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- Trump Admits He Would Remove Pride Flags If the 1st Amendment Didn't Stop Him

- Billie Eilish and Indya Moore Join PSA About Palestine: "It's Important to Speak Out Now"

- Jerry of Ben & Jerry's Resigns Citing Censorship Amid Trump's Attack on LGBTQ+ Community

- Michigan Republican Bill Bans All Porn and Depictions of Trans People

- Maine Schools Are Standing Up to the DOJ’s Demand for Info on Trans Youth

- WeHo and Fire Island Called Out for Lowering Pride Flags Over Charlie Kirk: “Don't Make Our Joy Honor Our Oppressor”

- History-Making Gay NBA Player Jason Collins in Treatment for Brain Tumor

- DC Comics Cancels 'Red Hood' Over Trans Writer Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Charlie Kirk Comments

- Is Charlie Kirk's Shooter Trans? Everything We Know About the Trump Ally and His Anti-LGBTQ+ Views

- Republican Legislator Turns Democrat, Credits Gay Son: “I've Had Enough”

- Nancy Mace Flips Out Over Lawmaker’s Observation that “Boob Jobs” Are Gender-Affirming Care

- Harry Potter Fanfiction by Nonbinary Author SenLinYu Turns Into 7-Figure Movie Deal

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | SEP 17, 2025, 4:02 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trump Admits He Would Remove Pride Flags If the 1st Amendment Didn't Stop Him

Sitting in the Oval Office, he announced he “would have no problem” implementing such a ban.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump said he “would have no problem” ordering a ban on the Progress Pride flag during remarks to the White House press pool this week, agreeing with a far-right pundit that the flag should be considered a symbol of terrorism.

The exchange occurred in the Oval Office on Monday between Trump and Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice best known for scolding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and dating Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Glenn reportedly showed Trump a photo of a Progress Pride flag, calling it a “trans flag” and claiming that “a lot of people are very threatened by this flag,” in reference to false right-wing claims that many mass shooters are transgender. “It means a lot of different, negative things to people — violence,” the correspondent continued. Glenn then asked whether Trump would be opposed to “taking [it] down” from the streets of Washington, D.C., where Trump has ordered National Guard troops and ICE agents to patrol for the past several weeks.

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“Well, I wouldn’t be [opposed],” Trump replied. “Then they’ll sue, and they’ll get freedom of speech stuff. So that’ll happen. But I would have no problem with it.” Trump went on to vaguely connect flying a Pride flag with burning the United States flag, claiming that the latter “causes unrest and violence” and would not be protected under the First Amendment — a legal argument Trump said his administration would be making “very soon,” and which the president laid out in an executive order last month vowing to prosecute flag burning “to the fullest extent permissible under any available authority.” (The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that burning a flag is protected speech.)

Glenn went on to claim that the Progress Pride flag represents “transtifa,” a portmanteau of the words “transgender” and “antifa” (itself a shortened version of “antifascist,” which Trump and other conservatives have inaccurately claimed to be a far-left extremist group).

“[P]erhaps if you can label them a domestic terrorist group, in all reality, you could take that flag down. It would represent the transtifa,” Glenn suggested to Trump, who replied, “I think you probably could. Again, you’ll be sued, and it’s okay. I’ve been sued before a couple of times.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly — and falsely — characterized trans people as a danger to public safety, and accused LGBTQ+ teachers of spreading “radical indoctrination” in schools. Trump’s rhetoric is similar to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who outlawed “LGBT propaganda” in 2013, banning many displays of rainbow-colored iconography and other symbols connected to LGBTQ+ communities. At the behest of Putin’s Justice Ministry, Russia’s Supreme Court declared the international LGBTQ+ rights movement to collectively be an “extremist organization” guilty of “incitement of social and religious discord” in 2023.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trump-ban-lgbtq-pride-flags-washington-dc on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SEP 17, 2025, 12:20 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Billie Eilish and Indya Moore Join PSA About Palestine: "It's Important to Speak Out Now"

In the PSA, where they are joined by other celebs like Joaquin Phoenix and Steve Coogan, they encourage viewers to “pressurize your government” for a ceasefire.

Billie Eilish and Indya Moore were two of several celebrities to appear in a video urging people to speak up in support of the people of Palestine. The video serves as an ad for a benefit concert, entitled Together for Palestine, taking place Wednesday night at Wembley Stadium in London.

Early in the video, Eilish appears alongside her brother and collaborator, Finneas, as they both say the phrase “Together for Palestine.” Moore appears later in the video, repeating the word “Palestine” in a triptych alongside actor Joaquin Phoenix.

“It’s always been the artist's role in society to speak out, to risk speaking truth to power,” photographer Nan Goldin says in the video.

“It’s important to speak out now, not when this is over, right now, when it’s happening,” Steve Coogan says. “Pressurize your government, lend your support to those who are peacefully campaigning, call for a ceasefire, stop the killing.”

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Eilish has been clear in her support of Palestinian people for some time. Earlier this summer, the Oscar-winning singer and songwriter called the Israeli plan to relocate people in Palestine into a camp “horrifying.” She also wore an “Artists for Ceasefire” pin on the 2024 Academy Awards red carpet.

Moore is a longtime supporter of Palestinian rights and, in 2023, was arrested at a New York City protest calling for a ceasefire.

Ahead of the Wednesday evening show, 12,000 tickets have been sold, per The Guardian. The fundraiser will see musicians such as James Blake and PinkPantheress take the stage alongside Oscar nominees Benedict Cumberbatch and Guy Pearce. A livestream of the event will be available on YouTube.

The video comes only three days after Hacks star Hannah Einbinder voiced support for Palestinians amid the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine while winning her first Emmy. “I just want to say finally: Go birds, fuck ICE, and free Palestine,” she said at the close of her speech, to raucous applause.

“I thought it was important to talk about Palestine because it’s an issue that’s very dear to my heart,” she said backstage to press when asked about the statement. “It is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel. Our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing institution that is really separate to this sort of ethnonationalist state.”

Earlier this month, over 1,200 celebrities, including Cynthia Nixon, Lily Gladstone, and Einbinder, pledged not to work with Israeli companies and institutions that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” Within a few days of the pledge’s initial release, over 3,900 industry professionals had become signatories.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/billie-eilish-indya-moore-together-for-gaza-psa on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | SEP 17, 2025, 11:21 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Jerry of Ben & Jerry's Resigns Citing Censorship Amid Trump's Attack on LGBTQ+ Community

The ice cream company cofounder called the turn of events “profoundly disappointing.”

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Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Jerry Greenfield announced he is resigning from the iconic ice cream company, alleging that parent company Unilever has “silenced” the company’s political activism amid the Trump administration’s attacks on “immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community.”

Greenfield made the announcement on social media early Wednesday in a statement shared by his longtime business partner Ben Cohen, calling it “one of the hardest and most painful decisions I’ve ever made.” (Both men have remained with the company as cofounders since selling to Unilever, but told the Boston Phoenix in 2003 they have “no responsibility, no authority, and very little influence.”)

“For more than 20 years under [Unilever’s] ownership, Ben & Jerry’s stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice, and human rights, not as abstract concepts, but in relation to real events happening in our world,” Greenfield wrote, work he said was made possible by the company’s “unique” merger agreement with Unilever, which preserved some of its independence.

But Greenfield and Cohen’s relationship with Unilever soured over the past several years, particularly after Ben & Jerry’s resolved to cease selling its ice cream in Israeli settlements in 2021. Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever in November 2024, alleging that Unilever had improperly removed former CEO David Stever and censored social media posts about Palestine, Black History Month, free speech, and other topics.

“It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that [our] independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone. And it’s happening at a time when our country’s current administration is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community,” Greenfield wrote. “Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important, and yet Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power. It’s easy to stand up and speak out when there’s nothing at risk. The real test of values is when times are challenging and you have something to lose.”

