ free exercise right to direct the religious upbringing of their children.” Thomas went on to claim that “there is little to suggest that these lessons are critical to the students’ civic development.”

In her dissenting opinion, Sotomayor wrote that requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan that might implicate parents’ religious beliefs will “impose impossible administrative burdens on schools” that could “inflict long-lasting harm on students’ learning and development.”

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the decision “guts our free exercise precedent and strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society.”

“Exposure to new ideas has always been a vital part of that project, until now,” Sotomayor continued. “The reverberations of the Court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations. Unable to condone that grave misjudgment, I dissent.”

Depending on how it is applied and implemented in various cases nationwide, the ruling could have far-reaching consequences that stifle educational instruction. As legal journalist Ian Millhiser observed for Vox back in April, the Constitution does not permit schools to provide a service to people with anti-LGBTQ+ religious beliefs that it does not also provide to any other person of faith. In a nation as religiously diverse as the United States, it would therefore be impossible for public schools to give advance notice to any parent about any lesson that might conflict with that parent’s religious views, Millhiser argued, adding that the only way a school could comply with the expectation to inform parents of any lesson that mentions queerness or transness would be to ban discussion of these topics, creating “a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ rule on steroids.”

In a June 27 statement, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) condemned the Court’s Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling, writing that it “elevates the religious beliefs of some parents, who believe that being LGBTQ+ is wrong, over any acknowledgment in the classroom that LGBTQ+ young people and their families exist.”

“In a country where LGBTQ+ youth already face disproportionate rates of bullying, homelessness, and mental health challenges, this ruling weaponizes religious freedom to further marginalize vulnerable students,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said. “As the LGBTQ+ community continues to navigate targeted attacks on inclusive education, we must do everything we can to ensure classrooms are welcoming for all — providing every student with the support and resources they need to thrive.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/supreme-court-lgbtq-books-schools-opt-out-religion on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | JUN 27, 2025, 10:31 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

A Chicago Restaurant Made Knock-Off Chick-fil-A to Fundraise for LGBTQ+ Center

An Italian restaurant’s “Chick-Feel-Gay” pop-up raised money for a trans-led organization.

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A Chicago restaurant held a Chick-fil-A-inspired pop-up for a decidedly un-Chick-fil-A-like cause: supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

Cheekily named “Chick-Feel-Gay,” the pop-up — which was hosted by Italian restaurant Void on June 22 — featured chef and co-owner Dani Kaplan’s take on the fast food chain’s famous fried chicken sandwiches and waffle fries, as well as chicken nuggets and cake slices modeled after the Progress Pride flag The restaurant even designed its own rainbow version of Chick-fil-A’s cursive logo. According to Eater Chicago, Kaplan first hosted a “Chick-Feel-Gay” pop-up at the now-closed tiki bar Lost Lake in 2020 before deciding to bring it back at Void this Pride month.

“We took the sandwich and left out the bigotry,” Void wrote in an Instagram post advertising the event. “You’re welcome.”

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Twenty percent of proceeds from the Chick-Feel-Gay event will go to Brave Space Alliance, a “Black, trans-led” LGBTQ+ center on Chicago’s South Side. The organization is no stranger to Chick-fil-A — in January, the fast food chain announced plans to open a new location in the same Hyde Park building where Brave Space Alliance operates

“For me, it reinforces that the corporation doesn’t do their homework,” Brave Space CEO Channyn Lynne Parker told Eater Chicago at the time.

In a statement to the outlet, a Chick-fil-A publicist said that “the Chick-fil-A business is built to add positive impact to the communities we serve, and our local Owner-Operators do this by… tailoring philanthropic efforts to meet the local community’s needs.”

That doesn’t change the fact that the company’s history with queer and trans communities is fraught, to put it lightly. In 2019, following backlash, Chick-fil-A announced that, beginning in 2020, it would stop donating to charities with anti-LGBTQ+ views such as the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). Yet in 2021, The Daily Beast reported that former Chick-fil-A owner Dan Cathy — who handed the job over to his son Andrew Truett Cathy in 2021 — was among a group of Christian billionaires donating to National Christian Charitable Foundation, which bankrolled groups opposed to the Equality Act.

Kaplan isn’t the only restaurateur to create a knock-off Chick-fil-A menu with queer and trans people in mind. In 2021, Vermont chef Bryan Gildersleeve launched a similar pop-up food business called “Chic Full Gay” to help raise funds for the LGBTQ+ nonprofit Outright Vermont.

These efforts just go to show that while you might have that one gay friend who claims that their weekly Chick-fil-A run is fine, actually, there are still smaller, vocally pro-LGBTQ+ places out there doing the work.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/void-italian-restaurant-chicago-chick-feel-gay-pop-up-chick-fil-a on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | JUN 26, 2025, 2:37 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The Supreme Court Is Making It Easier for States to Defund Planned Parenthood

“This decision shows just how far the Supreme Court is willing to go to accommodate Christian nationalism,” a representative from the Freedom from Religion Foundation said.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that individuals cannot sue states to ensure access to a health care provider of their choice, clearing the way for conservative efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and other providers that offer abortion care.

Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the Court’s opinion in the 6-3 ruling issued Thursday, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. The case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood of Southeast Atlantic, centered on a 2018 executive order by Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who attempted to remove Planned Parenthood from the state’s list of approved Medicaid providers because the organization offers access to abortion. (Medicaid funds have been blocked from directly funding abortion services since 1977, but organizations like Planned Parenthood can receive Medicaid funds to pay for other services like pap smears.)

Gorsuch, writing for the Court’s conservative majority, held that the Medicaid Act did not “confer an enforceable right” to choose their medical provider, and individuals cannot file lawsuits against states like South Carolina for restricting that access to care. Because of the lack of “clear and unambiguous rights-creating language” in Medicaid law, as opposed to “mere benefits,” Gorsuch wrote, the plaintiffs had no standing to ask for relief following McMaster’s executive order.

This week’s decision remands the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously ruled on behalf of Planned Parenthood. “If the language of this medical provider provision does not suffice to provide a right of action, then it is hard to conceive of any text, short of magic words beyond the usual practice of courts to dictate, that would permit one,” Judge J. Harvey Wilkinson wrote in the court’s 2022 decision.

“Today’s decision is a grave injustice that strikes at the very bedrock of American freedom and promises to send South Carolina deeper into a health care crisis,” said Paige Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, in a press release Thursday. “Twice, justices of this Court denied to even hear this case because Gov. McMaster’s intent is clear: weaponize anti-abortion sentiment to deprive communities with low incomes of basic health care.”

South Carolina was represented in Medina by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the far-right Christian legal defense group which recently influenced the Court’s decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti and has been accused of filing anti-LGBTQ+ lawsuits under false pretenses. Gorsuch’s opinion hews closely to arguments made by ADF senior counsel John Bursch, who told the Court in April that Medicaid statutes do not “use the word ‘right’ or its functional equivalent,” as The Guardian reported at the time.

The nonprofit Freedom from Religion Foundation accused the Court of “hand[ing] Christian nationalists a major win” in a Bluesky post on Thursday. “This decision shows just how far the Supreme Court is willing to go to accommodate Christian nationalism and its anti-abortion base,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote in a statement, adding, “Religious dogma should never determine who can access public health services.”