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Unilever — which expects to complete its spinoff of its ice cream brands into “The Magnum Ice Cream Company” later this year — previously denied Cohen and Greenfield’s allegations in court, claiming it did not seek Stever’s removal and accusing them of denigrating the conglomerate. In turn, Ben & Jerry’s attorney Shahmeer Halepota told Reuters that Unilever was engaged in a “thinly-veiled attempt to save face in the context of its threats, professional reprisals, and ban on criticizing the Trump administration's policies.”

“We disagree with [Greenfield’s] perspective and have sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world,” a Magnum spokesperson told the Associated Press this week.

LGBTQ+ rights have long been a part of Ben & Jerry’s advocacy; following the legalization of same-sex marriage across the U.S. in 2015, Ben & Jerry’s touted the fact that it had already extended benefits to domestic partners since the 1980s. The company currently supports additional anti-discrimination and -violence protections for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. through legislation like the Equality Act, and has observed notable events like Transgender Day of Visibility.

Greenfield kept future plans vague in his resignation statement on Wednesday, but promised to continue his activist efforts outside of the company he helped found.

“It was always about more than just ice cream; it was a way to spread love and invite others into the fight for equity, justice and a better world,” Greenfield wrote, adding, “If I can’t carry those values forward inside the company today, then I will carry them forward outside, with all the love and conviction I can.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/ben-and-jerry-jerry-greenfield-resign-lgbtq-rights-unilever on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | SEP 16, 2025, 12:59 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Michigan Republican Bill Bans All Online Porn and Depictions of Trans People

The law would force internet providers to implement “mandatory filtering technology.”

Michigan House Republicans

Michigan Republican State Rep. Josh Schriver has proposed an online porn ban that seeks to prohibit explicit material as well as any “depiction, description, or simulation” of trans people.

Introduced last Thursday, Bill 4938 — also known as the “Anticorruption of Public Morals Act” — would prohibit the distribution of all “real, animated, digitally generated, written, or auditory” pornography online, with exceptions made only for scientific or medical research or instruction, as well as peer-reviewed academic material.

Additionally, H.B. 4938 features a provision directly targeting trans people, banning content that “includes a disconnection between biology and gender by an individual of 1 biological sex imitating, depicting, or representing himself or herself to be of the other biological sex by means of a combination of attire, cosmetology, or prosthetics, or as having a reproductive nature contrary to the individual’s biological sex.” This provision appears to not only ban depictions of trans people but could also potentially be applied to drag queens.

The bill would require internet providers within the state of Michigan to implement “mandatory filtering technology” to prevent residents from viewing porn, or face a $500,000 fee per violation. Individuals who initially violate the ban would be convicted of a felony punishable by a $100,000 fine, prison time of up to 20 years, or both, while individuals whose “violation… involves more than 100 pieces of prohibited material” would face 25 years of prison time and/or a $125,000 fine. In a September 12 X post announcing the bill, Schriver added that he hopes to register its violators as sex offenders.

“Michigan’s registry law is updated to add a clear trigger for registry placement when a provider violates the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act,” Schriver wrote. “This closes a gap by tying online distribution offenses to registry requirements.”

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Schriver previously made headlines in February for attempting to introduce a resolution asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn same-sex marriage. In July, he introduced H.B. 4751, which proposed removing sexual orientation and gender identity protections from Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.

H.B. 4938 currently has five co-sponsors, all of whom are Republicans: State Reps. James DeSana, Jennifer Wortz, Joseph Fox, Joseph Pavlov, and Matt Maddock. The bill has been referred to the Michigan state government’s Committee on Judiciary, although no further meetings have been scheduled to review it at the time of writing.

If H.B. 4938 were enacted, Michigan would become the first U.S. state to enact a complete porn ban. According to The 19th, 25 states have passed laws requiring people to upload a picture of government identification, scan their face, or confirm banking information before viewing sexual content. As the outlet notes, “queer and trans creators are being hit especially hard” as a result. Russell Vought, architect of the conservative policy plan Project 2025 and current director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, was previously caught on a video recording calling age verification laws a “back door” to banning all adult content.

This isn’t the first time that a proposed porn ban has attempted to escalate right-wingers’ campaign to categorize trans people as inherently pornographic. In May, Republicans in Congress reintroduced the “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” (IODA), which would redefine the U.S. legal definition of “obscenity” to include any sexual content. By making obscenity standards more objective, IODA could allow conservatives to legally declare that trans people’s very existence is “obscene.” Project 2025, for instance, falsely claims that trans people are a threat to children, equating transitioning to pornography and concluding that pornography must be outlawed in the U.S.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/michigan-total-porn-ban-trans-josh-schriver on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | SEP 15, 2025, 2:41 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Maine Schools Are Standing Up to the DOJ’s Demand for Info on Trans Youth

The Maine Principals' Association moved to quash the department's subpoena, calling it an "impermissible fishing expedition.”

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The Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) is pushing back against a Department of Justice subpoena seeking the personal information of every student-athlete in the state, the latest salvo in the state’s ongoing battle with the Trump administration over transgender students’ rights.

The DOJ sued the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) in April, alleging that Maine public schools violated Title IX sex discrimination law by allowing trans students to play on sports teams matching their gender identity. The lawsuit came shortly after the administration conducted a four-day “investigation” into the state, and days after the DOJ and Department of Education announced a joint “task force” to investigate “the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.”

The MPA — which refused to sign a DOJ resolution agreement earlier this year — was subpoenaed in the administration’s case against the MDOE on August 29, according to court documents. The organization, a private nonprofit governing and promoting school sports events in the state, is not a defendant in the suit, but was ordered to provide extensive information in a 23-point list of requests included in the subpoena.

In addition to information about MPA leadership and state student-athlete policies, the DOJ is also seeking “all athletic rosters for the entire state — including schools, grades, and individual names,” as the MPA noted in a filing this month. The administration specifically requested records about any trans students involved in school sports, which the MPA stated it does not maintain. The DOJ subpoena also seeks “all complaints, concerns, praise, or reports received by the MPA from school districts, parents, students, educations, or community members,” of which the MPA said there are “thousands,” as well as “all documents regarding the MPA’s response” to those reports.

“These requests reach far beyond what is necessary to evaluate the specific issues in dispute,” the MPA argued in its most recent filing, calling the DOJ’s demands “irrelevant, ambiguous, overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not proportional” to any needs of the case. “The request lacks reasonable bounds and includes personally identifiable information of individuals who are entirely unrelated to the underlying controversy,” the organization went on, asking Magistrate Judge Karen Frink Wolf to quash — or declare invalid — the subpoena, which the organization characterized as an "impermissible fishing expedition.”

“The MPA will protect confidential student names and records and school personnel,” said James Belleau, an attorney representing the MPA, in a statement to ABC News last week. The organization would comply with document requests that are not overbroad and do not compromise identifiable information, Belleau said. DOJ officials reportedly did not respond to the network’s request for comment, but claimed that its requests were “highly relevant” in court documents earlier this month, per ABC.

The DOJ’s particular focus on Maine stems from a simmering feud between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, after Trump told Mills in February to roll back trans student protections, declaring “[w]e are the federal law” at a National Governors Association meeting at the White House. “See you in court,” Mills replied; the administration announced its investigation into Maine and the MDOE later that day.

Last week, Massachusetts District Court Judge Myong J. Joun quashed another DOJ subpoena served to Boston Children’s Hospital. That subpoena — one of roughly two dozen served to hospitals and clinics that provide gender-affirming medical care to trans youth — sought extensive catalogs of personally identifiable information, including patient names, addresses, and insurance information, as well as personnel records for nearly all of the hospital’s workers. Joun tossed out those requests, and warned the DOJ that the agency “cannot use its subpoena power to go on a fishing expedition.”

“The Administration has been explicit about its disapproval of the transgender community and its aim to end GAC. The subpoena reflects those goals, comprising overbroad requests for documents and information seemingly unrelated” to its investigation, Joun wrote, finding that the subpoena had been “issued for an improper purpose, motivated only by bad faith.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trump-administration-doj-maine-schools-trans-athletes on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | SEP 15, 2025, 11:28 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

WeHo and Fire Island Called Out for Lowering Pride Flags Over Charlie Kirk: “Don't Make Our Joy Honor Our Oppressor”

Officials responded to criticism by saying that the act should not be viewed as “alignment with or endorsement of” the right wing pundit.

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LGBTQ+ Pride and transgender flags in West Hollywood and Fire Island were lowered to half mast over the weekend, in observance of the death of anti-LGBTQ+ pundit Charlie Kirk — drawing shock and outrage from community members and activists.

Flags were lowered across the U.S. to mark Kirk’s death, per a September 10 proclamation by President Donald Trump, that ordered all flags on public grounds be flown at half mast until September 14. Compliance was not universal; the New York Post reported that New York and New Jersey did not officially change their flag statuses, and Bergen County officials did not lower the flags as ordered. But other flags, including some flown in historic LGBTQ+ neighborhoods, did fly at half mast over the weekend, sparking local outrage.

In West Hollywood, the trans and Progress Pride flags were both lowered to half mast in Matthew Shepard Square this weekend, according to the WeHo Times. On Sunday, an unknown person reportedly posted a sign in the square reading “Shame on West Hollywood for lowering our flags in honor of a racist, transphobic, homophobic, Nazi-loving monster.”

West Hollywood city officials released a statement acknowledging “concern in the community” over the lowered flags on Sunday afternoon, writing that they had acted in compliance with Trump’s order per city policy.

“The City's action should not be interpreted as an expression of alignment with, or endorsement of, Mr. Kirk’s political views or actions,” the statement read. “Rather, the action was undertaken in accordance with the City’s Policy for Recognitions and Memorials, which acknowledges that the City follows the direction of the President in determining when flags in the City are flown at half-staff.” The City Council will “consider updates to the City’s policy regarding the lowering of flags to ensure that it appropriately reflects the values of the West Hollywood community” in the future, officials wrote.

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On the other side of the country, another trans flag and Pride flag were also lowered to half mast at Cherry Grove dock on Fire Island, as documented in an Instagram post from the Black and Brown Equity Coalition (BaBEC), which has led organizing efforts on the island for years.

“We cannot stay silent seeing Pride and transgender flags at half-staff on Cherry Grove dock to honor Charlie Kirk; a man who called trans people ‘a middle finger to God,’ cited biblical passages advocating violence against queer people, and suggested LGBTQ+ individuals be handled ‘like in the 1950s,’” BaBEC members wrote in the post. “If federal protocol requires all flags to fly below the U.S. flag, including when at half-staff, then remove the Pride and trans flags entirely. Don't make our joy honor our oppressor.”

Kirk, who was shot and killed in Utah last Wednesday, was the founder of the right-wing campus activism group Turning Point USA and a prolific anti-LGBTQ+ speaker, once calling for doctors who provide gender-affirming medical care to be given a “Nuremberg-style trial.” Several people have already lost their jobs for posting about his death on social media, including trans horror writer Gretchen Felker-Martin and former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. Some historically Black colleges and universities increased security or canceled classes altogether after reportedly receiving violent threats immediately following Kirk’s death last week.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/weho-fire-island-cherry-grove-charlie-kirk-pride-flags-half-mast on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | SEP 12, 2025, 11:30 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

History-Making Gay NBA Player Jason Collins in Treatment for Brain Tumor

His family released a statement this week.

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Retired NBA player Jason Collins, who made history as the league’s first openly gay player, is currently receiving treatment for a brain tumor according to a statement released this week.

“Jason and his family welcome your support and prayers and kindly ask for privacy as they dedicate their attention to Jason’s health and well-being,” Collins’ family said in a statement released by the NBA on Thursday.

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Collins played as a professional center from 2001 to 2014, joining the Atlanta Hawks, Boston Nets, Brooklyn Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Jersey Nets, and Washington Wizards over the course of his career. He publicly came out as gay in 2013 in an open letter published in Sports Illustrated, becoming the first out gay player in any of North America’s four major sports leagues.

“I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore,” Collins wrote at the time. “I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, ‘Me, too.’”

In 2014, Collins became the first openly gay NBA player to appear in a game, playing for the Nets.

“Sending our love and support to @jasoncollins98 and his family ♥️,” the Nets wrote in an X post on Thursday.

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For much of his career, Collins wore a No. 98 jersey in honor of the late Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose 1998 murder has become one of the most infamous hate crimes in modern U.S. history. Shortly after the athlete became the first active NBA player who was publicly out as a gay man, his No. 98 jersey became the league’s best-selling jersey in the NBA’s online store.

“I remember being a sophomore in college when Matthew Shepard was killed,” Collins told People in 2018. “Every time I put on that jersey, it was just a silent acknowledgment to myself and to my friends and family — who knew why I was wearing that number — of being a proud gay Black man playing in the NBA.”

Earlier this year, Collins married his longtime partner, film producer Brunson Green. The couple have been together since 2014, the same year that Collins retired from the NBA.

In 2023, Collins spoke to The Athletic about the importance of male athletes being open about their queer identities.

“When female athletes come out, everyone is like, ‘OK, cool, go in,’” he said. “But we’re still not there yet [with male athletes]. We need more and more male athletes to step forward so that we can get to that day when the game is over, everyone’s significant other is in the family room waiting for them along with everyone else’s, regardless of gender. We still have work to do with regards to male athletes.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/nba-jason-collins-gay-brain-tumor on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | SEP 12, 2025, 10:32 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

DC Comics Cancels Red Hood Over Trans Writer Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Charlie Kirk Comments

The series had only released one issue.

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DC Comics has canceled trans writer Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Red Hood comic book series after one issue following her Bluesky comments about Charlie Kirk’s death.

Felker-Martin is best-known for her 2022 post-apocalyptic novel Manhunt, which follows an ensemble of trans characters navigating a world in which testosterone turns people into zombie-like creatures. Although the author has since deactivated her Bluesky account, screenshots of her posts began circulating on social media after the right-wing figure was shot and killed while hosting an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

“Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch,” she wrote in one post, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk,” she wrote in another.

Kirk — who served as executive director of the right-wing group Turning Point USA — was known for his anti-trans stances, which included using anti-trans slurs and advocating for physical and political violence against trans people.

In video footage from Kirk’s Wednesday Utah Valley University speaking engagement, shortly before the shooting, an audience member asked Kirk, “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”

“Too many,” he responded.

The Wrap reports that, following Felker-Martin’s posts, DC Comics issued a notice informing retailers that they were canceling orders of Red Hood #2 and Red Hood #3 and would credit them for copies of Red Hook #1, which hit shelves on Wednesday.

“At DC Comics, we place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints,” a spokesperson for DC said in a Thursday statement, per CNN. “Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC’s standards of conduct.”

Felker-Martin isn’t the first to receive backlash after statements about Kirk’s killing. MSNBC dismissed analyst Matthew Dowd after he said in a Katy Tur Reports appearance that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” Network president Rebecca Kulter issued an apology and called the comments "inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.” Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote to social media he would use “Congressional authority” to “mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

Felker-Martin’s Red Hood series followed Jason Todd, a former Batman sidekick who left Gotham behind to team up with fellow anti-hero Huntress in the city of New Angelique.

“Sweat, blood, and power burns,” Felker-Martin said in a June press release announcing the comic. “Broken bones and mind control. A city rotted from the inside out. Jason’s going through hell on the hunt for an enigmatic telepath, and he’s taking us with him. I’m thrilled to be helming this new run of Red Hood with [artist] Jeff Spokes.”