Planned Parenthood health centers served more than two million patients across the U.S. between 2023 and 2024, according to the organization’s annual report. More than 35,000 patients sought gender-affirming hormone care through Planned Parenthood branches in 2021 alone. The Trump administration has ramped up conservative efforts to cancel federal funding for Planned Parenthood altogether, moving to freeze tens of millions of dollars in Title X funding in March; Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit challenging that freeze last month.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/scotus-planned-parenthood-alliance-defending-freedom-medicaid-lgbtq-healthcare on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | JUN 26, 2025, 1:50 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

See Photos From Them’s 2025 VIP Pride Party in New York City

The evening featured trans rock band Um, Jennifer? and an appearance from Anna Wintour at the historic West Village gay bar, The Monster.

Hunter Abrams for Them

On Wednesday, June 25, Them held a private event for their team, talent, and friends of the brand at The Monster in New York City in celebration of our ongoing work during Pride month. The event featured drag shows, a live performance from trans rock band Um, Jennifer?, and a surprise appearance from Anna Wintour.

“Recently, I’ve been particularly inspired by New Yorkers, queer and trans New Yorkers, artists, organizers, nightlife and cultural workers, who are not just imagining worlds but making them an actual reality, something material,” editor-in-chief Fran Tirado said in remarks to guests at the historic West Village gay bar. Her speech came shortly after drag artist Cherry Jaymes performed Audra McDonald’s rendition of “Rose’s Turn” from the musical Gypsy to the crowd — including noted Broadway fan, Wintour.

Hunter Abrams for Them

Hunter Abrams for Them

“Something that queer and trans people do best, especially in New York, is take the templates, the status quo, the regulations, and precautions, and ‘supposed tos,’ and just throw that all away,” Tirado continued, “so that we can do what we do best, which is invent culture, invent completely new ways to live and love and thrive and create change.”

The evening featured cocktails by Four Walls Whiskey and was soundtracked by DJ Naija Couture and also featured a drag performance by Mthr Trsa as well as a rousing set by Um, Jennifer?, who released their debut album this April.

Other noted guests included Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Versha Sharma, actress Miss Benny, podcaster and author Ira Madison III, astrologer Chani Nicholas, designer Willie Norris, musician Allison Ponthier, TikTokers Eric Sedeno and Griffin Maxwell Brooks, Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Willa Bennett, as well as Them Superlative honorees Ceyenne Doroshow, Lauren Chan, and Logan Rozos.

Hunter Abrams for Them

Hunter Abrams for Them

The event came at the tail end of Them’s month-long Pride initiatives, with cover stories featuring Bella Ramsey, Tramell Tillman, Alan Cumming, and Alex Consani, a “surprise wedding” for WorldPride DC with global drag superstar Sasha Colby, as well the launch of Them Superlatives, an homage to the unserious prestige of high school yearbooks, wherein Them talent created awards for their favorite people, including a tribute to newly-minted Tony Award winner Cole Escola by Tituss Burgess, a salute to Doechii from Paramore’s Hayley Williams, and a Q&A between “it girls” Lushious Massacr and Hari Nef.

See more photos from the festivities by photographer Hunter Abrams below:

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/them-pride-photos-monster-anna-wintour on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | JUN 26, 2025, 12:26 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trump Advisor Kari Lake Reportedly Invented a Story About a Democratic Lawmaker’s “Gay Lover”

Lake was speaking in defense of Trump’s attempts to dismantle the U.S.-funded media network Voice of America (VOA).

Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

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Trump administration advisor Kari Lake derailed her own appearance before Congress this week by referencing a “rumor” that she appears to have started herself: that a Democratic legislator present at the hearing once had a “gay lover.”

Lake, currently the administration’s special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday to defend Trump’s attempts to dismantle the U.S.-funded state media network Voice of America (VOA). Established in 1942 as a counter to Axis propaganda, VOA grew in ensuing decades to become “the official spokesman of the American government,” as a Duke Law School journal noted in 1982. In recent months, Trump has cast VOA as “leftist” propaganda in seeking to shutter the broadcaster entirely.

At one point during the hearing, Lake faced off with Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton, who said Lake’s repeated false claims of election fraud in her unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial race meant “[t]he American people cannot believe a word you say.”

In response, Lake pivoted to a wholly unrelated topic, and one that may have demonstrated Stanton’s argument. “[Voice of America] can put out absolute, abject lies [...] They could literally put out a lie about anybody here, and I know you’ve been the victim of that. I know you’ve been the victim,” Lake claimed. “I remember the stories about you where they said you had a gay lover.”

Massachusetts Rep. Bill Keating interrupted to move that Lake’s comments be stricken from the record, but Lake continued. “Those kind of lies could be broadcast today on VOA, and you couldn’t pick up the phone, Rep. Stanton, and call them and say ‘hey, you’re putting out lies about me.’” (Lake was referring to the “firewall” which allows VOA to report on stories without political reprisal.)

It’s not clear what past “stories” Lake was referencing in her comments or who wrote them, if indeed any such stories exist at all. Three members of the Arizona news media said on Wednesday that they had never heard any such rumors about Stanton, who has been married since 2005. Stanton’s only response to Lake’s insinuations was to share a Phoenix New Times article on Elon Musk’s X platform which called the claim “bullshit,” adding in a quote post, “Happy Pride Month!”

This would certainly not be the first time Lake has tried to score political points by manufacturing “stories” under false pretenses. Lake spent much of 2024 alleging that Rep. Ruben Gallego, who she sought to unseat, was covering up “bombshell” information contained in his divorce proceedings. When Gallego’s divorce was finalized in October, no such “bombshells” were revealed, despite Lake’s insistence earlier the same week that Gallego was “hiding something bad.” Lake went on to lose her House race by about 80,000 votes.

“We demand an apology from Kari Lake for lying about our family and the circumstances of our divorce,” Ruben and Kate Gallego said in a written statement last October, according to the Arizona Mirror. “She will stop at nothing to score a cheap political point — even if it means endangering the privacy and well-being of our young son.” Lake responded that she was “not sure why [she] should apologize.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/kari-lake-greg-stanton-trump-administration-gay-lover-rumor on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | JUN 26, 2025, 10:40 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

This San Francisco Bookstore Has Stopped Selling the Harry Potter Series

The announcement came with a curated list of alternatives to J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series.

Michael H

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A San Francisco bookstore is putting its money where its mouth is: literally.

In an announcement made on their website, San Francisco bookstore The Booksmith said that it would no longer carry books by J.K. Rowling because of her ongoing support of anti-trans policies. Accompanying the post was a list of fantasy books that “might fit the Harry Potter brief for you and yours.”

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A blog post titled “Wizards, but not That Wizard,” explains that the ban was spurred by Rowling’s donations to anti-trans causes through her new organization J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund.

Accompanying the post was an image of a bookshelf from the store's fantasy section bearing a sign explaining why the shelves are free of all things Harry Potter. “With this announcement, we’ve decided to stop carrying her books,” the sign reads. “We don’t know exactly what her new ‘women’s fund’ will entail, but we know that we aren’t going to be a part of it.” It added, “If you or someone you love wants to dive into the world of Harry Potter, we suggest doing so by buying used copies of these books.”