Them has reached out to DC Comics and Felker-Martin’s representatives for further comment.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/gretchen-felker-martin-dc-comics-red-hood-canceled on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | QUISPE LÓPEZ | SEP 11, 2025, 4:26 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Charlie Kirk Shooting, Explained: Making Sense of Facts and Rumors After the Turning Point Cofounder's Death

The Turning Point USA cofounder was shot and killed seconds after comments on trans mass shooters.

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This is a developing story.

Update (9/12/2025): On Friday, President Trump and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that a suspect had been arrested in the killing of Charlie Kirk.

“I think, with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody,” Trump told Fox & Friends on Friday. “Essentially, someone that was very close to him turned him in.” The suspect is reported to be a 22-year-old named Tyler Robinson, who was arrested on Thursday night. Sources reported to CBS that Robinson’s father played a role in his arrest.

At a press conference on Friday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that there were etchings on bullet casings found within the rifle. One unfired casing read “Hey fascist! Catch!” which included an arrow up, arrow to the right, and three down arrows. A second included “if you read this you are gay lmao," with a third reading “oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao.” The casing from the fired bullet reportedly said “notices, bulges, OWO, what’s this?”

No charges have been announced — Utah law gives authorities three days to release charging documents. Authorities have also not announced a motive.

Trump has told reporters that he would be attending the funeral of Kirk.

Original: On Wednesday, news broke that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed while hosting an event at Utah Valley University. The death was announced by President Donald Trump, who ordered for the flags to be lowered to half mast for the rest of the day out of respect. Kirk, a co-founder of the organization Turning Point USA, was 31 when he was killed.

In the aftermath, rumor and speculation have been spread over social media as the public has grappled with the shooting as well as Kirk’s divisive and often hate-filled statements. Here is what we know.

Who is Charlie Kirk?

Charlie Kirk was the 31-year-old co-founder of the organization Turning Point USA. The nationally famous right wing political activist became popular by doing “Prove Me Wrong” style debates on various campuses. In these open forum events, Kirk sets up a microphone and a tent or a table and allowed the public to ask him questions, which often contrasted with his stated conservative beliefs.

As his celebrity rose, Kirk parlayed that fame into speaking engagements, appearances at the Republican National Convention, podcasts, and eventually a personal relationship with President Trump.

Founded in 2012, Turning Point USA is a creation of Kirk and Bill Montgomery. The organization has chapters on high school, college, and university campuses and advocates for conservative politics. These chapters often brought Kirk and other conservative speakers to schools and conferences. Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was an advisor. The organization also launched a controversial Professor Watchlist to track professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

What has Charlie Kirk said about trans people?

Kirk’s rhetoric regarding trans people was often cruel and conspiratorial. He not only gleefully used anti-trans slurs, but advocated for physical and political violence against trans people. He also advocated for ways to further marginalize and ostracize them and their supporters.

“These people are sick,” he said, speaking about trans folks in 2023 on The Charlie Kirk Show. “I don’t say that lightly.” He went on to say he blamed “the decline of American men” on trans people. “Someone should’ve just took care of it the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.” The statement was interpreted by many as a nod to lynching.

“It’s a spiritual war and Christians don’t know how to respond to this. We must react politically, we must ban trans affirming care, the entire country,” Kirk said in another broadcast of his show in 2024.

“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor,” Kirk said in 2024, referring to the joint tribunal that tried Nazis for atrocities committed during World War II. “We need it immediately.”

In 2022, while discussing swimmer Lia Thomas, as well as trans athletes more generally, he advocated for men, specifically, to physically place themselves between trans student athletes and their area of play prior to any sporting event to prevent trans people from participating.

“Here is my challenge for every man across America,” Kirk said. “This is happening in your local school board, it's not enough showing up to meetings and all this. You need to intervene. You need to show up to the sporting event and be like, ‘This is not happening, actually. You're not competing against my daughter. She has XX chromosomes, you have XY chromosomes, get off the court, get out of the pool. It's not going to happen anymore.’

Kirk also accused trans people, as well as LGBTQ+ people more broadly, of “grooming” adolescents to become queer or trans.

Did Charlie Kirk have any other anti-LGBTQ+ statements?

Given that transphobia is currently the cause being used to mobilize conservatives nationwide, it’s no surprise that Kirk had a litany of anti-trans statements; but, during his years as a conservative figurehead, he also made statements about the broader LGBTQ+ community, namely that he believed it was an act in need of correction.

“How do you love somebody?” he said in an episode of Thought Crime. “You love them so much to correct their error. Let’s just take the pride conversation out because people think it’s an identification, which it’s not. It’s just sexual behavior. If you meet an alcoholic or you meet a drug addict, do you affirm their struggle? No, you’re better than this. Let’s get you free from that activity.”

In 2024, when presented with a video from YouTuber Ms. Rachel saying that she uses biblical scriptures of “love thy neighbor” as basis for her support of Pride Month as a Christian, Kirk went on to read a passage from Leviticus that advocated for stoning gay people to death and called the mandate “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.”

In 2021, Kirk penned an op-ed for The American Mind advocating against “sexual anarchy,” a phrase he borrowed from the book Good Kills by pastor David Engelhardt. In the book, Engelhardt described “sexual anarchy” as “throwing off of God’s sexual order.”

“The progressive left has succeeded in so corrupting our language, our media, and our universities that it is now controversial to state observable, objective, scientific truths,” Kirk said. “The facts that there are only two genders; that transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ are lies that hurt people and abuse kids; and that God’s good, loving, and joyful ideal for our lives is for a man and woman to be joined in a lifelong marriage covenant — these are all under official opprobrium in 2021.”

Kirk regularly posted about the “LGBTQ agenda,” and regularly derided brands, such as Disney, that included LGBTQ+ people into its stories. He even advocated for the destruction of public displays of pride flags. Kirk also massively pushed for the bankruptcy of Target in the backlash to their support of Pride month.

What was Charlie Kirk saying right before he was shot?

As was widely reported, just moments prior to his death, Kirk was responding to a question from a person in the crowd about the current right-wing conspiracy linking mass shootings to trans people.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” an audience member asked Kirk.

“Too many,” he responded. The audience member then went on to ask “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk answered. Kirk was then shot in the neck and announced dead soon after.

Was Charlie Kirk’s shooter trans?

While an early report from the Wall Street Journal stated that bullets found inside the weapon used to shoot Kirk were engraved with “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology,” that reporting has been debunked.

The report, along with theories from Right-wing accounts online such as Alex Jones — the founder of InfoWars found libel for spreading misinformation about the Sandy Hook Shooting — have led to speculation that the shooter who killed Kirk is trans, however, there is no evidence of this. Tyler Robinson, who in custody as a person of interest and widely viewed as a suspect, is not known to be trans.

The speculation falls in line with a growing trend of the conservative right accusing trans people of being the perpetrators of mass shootings. After a shooting at a school in Madison in December 2024, right-wing X users including Chaya Raichik “Libs of TikTok” baselessly accused the shooter of being trans. In January 2024, a man named Dylan Butler opened fire and killed a child in an Iowa school and the Right-wing figureheads such as Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. were quick to spread the unsubstantiated theory that Butler was trans.

A 2025 report by The Violence Project found that trans people make up less than 1% of mass shooters. Though mass shootings are overwhelmingly perpetrated by cisgender men, the Right continues to use these moments of tragedy to further their anti-trans agenda. When police identified Robin Westman in the Minneapolis shooting of a Catholic school, the same sentiment was put forward by the right following the fact that Westman publicly changed her gender marker and name in 2020. Reports have since surfaced that Trump’s administration has discussed a possible ban that would bar trans people from owning firearms.

“I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a press conference following the shooting. “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/charlie-kirk-trans-shooter-lgbtq-weapon on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | SEP 11, 2025, 2:11 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Republican Legislator Turns Democrat, Credits Gay Son: “I've Had Enough”

According to Oregon Rep. Cyrus Javadi, Republicans are interested in “burning things down.”

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A Republican state legislator in Oregon has switched parties to become a Democrat, saying the GOP is more interested in “burning things down” than governing for its constituents.

Rep. Cyrus Javadi, a Tillamook dentist representing the state’s 32nd district, made the announcement on Substack last Friday, confirming he will seek reelection on the Democratic ticket next year. His party swap increases the Oregon House’s Democratic majority to 37 seats out of 60.

During this legislative session, Javadi’s votes have increasingly rankled conservative legislators and activists — especially after he supported a resolution honoring Black drag performers and became the only Republican to vote for a bill prohibiting discriminatory book bans in June. (Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, swiftly signed the bill into law.) Since then, he has been the subject of a heated recall campaign launched by one of his former supporters.

“When I came back to work at the dental clinic on Tuesday, one of the windows had been smashed out,” Javadi wrote in his post — an attack he said he had expected. “The fury wasn’t a surprise. It was a confirmation. For months now, the Republican Party’s message has been simple: we don’t care what the problem is, just vote no, or else.” Javadi went on to say that “many Republicans [...] still share my values, but the party apparatus is headed somewhere else entirely,” accusing the GOP of being “opportunistic” and “isolating minority communities when politically convenient.”

“I've had enough of politics as performance art,” he wrote. Javadi also defended his vote for the anti-book ban bill, saying he made his decision in part because one of his children is gay. “Republicans framed [their opposition] as stopping pornography in schools, ignoring the fact parents already can challenge any book. The real issue was whether kids — gay kids like my son, Black kids, Muslim kids — could still find stories on the shelves that reflect their lives,” Javadi wrote, adding that “opposing this kind of censorship isn’t about being ‘woke.’ It’s about being American.”

But although Javadi claims to have had enough of today’s Republican Party, he was also clear that he did not consider himself a liberal, and his defection wasn’t a result of “binge-watch[ing] Rachel Maddow.” His post reaffirmed that he is “the same person I’ve always been,” and that his core principles and beliefs have not changed.

Last year, Javadi voted with then-fellow Republicans to recriminalize drug possession in Oregon, leading to nearly 2,600 arrests solely for possession in the year since. Javadi is also anti-abortion, enthusing “The Constitution wins!” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 in a Facebook post that misleadingly stated “abortions are legal for any reason up to the moment of birth in Oregon.” (Post-viability abortions are extremely rare, and usually occur because of a life-threatening complication or an inability to access care at an earlier stage.) In 2024, Javadi sponsored an unsuccessful bill to place restrictions on abortions after 15 weeks.

Ketzel Levine, an Oregon voter who previously criticized Javadi publicly for his stance on abortion, told the Oregon Capital Chronicle in July that she had grown to consider him more than another “knee-jerk, anti-abortion conservative,” but would only consider voting for him if he shifted his position.

“I am beginning to trust him in a way that I never did before, and I would like to think that what I'm seeing now is a more compassionate and a more genuine representative, and not such a consummate politician,” Levine told the Chronicle.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/oregon-cyrus-javadi-republican-democrat-flip on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SEP 11, 2025, 12:01 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Nancy Mace Flips Out Over Lawmaker’s Observation that “Boob Jobs” Are Gender-Affirming Care

California Democrat Sara Jacobs pointed the fact out as Mace sought to bar trans servicemembers and their families from care.

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South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace called California Democrat Sara Jacobs “disgusting” in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, after Jacobs said medical procedures like “boob jobs” for cisgender people are forms of gender-affirming care.

The incident occurred during floor debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed in the House yesterday with several Mace-sponsored amendments that specifically target transgender servicemembers and their families. While speaking on the floor, Mace once again used a slur when speaking about trans people, which she has done frequently over the past year.

“[I]f they want this harassment to stop, then the trannies need to stop harassing the rest of America,” Mace said, per a transcript of her remarks by The New Republic; Mace also referred to trans people as “weirdos,” “freaks,” and “mentally deranged.”

During debate on Mace’s amendment to ban gender-affirming medical care from military TRICARE health benefits, Jacobs made an observation that was not explicitly leveled at Mace, but seemed to find its mark nevertheless.

“I would just like to point out that it’s interesting my colleague from South Carolina is so obsessed with the issue of trans people, using horrible slurs to talk about them, when many people in this body have received gender-affirming care,” Jacobs said, per The Hill. “Filler is gender-affirming care. Boob jobs [are] gender-affirming care. Botox is gender-affirming care. Lots of my colleagues have received gender-affirming care, and let me be clear, everybody should have access to the gender-affirming care they need, and I think that we should respect everybody in this country.”

Immediately afterward, Mace — long rumored to have received cosmetic surgery — began yelling at Jacobs from her seat, though she was not recognized to speak by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. “Ridiculous. You are absolutely ridiculous. What the hell is your problem?” Mace shouted, calling Jacobs “disgusting” and “an insult.” Mace continued her offensive on Elon Musk’s X platform, denouncing Jacobs’ comments about “my body” and implying her cosmetic surgery was related to being a sexual assault survivor. “PS - I have a good surgeon if you ever want to get your nose done,” Mace added. Jacobs is Jewish.

“I think it’s very telling that she thought that I was picking on her. It sounded like she told [on] herself,” Jacobs told The New Republic in an interview on Wednesday, explaining that two of her siblings are trans and gender-nonconforming, making the issue especially personal.

“[W]hat Nancy Mace is doing is not about misunderstanding. She is intentionally targeting a vulnerable group of people because she wants the attention,” Jacobs went on. “It is cruel. It is mal-intended. And it is not just about she said something wrong once. This has been a very strategic targeted approach she has taken.”

For years, conservatives have pushed for gender-affirming care (such as hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgeries) to be outlawed if they run contrary to a person’s “biological sex,” leaving those procedures available for cisgender people and allowing doctors to perform nonconsensual surgeries on intersex infants. A study last year found that the vast majority of minors receiving gender-affirming surgeries in the U.S. are cis boys with gynecomastia. But in this year’s U.S. v. Skrmetti decision, the Supreme Court declared that a trans boy’s testosterone prescription would constitute a separate medical procedure from an identical prescription given to a cis boy — which must have come as a big relief to the lucrative right-wing testosterone supplement industry.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/nancy-mace-anti-trans-boob-jobs-gender-affirming on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

NEWS | SEP 11, 2025, 11:14 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Harry Potter Fanfiction by Nonbinary Author SenLinYu Turns Into 7-Figure Movie Deal

Alchemised is a “romantasy” novel out later this month.

Legendary Entertainment has scooped up Alchemised, a “romantasy” novel written by nonbinary author SenLinYu that began its life as Harry Potter fanfiction, for a movie adaptation in a seven-figure deal, per The Hollywood Reporter.

The deal, which one source said exceeds $3 million, is one of the highest prices ever for a book movie’s rights, according to THR.

SenLinYu, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, according to the New York Times, said they were “honored by Legendary’s incredible enthusiasm for the project” and that they “can’t wait to see the world of Paladia come to life” in a statement to THR.

SenLinYu is well-known for their fantasy novels, especially for writing Harry Potter fanfiction in the “Dramione” subgenre of stories about the love between Potterverse mainstays Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. Their first book, Manacled, took place in an alternate Harry Potter universe where The Boy Who Lived actually died and evil wizard Voldermort triumphed, according to the Times. The book, which THR describes as “Potter meets Handmaid’s Tale,” was centered on the love between Hermione, a healer and Draco, an executioner.

Though Alchemised, like Manacled, began as a Dramione romance, it transformed into a book outside the Harry Potter universe. The book features an alchemist named Helen Marino who was a “healer of little importance” working as part of a resistance movement who then gets captured.