In April, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled that the country’s legal definitions of “man” and “woman” would be based on a person’s sex assigned at birth. Rowling reportedly donated £70,000, or approximately $88,200, to For Women Scotland, the plaintiffs in the case.

Emboldened by the decision, Rowling then created the aforementioned J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, which will fund anti-trans advocacy. The money will come entirely from the author herself, who is currently worth over $1 billion.

Some Instagram commenters voiced opposition to the decision.

“So you're going to curate your selections to only sell books by authors that you agree with politically. Good to know. I'll be shopping elsewhere,” one person wrote.

In response, the bookstore said it carries many books that it doesn’t agree with, and that the decision is “not politics at all.”

“When the author of a book states that all sales of those books will contribute to an anti-trans fund, the only way we can choose not to participate is by not selling the books any longer,” the bookstore wrote. “It stands in direct opposition to everything we believe in and that we have tried to uphold in our nearly 50 years of selling books. if you want to read the HP books, we implore you to buy them used locally, where the money stays in the community you love.”

Booksmith’s list of Harry Potter alternatives includes books by Jessica Townsen, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip Pullman.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowling-harry-potter-booksmith-bookstore on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | JUN 25, 2025, 4:39 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The Summer’s Hottest Trend Is Resisting State Oppression

How to turn your political beliefs on social media into real action, according to Dean Spade.

Getty / Liz Coulbourn

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June is for Pride marches, crop tops, gay beach visits, and also, apparently, absolutely horrifying state violence. The month isn’t even over yet and our communities are facing ramped-up deportations, the right-wing’s manufactured gender panic and the Supreme Court’s affirmation of these grotesque attacks on trans health care, and expanding war. Not to mention billionaires’ commitment to ecocide, the xenophobia and blatant racism of the party that controls our government, the lawlessness it relies on to enforce its regime, and an opposition party that is certainly not up to the task to prevent our slide into fascism. To state the obvious, it’s terrifying and overwhelming.

And yet a lifetime of liberal messaging tells us that there is nothing we can do but wring our hands and wait for new leaders or rescue by elites. We are made to understand that if we vote, post on social media, donate to nonprofits, and perhaps go to a march, things will change. The thing is, the effectiveness of most of these actions hinges on convincing elites — who benefit from the machines of domination — to reconsider their positions in response to our advocacy and our pleas. But the problem — which is so nakedly visible under the Trump administration but has been here all along, including when Democrats are in office — is that the elites who control the systems of domination cannot be persuaded to change course.

It’s not that they don’t know that bombs kill people. It’s not that they are unaware that the ecological crisis is endangering all life on Earth (they are building bunkers and planning to go to space!). It’s not that they haven’t found out about how policing and prisons destroy lives and communities. These systems are working efficiently — exactly as designed, and they don’t need our consent to keep ratcheting up the lethal intensity.

So in this moment, when our powerlessness to convince them is so profoundly clear, and we can perceive how relentless their murderous agenda is, we can truly face the harrowing reality that we’re all we’ve got. Effective responses to these conditions won’t come from the top, they will come from us, doing immediate work in our communities to care for people and fight back. It’s up to us to find ways to challenge and dismantle the systems that oppress us. As the Trump administration increases repression, the risks that come with participating in resistance are growing. But it's easier to have the courage to do things like keeping your neighbors safe from ice or help someone get healthcare they need when you’re not in it alone.

This is why, across the U.S. from Los Angeles to Seattle to New Jersey, queer and trans people — who already experience the sharp edges of racial capitalism: high rates of discrimination at jobs and schools, health care deprivation, homelessness, police violence, and deportation — are in the streets. Whether we’re trying to stop ICE from abducting loved ones and neighbors, providing care through mutual aid, organizing bail support, or accompanying vulnerable friends to high-stakes health or benefits appointments, we are out here.

The good news is that the history of LGBTQ+ people is a history of solidarity and resistance. And summer is when resistance blooms into uprisings.

But these networks of care and our resistance movements will only be as strong as our relationships. This is especially true as the last remaining shreds of what safety nets we do have — racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, and punitive though they have always been — are cut or taken away entirely. As this happens, we are going to need as many people in our communities as possible to join efforts to take care of each other and fight back.

Standing up to fascism means being brave, and helping each other survive. To do that, we have to know how to build trust with others, sometimes quickly. And we have to become trustworthy — checking out our own motivations and behaviors, looking for where the twisted norms of our society have seeped into us, and working to align our actions more with our liberatory values.

I’ve seen so many vitally needed groups and projects fall apart because of people acting out toxic societal norms in relationships. How many groups have tanked because people had a bad breakup and everyone took sides? How many people who could have made major contributions to resistance work have left groups because they couldn’t feel a sense of belonging, or didn’t feel welcomed, or were turned off by all the unaddressed conflict in the space? Our movements have lost so much because we don’t know how to be good to each other under stress.

But that can’t be how we move forward. We need each other desperately as attacks mount and conditions worsen. When I think about helping each other get criminalized health care, find a safe place to sleep, hide from the police and ICE, I think about how much trust that requires. I imagine the depth of a shared sense of purpose, the satisfaction of caring for each other so vigorously. When I think of people putting their bodies on the line to protect their neighbors from ICE, deliver aid to Gaza, or end the expansion of police infrastructure, I see the beauty of how vast our courage can be when we stand together.

With the onslaught happening so fast, many people are watching in horror, but not sure how to take up their part in work. I’ve been working in resistance movements for 25 years, fighting for queer and trans liberation, feminism, anti-racism, and an end to policing, prisons, borders, and wars. From what I’ve seen, these are the key things you can do right now to build survival and resistance:

Start or join a group

You need other people, especially people who are concerned about the same things as you and can have your back if things get hard. Having connection online is not enough; we all need people we can trust who would help us in an emergency. The best way to find friends that you can rely on in these times is by doing something you believe in with others. I recommend that people be part of multiple groups if possible — a mutual aid project, a study group, an affinity group that goes to protests and does projects together. And when you’re looking to join groups, remember that the first place you try might not be the right fit. We’re all imperfect and struggling. If you find a group unwelcoming, or you can’t relate to how they are approaching the work, ask around to find more places to try. Don’t give up! We need you in the fight!

Prepare for what’s coming with mutual aid

We can be sure that more fires, floods, storms, power outages, and crackdowns are coming. The best way to be ready for them is to already be practicing mutual aid in our communities. Being part of a project that distributes food, supports immigrants, bails people out of jail, helps tenants and unhoused people, builds queer self-defense and survival, provides childcare, disaster relief, or meets any other basic needs — these all help us build connection, learn to work together, and connect to and support particularly vulnerable people in our communities. Mutual aid work is most people’s entry into our movements and we need millions of thriving mutual aid projects to help meet the crises we are facing and support new people to get involved in the fight.

Study histories of resistance

They can inspire us, and bring perspective on the current moment. Some readable favorites I would recommend starting with are: In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil, the Young Lords Reader, Gord Hill’s 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic book, and Antifa Comic Book. Also, Queer (In)Justice, anything by Andrea Ritchie, Kelly Hayes, or Mariame Kaba.