“To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world,” the book’s description reads. “Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning.”

The book will hit shelves on September 23 and has already ordered an initial printing of 750,000 copies per THR.

Alchemised is poised to be another hit in the “romantasy” genre, a juggernaut in the publishing industry, which caters to fans who grew up on books such as Harry Potter and Twilight, but who crave more adult and explicit themes.

“They grew up with the characters, and the stories ended, but there’s still such a huge appetite,” Leah Hultenschmidt, publisher of the romance imprint Forever, told the Times. “They’re still hungry for that magical world building, an epic cast of characters and heroism, and maybe they just want it a little spicier.”

Books within the genre sold 32 million copies last year, per the Times, up 47 percent from the year prior.

Though newer, and more adult, titles have come to the market, older titles such as the Harry Potter series remain widely popular, with an HBO adaptation forthcoming, even as their creator, J.K. Rowling, has garnered widespread backlash for her adoption of anti-trans views, including from several of the stars of her previous Potter projects. Rowling has dedicated money earned from previous and ongoing Harry Potter IP to create her own organization to fund anti-trans advocacy.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/alchemised-harry-potter-fanfiction-senlinyu-movie-deal on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

Entertainment

- Doja Cat Has an Iconic Laugh on Her New Album, 'Vie.' The Internet Thinks It's RuPaul's

MUSIC | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | SEP 17, 2025, 10:11 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Doja Cat Has an Iconic Laugh on Her New Album. The Internet Thinks It's RuPaul's

“This is literally Doja's Drag Race,” a fan wrote after seeing what appeared to be an ode to the Drag Race Werk Room mirror.

LEONARDO MUNOZ/Getty Images

Doja Cat is certainly stepping her kitty up.

While gearing up for the release of her next studio album Vie, Doja Cat has appeared to incorporate nods, both visually and aurally, to RuPaul’s Drag Race and its host, multiple Emmy winner RuPaul.

On Tuesday, Doja Cat uploaded an animated teaser for her new single, “Gorgeous” that included a lyric from the song, “It’s a crime to be gorgeous,” written in lipstick on a mirror. The promo references the famous —or, sometimes, infamous —  farewells that contestants leave, penned in lipstick, on the vanity mirrors where queens do their makeup.

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The connection between Doja and Drag Race doesn't end there. A promotional clip of another song the star teased, titled “AHH MEN!”, includes what fans believe is a snippet of RuPaul’s infamous laugh. There’s also a sample of the theme song to the television show Knight Rider, which has previously been sampled by Busta Rhymes and Timbaland & Magoo. (The television theme song fits with the album’s larger aesthetic theme, which has seen the singer embrace both the aesthetics and soundscapes of the 1980s.)

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One Doja Cat fan also pointed out that the “Jealous Type” singer has mirrored RuPaul in at least one other way in the run-up to Vie’s September 26 release. Earlier this month, Doja revealed that she was the newest global brand ambassador for MAC Cosmetics, the same company that made RuPaul the face of its very first Viva Glam campaign in 1994.

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Though Doja has yet to make an in-person appearance on the reality competition series, one of her songs has been the soundtrack for one of the song’s most popular lipsyncs from its 15th season, the battle between Anetra and Marcia Marcia Marcia. The two faced off to Doja’s “Boss Bitch,” and featured Anetra’s legendary “Free Willy” leap over her competitor.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/doja-cat-new-album-vie-rupaul-laugh-ahh-men-sample on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

Community

- You've Worn the “Protect the Dolls” Shirt. Here's How to Actually Live Up to the Slogan

COMMUNITY | SEP 16, 2025, 5:05 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

You've Worn the “Protect the Dolls” Shirt. Here's How to Actually Live Up to the Slogan

“Give Money Directly to Doll.”

Liz Coulbourn; Getty; Them

This summer, I found myself at a backyard fundraiser for trans people filled with mostly cis gay men. It was a party for Doll Invasion, the trans takeover of the predominantly cis gay vacation town, the Fire Island Pines, and I was happy to see well over 100 of them paying to get in and support the community. An emcee shouted, “Protect the Dolls!” and the crowd eagerly cheered. Later, I — a trans woman — tried to navigate the crowd to reach the bathroom and found myself fighting most of the way. While some guys smiled and let me squeeze by, others were too absorbed in conversing or making out with each other to notice my presence, or even my taps on their shoulders. “Excuse me,” I said repeatedly, at one point left with no choice but to elbow past.

“Girl,” said Archangel, my friend and fellow DJ at the party, as I recounted the crowd-crossing ordeal. “It’s always like that.” Fighting for space at parties is even harder as a Black trans woman, she explained, especially in mostly non-Black crowds. We agreed that “Protect the Dolls,” a well-intentioned slogan meant to rally public support for trans women, felt increasingly, frustratingly hollow.

“Protect the Dolls” rose to prominence this year when designer Conner Ives sold thousands of t-shirts bearing the phrase, raising more than $500,000 as of April for the peer support network Trans Lifeline. Celebrities like Pedro Pascal and Troye Sivan wore the shirts, while Mariah Carey put “Protect the Dolls” on a custom bedazzled jacket. Most recently, pop star Sabrina Carpenter brought signs reading “Dolls, Dolls, Dolls!” and “Protect Trans Rights” to the VMAs stage. The frustrations Angel and I touched on have proliferated online and in the culture; trans designer Gogo Graham made her own shirt imploring readers to “Give Money Directly to Doll” instead of allowing funds to reach trans women by a “Trickle Down Trannynomics Model” — which even Ives himself wore.

Slogans can be powerful, particularly as national figures loudly paint trans people as violent and deranged or political liabilities, so I’m happy to see cis people doing something. Simultaneously, parroting slogans like “Protect the Dolls” allows people to feel supportive of trans women without actually addressing our material needs or considering the vastly different experiences conflated within the term “doll.” Shirts proliferated, money was raised — but who was “protected,” and from which threats?

Seeking ideas on how folks can practice what they preach, I called Archangel, a co-organizer of New York’s grassroots fundraising and mutual aid project Body Hack, as well as Raquel Willis, a community leader who co-founded the Gender Liberation Movement.

“So much of the discussion focuses on ‘how do I be a good ally’ versus, ‘how do I do my part to change the material conditions for the folks most impacted?”

Consider what you mean by "doll"

Willis and Archangel both began by highlighting ballroom culture, which they call the root of the term “doll,” and was created by Black and Latina trans women.

“Today that term is applied to all trans women,” Archangel says. “But when people take it out of context, they may exclude the very people who created it.”

Willis called the over-extension of the term “problematic” as its effects may prioritize a certain class of trans people over Black and Latina trans women who experience higher rates of discrimination, incarceration, suicidality, and violence. “Celebrities might wear a shirt to signal support,” she tells Them. “But I imagine they’re often thinking of a white trans model or actress — not the everyday trans people navigating hardships in a country constantly telling them they shouldn’t exist.”

To Archangel, “Protect the Dolls” can feel like an unhelpful euphemism that obscures who’s most in danger. “Why not just say ‘Protect Black Trans Women?’” she asks. “It feels like saying ‘doll’ is more palatable — a way of saying something without backlash. But when I see white celebrities wear that shirt, part of me wonders, why not something braver?”

“So much of the discussion focuses on ‘how do I be a good ally’ versus, ‘how do I do my part to change the material conditions for the folks most impacted?

“Protection” starts with how you treat trans people

Archangel says she gets especially frustrated by people within the LGBTQ+ community who fail in their interactions with trans women, particularly those of color. She and her friends have even been mocked by white gay men for asking for small favors like a free drink or space in the dinner line at a festival, despite the wide gulf in privilege and resources.