Sharpen your solidarity skills

In recent years we’ve seen heightened political repression in response to the 2020 uprisings and the student encampments. But now Trump is ratcheting up the state’s violent and suppressive response to resistance even further. Today, we live under an administration that has openly threatened to harm protesters, saying they will be “met with equal or greater force” than they were met with in Los Angeles.

This is a key time to make sure we aren’t inadvertently throwing other people in our movements under the bus. Even if we disagree with each other about tactics, or choose different approaches to movement work, we have to support anyone who gets criminalized, refuse to stigmatize each other, and keep good security practices that protect us from the cops and ICE.

When considering action, ask, “Is this solely symbolic, or will it address material conditions?”

One of the biggest traps of our time is to get caught just saying things about our political beliefs (especially on social media), but not doing things that improve conditions for our communities or get in the way of our opponents. Whenever possible, create or join projects that are meeting people’s material needs. Or focus on taking action that actually gets in the way of the attacks on people and the planet. If the work you are doing is only online, figure out if there are ways to make it also happen in person, both so that people can build more in-person relationships, and because much of providing for material needs and blocking material harms must happen offline.

Cultivate dignity and humility by giving and receiving direct feedback

When people give you feedback and you feel the defensiveness rising up, remember that they are actually telling you that your actions matter to them, and that it will build trust in the relationship if you can listen and consider what they are saying. We live in a conflict-avoidant culture, but also one in which people fear they will be thrown away for making mistakes. We have to undo this pattern in ourselves if we’re going to face disasters and collaborate to survive. To do this, we must learn to directly give people feedback, and to welcome others’ feedback nondefensively. More often, we talk behind each other’s backs, campaign to get people on our side, stuff our feelings down, and then blow up, ghost, or seek vengeance. The best way to change these habits is to start with all the small things, like telling people directly if they did something that didn’t work for you, that something was hurtful or that you disagree with their approach.

Use technology, including social media, with discernment

This applies to social media, entertainment technology, and Signal. Watch out for the ways that social media trains us to think that expressing opinions is taking action. Saying what we believe in is not the same as doing things and we all need to do both. Watch out for joining a lot of Signal threads and then feeling overwhelmed, but not showing up to meetings or actions with others. It’s better to be involved in fewer efforts, but have those efforts be deeper and based on building trusted relationships, rather than being aware of many efforts but not participating much. Watch out for how TV, movies, and video games can steal away our time, leave us checked out, numb, and drained. Try to find rest and resilience activities that help you feel more alive, open, rested, and connected. And learn enough about digital security to keep you and your friends safe.

More than anything, right now, don’t be alone

If you don’t yet have friends who share your perspective on what is important now, go find them in the resistance. If you already know who your people are, find out how you can build projects that will bring in new people, and dig into working together to save all of our lives. If you’re the most radical person you know, get more friends, because you deserve to be challenged to expand your solidarity farther and learn new skills. We need you out here.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/dean-spade-organizing-resistance-oppression-mutual-aid on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | JUN 25, 2025, 1:49 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Police Arrest 75 People in Indonesia After Raid on What They Call a “Gay Party”

It is at least the third raid of its kind this year, according to Amnesty International.

CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/Getty Images

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Police in Indonesia have reportedly arrested 75 people at what was said to be a “gay party” near the capital city of Jakarta, marking at least the third such raid this year.

The raid occurred on June 22 at a private residence in the Bogor area, according to the Indonesian news agency Antara. Seventy-five people were said to be held at Bogor Police Headquarters, where they were subjected to questioning about their “gay activities.” Police claim to have found condoms and sex toys in the residence, as well as a sword said to have been used during a dance performance.

“This discriminatory raid on a privately rented villa is a blatant violation of human rights and privacy that exemplifies the hostile environment for LGBTI people in Indonesia,” said Wirya Adiwena, Deputy Director of Amnesty International Indonesia, in a press release on Tuesday. “This gathering violated no law and posed no threat.”

Homosexuality itself is not technically illegal throughout Indonesia, but police are known to target LGBTQ+ parties and gatherings under Indonesia’s 2008 “Pornography Law,” a broadly-worded statute which forbids the creation or possession of erotic media and the “commercialization of sex.” Those found in violation of the law can face up to 15 years in prison. (Two provinces, Aceh and South Sumatra, do have local laws explicitly prohibiting consensual gay sex.) A 2022 law banning sex outside of marriage also effectively banned gay sex, as same-sex marriage is not legal in Indonesia.

Trans identities are also not expressly forbidden, but trans people face widespread stigma and violence in Indonesia; lawmakers in Gorontalo Regency banned trans performers from public entertainment events in May. Lawmakers are currently considering a “Broadcasting Bill” that would ban LGBTQ+ “behavior” from online publication, which conservatives have claimed is necessary to protect children — a similar argument to those made by anti-LGBTQ+ politicians in countries like Russia and the United States.

The “pornography” law has been used to target LGBTQ+ people especially since 2016, as Human Rights Watch previously reported. Police arrested 51 people in 2017 for attending a gathering in a sauna, and arrested 56 people in 2020 for another such party in a Jakarta hotel. This weekend marked at least the third such raid in 2025 — 56 people were arrested in February for “facilitating” pornography, and another nine were jailed in May. Two university students in the Aceh province were also publicly flogged for having consensual sex in February.

“The Indonesian authorities must end these hate-based and humiliating raids,” Adiwena wrote this week, calling on all 75 of those arrested to be immediately released. “No one should be subjected to arrest, intimidation or public shaming because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/indonesia-police-arrest-raid-gay on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

POLITICS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | JUN 25, 2025, 12:03 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Democratic NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Is Pledging $65 Million for Trans Health Care

The Democratic socialist cruised to victory against former governor Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s primary.

Kara McCurdy Photography

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Zohran Mamdani will be the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City — and that’s good news for transgender New Yorkers.

Mamdani, 33, cruised to victory in the Democratic primary last night against disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, capturing over 43% of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting, according to early results. (Final vote totals will be calculated by next week, but Cuomo conceded the race late Tuesday night.) It was a stunning upset victory for Mamdani, after weeks of Cuomo endorsements by party heavyweights like former President Bill Clinton and a primary season characterized by Islamophobia and allegations of antisemitism.

Though Mamdani will still need to triumph over incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in November’s general election, the primary success of his progressive coalition is no less significant — especially given Mamdani’s staunch support for trans civil rights. Of the three mayoral candidates endorsed by the NYC Stonewall Democrats, Mamdani’s platform presented by far the most comprehensive and wide-ranging plan to protect and expand access to gender-affirming medical care to trans New Yorkers. Mamdani pledged to spend $57 million on medical centers and nonprofits that provide gender-affirming care, and a further $8 million to develop new resources including greater telehealth accessibility and an “Access Hub” to help care seekers find providers. (Comptroller Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed Mamdani’s campaign and was also endorsed by the Stonewall Dems, promised to increase funding for trans nonprofits and mental health hotlines and to “guarantee” gender-affirming care alongside abortion and contraception services.)