“People are so quick to bring up Marsha P. Johnson, or other trans women who died due to circumstances surrounding their identity,” she says. “But how do you treat the Black trans women you actually know? How do you treat a trans woman you’re in conflict with?” She adds, “If we want to protect trans people, we need to be prioritizing awareness of things like Black liberation, white supremacy, and class.” She’d like allies to be more aware of transmisogynoir — the intersection of anti-Blackness, misogyny, and transphobia.

Of course, actions speak louder than words. Cis allies who want to go beyond just expressing support should evaluate how they behave toward trans people and in shared community spaces. Or, as Willis put it: “I want anyone wearing a ‘Protect the Dolls’ shirt to consider how the doll might need to be protected from them.”

“There’s a disconnect between what’s being said, and what’s actually being done.”

Make trans people leaders and equal collaborators

Implicit in the word “protect” is the existence of a threat. Willis named access to healthcare, restrooms, and identity documents as some of trans people’s latest challenges. But “I don’t think we can always follow the headlines,” she adds. “There’s been ongoing violence, largely for Black and brown trans women, for decades, and gatekeepers in LGBTQ+ community have not prioritized this.”

Like Archangel, she deals with harm from within the community — not just interpersonally, but structurally as well. “Large national LGBTQ+ organizations might have agendas and budgets that center trans people, but never had anyone trans leading them,” she says. “That’s a huge problem. There’s a disconnect between what’s being said, and what’s actually being done.”

Don’t be an “ally” — be an accomplice

“The harsh reality is that it tends to be trans people saving each other,” Angel says. “If we could depend on cis people to protect us, then maybe we wouldn’t need to fundraise, or share each other’s mutual aid posts, or even do this interview.”

Willis believes that “performative allyship” can actually do more harm than good. “So much of the discussion focuses on ‘how do I be a good ally’ versus, ‘how do I do my part to change the material conditions for the folks most impacted? What access do I have to open the door for others?’” she says. “If you cannot interrogate your own platform and privilege in relation to the dolls, then you’re potentially hurting many people and the larger movement.”

Leveraging privilege might mean passing the mic, or sharing knowledge and resources. I think of rock band Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, a cis man, replacing TRANSA contributing musician Claire Rousay’s stolen instruments, or Lilly Wachowski producing Geena Rocero’s Dolls (though Wachowski is trans, showing how often we open these doors for each other). Sabrina Carpenter’s performance featured trans women as backup dancers, but as Trace Lysette noted, we rarely, if ever, get to take center stage. A sign in the background read “Tip The Dolls.” Better yet: give the dolls a budget, and long-term employment.

For those who want to move beyond performance and into meaningful support — from ally to accomplice — “building relationships is key,” Willis said. “If you’re interested in learning how to be better, you need to actually be in conversation with trans people, especially those facing the brunt of violence. Do your research, get connected to local grassroots orgs, and support them.”

In lieu of seeing trans women as passive actors in need of “protecting,” Willis implores cis accomplices to simply join the fights we’re already waging. “Trans people are going to fight and build as we always have,” she says. “The task is for folks to be in lockstep, to listen — to build with, not for or over each other.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/how-to-protect-the-dolls on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

Style

- Tracey Africa Norman, Reported Inspiration to Angel of 'Pose,' Is Back on the Runway

- Naomi Watts' Trans Daughter Kai Schreiber Is Having Her Best Fashion Week Yet

- 'Drag Race' Stars Take Over Emmys 2025 Red Carpet as Michael Jackson, Miss Piggy and a "Slaysian Labubu"

FASHION | JAMES FACTORA | SEP 16, 2025, 3:22 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Tracey Africa Norman, Reported Inspiration to Pose's Angel, Is Back on the Runway

The model, who just walked the Luar show, recently spoke out about her career inspiring the hit Ryan Murphy series.

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Tracey Africa Norman, who is widely considered the first successful Black trans model, returned to the runway this New York Fashion Week, walking for Luar.

The legendary model walked the runway toward the middle of the show, which took place Monday evening. She wore a two-piece set consisting of a collared shirt and a skirt, both of which were beige with exaggerated black dots. With her hair pulled back, she also wore a black and white feathered headpiece, as well as a black tie and a pair of the brand's Jehan belted mule shoes in brown — a perfectly androgynous, yet feminine, blend of elements.

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As mentioned, Norman is widely considered the first successful Black trans model. She was discovered by Irving Penn at a casting call for Italian Vogue, and landed contracts with Avon skin care and Clairol's Born Beautiful hair color boxes as The Cut noted in its 2015 profile of her. But she was not out as trans at the time that her star was rising. She was seemingly outed after a holiday shoot for Essence around 1980, per The Cut, and once the word spread that she was trans, she stopped getting booked for gigs. She attempted to restart her career in Paris and found work as a house model for Balenciaga, but her career ended when she returned Stateside.

“There was a perception that a transgender woman couldn’t be passable and work in fashion magazines and land contracts,” she told The Cut at the time. “I proved that wrong. I left the door cracked for other [transgender people] to walk through.”

Norman wasn’t the only legendary LGBTQ+ model featured in the Luar show either. As fashion writer Rian Phin captured in a video on X, Dominican supermodel Omahyra Mota also walked the runway, showcasing a sleek black velour two piece ensemble. Dazed has referred to her as “the OG androgynous model… paving the way for all the bleached eyebrows and buzzcuts we see walking today.”

The brand’s spring 2026 collection, dubbed “Fantasía,” was shown on Monday night. Designer Raúl Lopez, who has always incorporated his Dominican heritage into his fashions, told W Magazine that with this collection, he sought to “reclaim what was taken through colonization, through enslavement, through the wiping away of Indigenous people.” “I wanted to pay homage and respect what has come before me, but make it my own, modern and fresh,” Lopez told the publication.

Following The Cut article, Norman’s career experienced a resurgence. Clairol brought her back for another campaign and she recently worked with Oribe, among other brands. The added attention has also allowed her to speak out on her unrecognized impact. In a recent appearance on the FQ Crazy, Sexy, Cool podcast, she claimed that she had previously received extensive interest in her life story from various production companies, including Lifetime. However, when Pose began airing (which based Angel’s career storyline on her life), Norman said that those companies were “no longer interested because my story was on film now.” She also noted, she did not receive any money from Pose’s alleged use of her life story.

“I didn’t get anything,” she said in the episode, stating she had “mixed feelings” about the series.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/tracey-africa-norman-luar-nyfw-pose-angel-inspiration-model on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

FASHION | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | SEP 15, 2025, 10:59 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Naomi Watts' Trans Daughter Kai Schreiber Is Having Her Best Fashion Week Yet

The model is walking New York Fashion Week for the first time and marked a major milestone.

Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images

Kai Schreiber lit up the New York Fashion Week runways, opening the show for designer Jason Wu, while also participating in several other fashion shows, as well.

The opening and closing spots in a runway lineup are widely considered the most important within the fashion industry. Schreiber, the daughter of actors Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, shared stills and video from her Wu runway debut on Instagram Sunday.

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The video shows several angles of the teen walking in the show, which celebrated the 100th birthday of artist Robert Rauschenberg, and explored the relationship between art and fashion. The show was staged in collaboration with the late artist’s foundation. To create the looks, Wu was granted access to Rauschenberg's archive; the art not only influenced the clothing, but was on display during the runway.

“It marks a time that we’re in right now. I think now we need beauty more than ever, but yet, it’s also a reflection of me,” Wu told Women’s Wear Daily. “I’m a collage — I’ve lived everywhere, and New York is the biggest collage place ever.”

Schreiber has had quite the busy fashion week; aside from opening for Wu, the IMG model also walked for Altuzarra, COS, Calvin Klein and Michael Kors, each of which were highlighted on her Instagram.

Though Schreiber is a rising talent in the fashion world, she is very willing to give credit to those who paved the way for her success. In a June conversation with Interview, Schreiber named all the trans runway models she looked up, including 2024 Model of the Year Alex Consani.