Mamdani’s platform also specifically proclaimed support for Cecilia’s Occupational Inclusion Network (COIN), a free healthcare program at Callen Lorde Community Health Center co-founded by the late trans and sex workers’ rights activist Cecilia Gentili. Other promises in Mamdani’s LGBTQ+ platform included establishing an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, “declaring New York City a sanctuary city for LGBTQIA+ people and families,” and supporting legislation to “ensure [...] incarcerated trans New Yorkers are treated with dignity[.]”

“New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights,” Mamdani wrote on Facebook in May, following a town hall event hosted by activist Ceyenne Doroshow, founder of Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society (GLITS). Mamdani was the only mayoral candidate to speak at the event. “Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”

The fact that Mamdani could so handily win his primary while openly supporting trans rights (even attending a Trans Day of Visibility rally for trans youth in March) feels particularly significant, as many Democratic politicians — including some who backed Cuomo — have signaled that they will cede ground to Republicans on matters like gender-affirming care. New York State Congressman Tom Suozzi, who was among the first to blame trans activists for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential loss last year, endorsed Cuomo earlier this month, proclaiming that the former governor “will stand up to the far-left, DSA socialists.” On Tuesday night, New Yorkers told Cuomo to sit right back down.

Mamdani wasn’t the only pro-trans candidate who secured a primary victory in NYC Tuesday, either. City Council Member Shahana Hanif, who similarly faced severe islamophobia in the race as the first Muslim woman to hold a Council seat, handily defeated challenger Maya Kornberg in the first round of voting — clearing the way for more legislation like Hanif’s Affirm Act, which took effect earlier this year and allows anyone seeking gender-affirming care in NYC to file a countersuit if they are sued in another state which bans such care.

“Trans people exist [...] and when trans people are safe, our entire community is safe,” Hanif said during a committee meeting in February.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/zohran-mamdani-nyc-major-trans-healthcare-65-million on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

NEWS | JUN 24, 2025, 10:57 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Stonewall Monument Instructed to Lose Trans Flags. Now Visitors Are Planting Their Own

Before Trump 2.0, the National Park Service covered the cost of all 250 Pride month display flags, including trans pride ones.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/Getty Images

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Visitors are bringing trans Pride flags to New York City’s Stonewall National Monument after the Trump administration told its creator to use traditional rainbow Pride flags only.

The monument, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City — often cited as the catalyst for the U.S. gay liberation movement — was awarded national monument status by President Barack Obama in 2016. Its creator, photographer and activist Steven Love Menendez, told Gothamist that while he originally purchased hundreds of rainbow flags wholesale to encircle Christopher Park — which sits across from the Stonewall Inn and is part of the monument — the National Park Service (NPS) began helping him cover the cost of installing 250 Pride flags of all varieties, including trans flags, beginning in 2023.

But this year, the NPS backtracked, telling Menendez to only install rainbow flags around the park, sans trans and progress Pride flags, and saying it would only cover the cover of rainbow Pride flags.

“It made me sad, but it was not a surprise with all of the rhetoric that’s been going on in the news prior to the administration coming in,” Menendez told Gothamist. “There’s been a big movement against the trans community. I didn’t even know if this display was going to go up. I didn’t know what to anticipate.”

Back in February, the NPS removed the word “transgender” from its web page about the Stonewall National Monument and struck the letter “T” from instances of the LGBTQ+ acronym. Likewise, Menendez told CBS News that while he was originally listed as an “LGBTQ activist” on the site, he is now listed as an “LGB activist.” This erasure of LGBTQ+ history is particularly galling given the key roles that trans women of color such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera played in the Stonewall Uprising.

In a statement provided to Them at the time, The Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative — the organization’s nonprofit organization — said that what the the NPS did “not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals — especially transgender women of color — who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights.”

However, after learning of the NPS’ trans erasure, many people have planted their own unauthorized trans Pride flags at Stonewall National Monument in protest.

Queens resident Jay Edidin brought his own trans flag to the monument, telling CBS News, “I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/stonewall-national-monument-trump-trans-pride-flags on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

Culture

- NYU Student Logan Rozos' Graduation Speech Cost Him His Diploma. He Regrets Nothing

- Noahwaybabe Is Our Most Valuable Twink

CULTURE | THEM | JUN 27, 2025, 10:08 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Logan Rozos Is Our Forever Class President

The journalist Afeef Nessouli pays tribute to the "emotional lifeline" of Rozos' NYU graduation speech.

Logan Rozos photographed in Brooklyn. June 2025Justin J. Wee

Them Superlatives are awards for our favorite people made up by our favorite people. Read more from the series here.

As we have repeatedly seen, anyone who takes a stand publicly for Palestine does so knowing that it could imperil their academic or professional career — and the NYU student Logan Rozos was no exception. Following his highly publicized graduation speech taking such a stand, NYU said in a statement the following day that the institution would withhold his diploma while considering “disciplinary actions."

To give Rozos the credit he is due is Afeef Nessouli, a New York City-based journalist who covers queerness and resistance in the Middle East. Nessouli learned of Rozos’ speech while he was in Gaza for a two-month volunteer rotation with Glia International. He had just returned to their place in Deir Al-Balah when he watched the video of Rozos’ speech on his phone. “Logan’s commencement address gave me my own emotional lifeline,” he later said.

In the joint slay to end all joint slays, Nessouli bestows Logan Rozos with the Superlative title Forever Class President in the tribute below. —Sal Tamarkin

“As I search my heart today in addressing you all … the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.”

These words were the start of Logan Rozos’ commencement speech. It was May 14 and Rozos was on stage at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, addressing his fellow graduates at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. I was in Gaza on a volunteer medical rotation with Glia International, watching the video of his speech on my phone.

“I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide,” he went on. My heart swelled. A young person, thousands of miles away, boldly carrying a message. Rozos is one of a handful of student speakers at universities around the world who used their commencement addresses to bring such truth to power.

Although the audience cheered rapturously when he brought up Gaza at points throughout his speech, and again when he left the stage, the university’s response was a different story. After all was said and done, he was swiftly punished. The very same day, NYU Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Strategic Communications John Beckman issued a statement accusing Rozos of “misus[ing] his role as student speaker to express his personal and one-sided political views.” This was shared with the news that the university was withholding his diploma while administrators pursue “disciplinary actions.” Rozos then received an email from the Office of Student Conduct saying that it had received an incident report alleging that Rozos engaged in behavior prohibited by the school’s conduct policy, that he would be required to attend a “conduct conference,” and that in the meantime, he would be prohibited from accessing any NYU facility or program.

Rozos, a gay Black trans man, studied cultural criticism and political economy at Gallatin, which means he's spent much of his education thinking and writing about the interactions between culture and the economic conditions that produce it. A lifelong New Yorker, Rozos, who is also a professional actor — his 2019 acting debut was for the Peabody-nominated TV drama David Makes Man — is a committed Letterboxd user who loves theater and cooking competition shows.

Rozos explained he doesn’t “want any spotlight shone on me that makes my tiny contribution out to be larger than it is. What I did and what I risked is, in the grand scheme of things, miniscule.”

Asked about what he planned to say at commencement, he says, “I can’t say I decided what to say until the moment I got up to speak…I mean, I didn't write a secret second speech beforehand to keep up my sleeve. I just slowly realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I spoke to a crowd of that size at this moment and acted like the genocide was not occurring or wasn’t on my mind.”

Rozos explains he was “never going to say something that wasn’t controversial,” and that every draft he presented to the school contained political speech in one way or another. “I knew I would ruffle feathers,” he tells me over email. He also knew of the doxxing campaigns pro-Palestinian public figures face, and the threats of violence he had already faced while protesting.

But, one thing he never expected? The public denunciation from the university itself. Rozos says he was told immediately after walking across the stage to receive his diploma that he “was banned from the all-university graduation commencement the following day,” with NYU’s statement following shortly after.

“I am glad if my speech served as a moment for all of us to turn our eyes back to Gaza and to renew our commitment to ending the genocide and to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.” When asked, Rozos explained he doesn’t “want any spotlight shone on me that makes my tiny contribution out to be larger than it is. What I did and what I risked is, in the grand scheme of things, miniscule.”

For Rozos, the last few weeks have been “odd.” In many ways, he’s like any new college graduate, spending his time looking for full-time jobs, bumping Chappell Roan, and spending time with his friends — cooking for them, going to trivia nights, seeing movies. But in other ways, of course, things can feel surreal. He was on the train a few days after his speech and saw a fellow passenger watching the video of his speech on their phone. He’s been recognized in public a couple of times — once at a noodle shop and another time when he was in a friend’s apartment building. He has received support from the solidarity movement for Palestine at NYU and in New York City at large. He says that groups for academic freedom and labor organizers, other gay and trans people, have all reached out to offer solidarity and encouragement. He even had support letters written to him or sent on his behalf by professors, artists, and activists from around the world. Someone even Venmoed him $20 with the subject line “courage,” which he thought was “so sweet.” (He gave that $20 to a Palestinian survival crowdfunding campaign.)

Although right-wing outlets published “pretty vile coverage” of him, Rozos regrets nothing. Right now, Rozos says he is about to start a job at a children’s summer program, and is also fundraising for a documentary called What Will I Become? about trans masculinities and depression. For the most part, this summer he plans to “mostly hang out with theater gays.”

He says, “I would love to sell some of my writing on politics and culture and maybe even, not to sound like every NYU student, write a book someday.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/logan-rozos-nyu-graduation-speech-afeef-nessouli on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

CULTURE | THEM | JUN 26, 2025, 5:22 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Noah Way Is Our Most Valuable Twink

Fellow content creator Boomer Banks bestows the title on the hilarious babe.

Them Superlatives are awards for our favorite people made up by our favorite people. Read more from the series here.

Though society has come a long way when it comes to things like gender and sexual orientation, the “sex” part in and of itself is something many are still catching up on. Sex, however referenced, is often viewed as a bridge too far or “shoving it in our faces,” and as such it’s often sex workers who are on the front lines. Over the past few years, Noah Way, known sometimes by his social handle @noahwaybabe, has become a bit of a phenom. He has racked up more than one million followers on X, making him likely the most followed trans man adult content creator. He’s done this not only through his OnlyFans content but his TikTok-appropriate social videos which are sarcastic, quippy, and often insightful in their politics or anti-establishment nature.

For his Them Superlative of Most Valuable Twink, we had Noah hop on a Zoom with Boomer Banks, an adult performer whose studio career is heavily awarded, alongside a growing career as a DJ, as well as a long history as a vocal activist around issues relating to people of color, HIV, and more. Here the pair discuss how they started in the industry, building community, trolls, and what’s next for the unstoppable Noah Way. — Mikelle Street

Boomer Banks: How have you been?

Noah Way: I’ve been pretty good. I want to go back to school next year, so I’m in the process of studying for my SAT and ACT right now. Also learning to drive.

B.B.: Oh, good. That’s a good thing in L.A., although I didn’t even get my driver’s license until I was 28, but that’s a whole different story. I kind of wanted to start with: I know that so many of us start doing sex work out of necessity, and I wanted to ask you, was it out of necessity or was it because you wanted to express yourself and your identity?

For me, I was already sober when I made a choice to be a sex worker, fully escorting. Then [for] a lot of sex workers, if you do porn, your escorting kind of escalates. So it was not necessarily out of necessity. It just kind of fell on my lap and I took it by the horns and rode it and here we are. But I did want to know your experience in that department, because you were really young.

N.W.: I think this surprised a lot of people, but for me it was also not out of necessity. It just ended up happening. I was in college for a year before COVID happened, and we all got sent back home and I ended up dropping out. The first thing I started doing was just posting nudes on Reddit because I wanted extra money for boba and stuff like that. I never intended for it to be a big thing. I was just like, “Oh, I’ll post pictures on Reddit. Maybe someone will ask me for a custom one. I can make an extra few hundred dollars a month I can spend on stuff.” I think I’ve always had a very casual relationship with sex and sexuality and the way I thought about it. Then I made a Twitter account and it blew up.

I think my relationship with sex was especially helpful. My family’s Jewish, technically, but I was not raised religious at all — and I think for a lot of people, there’s a lot of guilt surrounding sex that can come from that. My parents were not super sex-positive, free people or anything, but I was never made to feel like it was something I needed to be ashamed of.

B.B.: So fast-forward, you’ve become Noah, and that’s phenomenal and there have been a lot of ups and downs. We had craziness with the FleshJack thing, but a lot of people have accepted you. A lot of people don’t know what to make of you. How do you navigate that?

N.W.: I have been out since I was 14, and I did not live in an incredibly conservative area, but I lived in Northern Virginia, so it was also not super liberal. My parents were also not cool with me coming out at first. So early on as a teenager, I had to decide not to care so much what other people thought about me or what they were saying because I was going to drive myself crazy and make my life impossible to live.

I also am very just generally interested in people and how they think. I’ll find it a little interesting. Roughly half the time when someone’s left 50 comments in a row on my posts that are like, “This is disgusting. You’re a mutilated woman," I’ll go to their profile to block them and they’ll be following me.

B.B.: That’s always the case.

N.W.: I’m like, “You could solve the issue of seeing this for yourself right now.”

B.B.: Right. So you came out when you were 14: Did you see a lot of queerness growing up that made it comfortable for you? Or you just felt comfortable to come out at 14? Because I know when I was 14 in the ’90s, I was like, “Yeah... Not yet.” I mean, I was very obviously a faggot, and I had just lost my mom. There was a lot going on with me at 14. I did come out in the ’90s though, in ’98.

N.W.: So I came out actually pretty much the same time Caitlyn Jenner did. That’s how I found out transgender people existed. She’s not the best representation. But that’s what-

B.B.: Oh, oh. But I mean, that’s recent. I feel old.

I also am very just generally interested in people and how they think. I’ll find it a little interesting. Roughly half the time when someone’s left 50 comments in a row on my posts that are like, “This is disgusting. You’re a mutilated woman," I’ll go to their profile to block them and they’ll be following me.

N.W.: For the second half of high school, I went to a school of about 2,000 kids and there were a handful, maybe even a few dozen gay kids and then two other transgender kids, who I actually still check in on today. They’re doing well. But it was definitely a rough time for all of us. I think I was less confident and more stubborn than anything.

B.B.: I love that. No, I mean, you have to have a jumping off-point. I think maybe being stubborn is what it was for me. I was who I was and I didn’t care. I cared what you thought, but I wanted to pretend that I didn’t care. And I think that was helpful. So, had you seen other performers before you started that you admired?

N.W.: I actually don’t watch porn and never have, which I know is so weird for somebody who does porn.

B.B.: I was the same way.

N.W.: Yeah, it’s just never really been my thing. I don’t know, I just imagine things most of the time.

B.B.: But now you do know some of them. Are there performers that you are like, “Wow, this is a great performer?”

N.W.: Yeah, there are a bunch. I feel like there are a lot of people I really like, and then there are a lot of people I see on screen and I’m like, “Oh, they’re just doing a really good job.”

B.B.: [laughs] Get that. Here’s another question: When I started, I thought because I was brown and a person of color that other people like me would be like, “Oh, great, another person of color that’s amazing in porn.” But instead I was met with a very nasty reception. They were not having it. They were like, “Oh, you’re only doing this because of this, and this is only happening because of this.” It was never like, “Congratulations, welcome.” And so as a result, I created, and you’ve met a couple of them, the Banks boys, not out of wanting to have an empire, but out of wanting these boys to know that they’re loved and there’s somebody here to talk to. Not that I speak for them — they’re grown-ass men — but I did it so that they have a sounding board.

How was your experience as a trans man entering the business? Did you feel welcomed? Did you not care?

N.W.: It was a pretty mixed bag overall. There are really only, I think a handful of trans guy performers who do this full-time. I think maybe 10 or fewer. So I don’t have as large a sample pool to draw from. Some people were definitely very sweet and very welcoming and I’ve really enjoyed being around them. And then there are a few guys who were kind of weird about it. And there are a few guys who won’t work with me and don’t want anything to do with me — like other trans guys who won’t work with me or want anything to do with me at all because they’re mad I’m a twink and think that’s the reason I do well, which maybe it is, but it’s not my fault.

B.B.: You use the word “twink” a lot. Do you enjoy that kind of recognition? Do you feel like you’ll ever grow out of that?

N.W.: I hope so, eventually. I feel like it’s less of the identity I’m attached to and more just that it’s the best physical descriptor for me and also a descriptor of the way I interact with the gay community at large.

B.B.: What are you going to go to school for? Because you are very perceptive and very smart.

N.W.: Thank you. It is going to take a while, but I want to get a bachelor’s in history and then I’m thinking of going to law school.

B.B.: Being a lawyer is a lot. I have a lot of lawyer friends who have gone through the gamut of what type of lawyers they are. One of my dearest friends was a corporate lawyer, but now he’s an environmental lawyer and he is a lot happier.

N.W.: That’s such a great job to have, but also probably so depressing right now.

B.B.: When I started, I was working with studios and eventually the industry did embrace me and I started winning these — I call them paperweights now, because that’s what they are on my mantel.

Going forward, what kind of footprint do you want to leave? I love that you’re making moves to exit because this doesn’t last forever. I mean, it could last forever for you. You’re still young. But I am 45 this year, so I need to take a bow. What kind of footprint do you want to leave on this industry for other trans men going forward?

N.W.: I don’t know if this part is going to happen, but I would like the studio and professional world — if it even really continues because who knows how that’s going to go — to be a little more open to us. Because in my experience, most of the performers I’ve met have been very welcoming and open to me, but the studio and more professional side of the porn industry really hasn’t been. Early on, I assumed that if I gained a level of success independently, that would change, but it has not as much as I expected.

I guess if I want to have any broader impact, I just want some other trans guys to feel a little more confident in themselves. A lot of times, when people say things to me that are transphobic, they think they’re the first person to present the idea that I’m weird and freaky and what I’ve got going on is weird and freaky. And I’m like,“You don’t think I know that? Obviously I know this. And I think that’s fine. I know what I’ve got going on is bizarre and weird to a lot of people, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that or that I need to feel any kind of way about that.”

Even before starting hormones, a lot of the people around me were not super supportive of it. They would try to discourage me from physically transitioning by telling me I wouldn’t be sexually or romantically desirable to anyone. And I just accepted that as true and was like, “Well, I guess I’ll just be single for the rest of my life, whatever” and transitioned anyways.

B.B.: But even though they said that you still continued to transition, right?

N.W.: Yeah.

B.B.: Because this has nothing to do with sex, right? It has everything to do with how you feel inside. And who you are as a human.

N.W.: And it was also just so important to me that, fully, if it had never meant having sex with anyone for the rest of my life, I would’ve still done it. But obviously that ended up very much being not true.

B.B.: Right. But the reality is you still did it. That’s the trans experience. It’s so hard for people to grasp that it has nothing to do with one person’s perception. Your perception is all that matters. You have to live in your truth. And that’s phenomenal.

N.W.: Thank you.

I don’t think of being trans as a super important thing about me… Doing porn has been interesting in that it definitionally does make it the most important aspect of me — and a lot of times, I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I think unfortunately, especially with the political environment lately, it’s like you are transgender before you’re anything else, which has not been a choice made by me, but by the exterior all around me.

B.B.: Yeah, no, thank you. This was perfect. I love this.

N.W.: Thank you so much. I really miss you.

B.B.: I miss you too, baby. I’ll see you this summer. We’ll make it happen. Do you have anything else you want to say before we’re done?

N.W.: I feel like I’ve been having this kind of interesting experience that I’ve had to come to terms with where I don’t think of being trans as a super important thing about me. It’s obviously something that’s impacted a lot of my life experience, but in my day-to-day life now, I don’t consider it such an important aspect of myself.

Doing porn has been interesting in that it definitionally does make it the most important aspect of me — and a lot of times, I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I think unfortunately, especially with the political environment lately, it’s like you are transgender before you’re anything else, which has not been a choice made by me, but by the exterior all around me.

It’s interesting [seeing] all the comments where people are like, “Woah! I’m not transphobic, I just don’t want it being thrown in my face like this.” But I’m not doing anything different than what thousands of other people in porn are doing.

B.B.: I don’t even know what that means when people say that.

N.W.: I’m just doing it while I’m transgender. I think in a way it’s kind of similar to the way people talk about gay people where if you have interests that are stereotypically gay or whatever, it’s considered throwing it in someone’s face. But if you’re like a straight guy who’s into very stereotypically masculine things, that is not thought about the same way at all, even though those two things, logically speaking are no different from each other.

B.B.: They aren’t. It’s just being human.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/noah-way-babe-boomer-banks-tiktok-superlatives on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

Entertainment

- Reneé Rapp Tries to Get Alexandra Shipp in Bed in the “Mad” Music Video

MUSIC | JUN 27, 2025, 9:45 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Reneé Rapp Tries to Get Alexandra Shipp in Bed in the “Mad” Music Video

The song is an impassioned plea for a lover to get over their bad attitude.

Interscope

Reneé Rapp is evidently not a fan of the silent treatment.

The singer and Mean Girls star just revealed the latest single and music video from her upcoming album, BITE ME, due out August 1. The song, “Mad,” is an impassioned plea for a lover to get over their bad attitude and, instead, spend more time in bed.

During the chorus, Rapp croons: “Hey you, all of the time / you wasted in your head / We could have been having sex / You could have been gettin’”

The video for the single, released Friday, also features Barbie actress Alexandra Shipp playing Rapp’s frustrated girlfriend. Rapp spends most of the video singing to Shipp, trying to help her transition from anger to cuddle-ready. Her frustration with her girlfriend’s anger leads to — what else? — the trashing of a swanky hotel room.

“Mad” is the second single off BITE ME following “Leave Me Alone,” which she performed live at the (extremely sapphic) American Music Awards. The performance is just one part of a whirlwind press tour the singer has been undertaking ahead of her upcoming album launch. Aside from appearing on Ziwe’s YouTube channel, she also appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine, where she shared that her home is party central for queer women.

“Mine and Towa’s house is the lesbian frat house,” she said, referring to her partner, fellow musician Towa Bird. “We don’t have rugs because we can’t afford to buy new ones every couple of weeks.”She added, “I’m around people who I actually enjoy and who are funny and who are really pretty. And I’m like, ‘Wait, this is the most myself I’ve ever felt.’”

Rapp has focused on her music career ever since leaving the HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls in 2023. She also snuck a sly diss the show in “Leave Me Alone” by singing, “I took my sex life with me/ now the show ain’t fucking.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/renee-rapp-alexandra-shipp-mad-music-video-hotel-room on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

Community

- Trans Kids Deserve Better Is Most Likely to Inherit the Earth

ACTIVISM | THEM | JUN 25, 2025, 9:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trans Kids Deserve Better Is Most Likely to Inherit the Earth

Author Shon Faye pays tribute to the anonymous group at the forefront of responding to anti-trans policy in the U.K.

Courtesy of Trans Kids Deserve Better

Them Superlatives are awards for our favorite people made up by our favorite people. Read more from the series here.

Trans Kids Deserve Better isn’t just a slogan; in fact, the anonymous young people who make up the U.K.-based direct action group see it as more of a demand. The political situation for trans people in the U.K. has been particularly dire for years now, especially for youth. At the end of last year, the country banned the prescription of puberty blockers for trans youth, and is considering banning even private gender-affirming hormone therapy prescriptions for minors. In the face of such cruelty, Trans Kids Deserve Better has been orchestrating targeted direct actions against various government buildings for almost a year now, starting with a July 2024 occupation on the ledge of the National Health Service headquarters.

The scope of their demonstrations has only increased since then — the group reportedly released multiple bags of live crickets at a transphobic conference, staged a die-in at Victoria Station to protest the puberty blocker ban, and scaled the building of right leaning newspaper The Daily Telegraph and dropped a banner calling it the “SMELLegraph,” just to name a few examples. The group’s tactics are bold, grounded in history (die-ins are a signature move by HIV/AIDS direct action groups like ACT UP), and perhaps most importantly, irreverent as hell. In the face of the kind of absurd brand of transphobia that has taken over the U.K., how better to respond than with even more absurdity?

To honor Trans Kids Deserve Better as part of our Superlatives package, we tapped Shon Faye, one of the U.K.’s foremost trans writers and journalists. Below, read her tribute to the group, including her own experiences at the encampments and what she’s learned from them, as told to staff writer James Factora. — Them

I first heard about Trans Kids Deserve Better them last year after Pride, when I learned that a group of trans kids were occupying the Department of Education in response to transphobic guidance in schools, and the withdrawal of puberty blockers.

My instant reaction was that I thought it was really great they were doing this. I also have to confess: I felt a little bit of shame as a trans adult that kids are the ones who have been stepping up and getting organized and doing the direct action first. I did feel, for a long time, that we needed more protest. There’s the Trans+ Pride march in London, as well as the recent topless trans protest on Downing Street, but I was impressed that it was a group of kids — though I was dismayed that they had to take time to encamp themselves outside government buildings.

They finished an occupation recently outside of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is a body that has put out some pretty transphobic guidance about bathrooms and gendered spaces in the U.K., and that is trying to bring in legal guidance that trans people should use facilities in line with our birth sex. I went down to that occupation for a day and did some flyering to people who were passing by. The kids had prepared flyers with the QR code, and they needed people to give them to members of the public to raise awareness of why they were and why they were occupying that building. As much as I might be frightened about the trajectory of the anti-trans backlash, there are ways in which I have agency as an adult. But school is kind of inescapable, and a lot of the posters at the demonstration that I was at said things like, “I shouldn’t be having to take time out of revising for my school examinations to have to protest for being treated like a human being.”

“The only people who know what it’s like to be trans kids in 2025 and can speak to that are trans kids in 2025. ”

As much as they are speaking truth to power, I also think it is a lesson to other adult LGBT people to be willing to listen to the experiences of trans kids and not just project our own experience. Trans Kids Deserve Better have a very clear vision about what they’re doing and what their role is, and it’s challenged me as a trans adult. One of the things that I have been aware of for many years is that we always say trans kids are spoken over, and sometimes that is even by trans adults, because it’s just a case of adults speaking over children. I think we often get impassioned about protecting trans kids because we’re actually playing out a psychodrama where we want to protect our younger selves, and that’s somewhat different to the reality of being a trans young person in 2025. The only people who know what it’s like to be trans kids in 2025 and can speak to that are trans kids in 2025. The reality is that young people bring a kind of freshness and an energy and a passion to movement work — that’s been the case in the climate movement and the gay liberation movement, and so it would make sense that it’s the case with this movement.

I also love the fact that there is a playfulness in their direct actions, but there’s also quite a surprising awareness of history. They released bugs in the transphobic LGB conference, which has precedent in the history of U.K. protest. And in addition to playfulness, they also make the occupations kind of social. It’s not a particularly angry vibe when you go to where they are camping. On the day that I went, they were having an open mic later that night, and they’re doing activities throughout. There is a kind of kid-like energy to it, which I think is also important. I don’t want to say people age out, because there are people protesting at all ages, but I think there is a different dynamic when you’re young. There’s just a different energy there that perhaps even adults who have been politically active for a long time don’t retain.

For me, as a jaded trans adult, it actually is quite inspiring, because I’m like, “Yeah, if they can be lighthearted but also serious but also tethered to history and actually doing something physical and not just on Instagram, then I need to be stepping my pussy up.” I’m a writer. Discourse is kind of my work, and it’s very easy to get trapped in discourse and then to wish for a more dynamic kind of social justice movement that’s doing direct action and doing stunts in public. Then, when a group of kids are the ones that are actually doing it and it’s not people like me, it’s a kind of challenge. That’s a question for all trans adults: Are we going to solely leave it for kids?

I’m trying to use it as inspiration, but more than that, as actually a challenge to do more, to see what I can learn. Every activist or thinker involved in any social justice movement that I have ever respected has said that they continue to learn from younger people. Part of social movements, and particularly queer social movements, is intergenerational contact, intergenerational learning. In the U.K., Trans Kids Deserve Better were the beginning of that. The intergenerational outreach came from the young people to the adults, not the other way around, and that should give all of us pause for thought.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trans-kids-deserve-better-uk-activist-group-shon-faye-tribute-superlatives on Jun 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM EDT.

Table of Contents

Them.: 2025 Jun 27

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