“As a young trans girl, I’m always going to look up to the older generation of transgender people, especially in fashion,” Schreiber said. “People like Alex Consani, Hunter Schafer, Hari Nef, Dara, Richie Shazam, Colin Jones, and so many more. It’s so great that there’s a strong community of us in the fashion world; it’s really a doll takeover.”

Schreiber debuted on the runway earlier this year at the Valentino fall 2025 runway show during Paris Fashion Week. Watts noted she was “squealing with pride!” in an Instagram post accompanying her daughters’ accomplishment.

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Schreiber’s father has been supportive of his daughter, as well. In an interview with Variety in May, the Ray Donovan star said that the “most profound moment” was when she asked to change her pronouns. He added that it “didn’t feel like that big of a deal to me only because Kai had been so feminine for so long.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/kai-schreiber-new-york-fashion-week-jason-wu on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

FASHION | MIKELLE STREET | SEP 14, 2025, 7:31 PM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Drag Race Stars Take Over Emmys 2025 Red Carpet as Michael Jackson, Miss Piggy and a "Slaysian Labubu"

The contestants on season 17 of the hit show brought camp to the fancy event.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Leave it to Kori King!

Though she didn’t win any of the big prizes on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 17, Kori King has won the internet time and time again. Now, the Cameo star is back at it on the 2025 Emmys red carpet where she dressed as Michael Jackson. Yes, you read that right: Michael Jackson.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Kori King attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

This isn’t the first time that King has got into drag as the King of Pop. Jackson was her original Snatch Game character, according to a video on her YouTube, and is one in the cast of characters she does Cameo videos in. (She’s incredibly popular on that video-sharing service, recently telling Trinity the Tuck that she made over $50,000 on Cameo since competing on Drag Race.) Now, she’s bringing the funny to the Emmy awards.

She wasn’t the only season 17 contestant to get into character drag. Joella, the Slayzian Diva of Los Angeles, came dressed as the “Slayzian Labubu.” Her look was a human-sized recreation of the hyper-popular doll complete with a bamboo-style hat and a bag made to look like a Chinese takeout carton. This follows designer and stylist Marko Monroe making a Labubu version of the Moonperson for MTV’s Video Music Awards earlier this year.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Joella attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

And then there was Hormona Lisa, who came as Miss Piggy in a black dress and a Kermit hand puppet as her date.

The three aren’t the first Drag Race girls to eschew the typical eleganza drag that is expected at the Emmys. Princess Poppy notably walked the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards red carpet in January 2024 dressed as a green troll. Painted completely green, she wore prosthetics to give herself pointed green ears and an oversized nose. She also picked a strapless green dress cut high in the front and low in the back.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Hormona Lisa attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

Later that same year, Plane Jane attended the 76th annual event in a look that many took as one inspired by the OnlyFans model Mary Magdalene. This included tattoos all over her body as well as large prosthetic breasts and a short red dress.

Other season 17 girls opted for their version of glamorous for the red carpet. Suzie Toot, noted for her period costumes for example, chose a black-and-white gown featuring a bowler hat and whiteface. See their looks below.

Sam Star

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Sam Star attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

Suzie Toot

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Suzie Toot attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Savion Washington/Getty Images)Savion Washington/Getty Images

Lexi Love

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Lexi Love attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Savion Washington/Getty Images)Savion Washington/Getty Images

Jewels Sparkles

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Jewels Sparkles attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Arrietty

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Arrietty attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

Acacia Forgot

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Acacia Forgot attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

Lucky Starzzz

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Lucky Starzzz attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage)Maya Dehlin Spach

Lana Ja'Rae

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Lana Ja'Rae attends the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on September 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/emmys-2025-drag-race-kori-king-michael-jackson-red-carpet on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

Culture

- Jordan Tannahill's ‘Prince Fggt’ Delves into Prince George, Gay Fetish and Class Politics

ART | SEP 12, 2025, 8:57 AM EDT | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Prince F*gg*t Says It's About Prince George — It’s Really About Jordan Tannahill

“I think the theater is a site of reckoning and a place to work through complicated, difficult, uncomfortable ideas.”

Courtesy

“I canceled my fisting date today,” Jordan Tannahill casually tells Them over Zoom on a recent Tuesday morning. It’s the day after an invite-only dress rehearsal for his Off-Broadway play Prince Faggot and the understandably exhausted playwright has been struggling with an increasingly sore throat for days. “I’m just like, I've got to rest all my holes. It’s a Sleepytime Bear day.”

It’s a fitting introduction to our conversation about his play, which became a surprise hit during its debut run at Playwrights Horizons (coproduced by Soho Rep) earlier this summer and has since transferred to Studio Seaview for a follow-up this fall. Inspired by Tannahill’s encounter with a now-infamous picture of a four-year-old Prince George standing inside a helicopter, the play dares to ask the question: What if the heir to the Royal Throne grew up to be a gay man? But much like Tannahill’s candid mention of kink, Prince Faggot isn’t interested in a tame depiction of palatable queerness. After all, the play is as much about himself as it is about the prince of the title.

Largely set in 2032 England, Prince Faggot follows an imaginary future version of the Royal Family, focusing on George (John McCrea) as he introduces his parents, William (Tyrone Mitchell Henderson) and Kate (Rachel Crowl), to his new boyfriend Dev (Mihir Kumar), an Oxford art history grad student whose own working class background and anti-imperialist politics predictably pose problems for his budding relationship with a member of the monarchy.

And yet, the show isn’t really about the Royal Family, at least not entirely. Prince Faggot boasts an all queer and trans cast; each actor — including N’yomi Allure Stewart as Princess Charlotte and a house servant, and David Greenspan as the family’s longtime butler and a fast-talking, scarily efficient communications director — pulls double-duty, embodying both their “characters” in the play and versions of themselves (real names included). As a result, the play works as an ultra-meta intellectual exercise as actors frequently jump out of the main narrative to break the fourth-wall, speaking directly to the audience about their individual, quasi-real-life experiences as queer people.

It’s an intriguing conceit for a play that is both wildly entertaining and deeply introspective. Drawing directly from many of Tannahill’s own experiences, George’s journey isn’t merely about challenging the norms of noble society; as the young royal dives deeper into queer culture, he explores kink, battles substance abuse, and wrestles with the implications of his own sociopolitical beliefs. The production doesn’t shy away from explicit depictions and discussions of these topics, but Prince Faggot isn’t provocative for its own sake. Rather, Tannahill uses them as an entrypoint for navigating thornier conversations about the ways in which queerness is inextricably linked to matters of class and how the path to finding oneself as a queer individual can sometimes be as self-destructive as it is freeing. As the playwright says, “I think the theater is a site of reckoning and a place to work through complicated, difficult, uncomfortable ideas.”

On the eve of a new theatrical run, Tannahill spoke to Them about putting “butt-fucking” on stage, why this play had to be about real people, and what we can expect from his feature directorial debut Rapture.

A lot of the origin story for Prince Faggot is already addressed during that opening monologue where Mihir, as himself, tells the audience about “his” encounter with that photo of Prince George. But when were you actually like, “This should really be a play?”

Well, I came across that photo when everyone else did, on the internet in 2017, and I had such a strong instance of identification with that photo. I just felt like, Oh my god, this photo really reminds me of these unselfconscious, joyfully effeminate poses that I would make as a child, in this moment where I was pre-shame and pre-conscious of my gender and my sexuality.

I do remember an age where I became very hyper-conscious of my affects around gender and sexuality — I think it was really around middle school — and suddenly really understanding that being an effeminate boy or being gay were real liabilities on the playground. But prior to that, so many photographs betray a pre-conscious queerness that I look back on with a great deal of fondness, but also a great deal of protectiveness [because] I know the trials that are in store for this child. And I remember actually finding some early photographs when I was about 12 or 13 of myself at the age of 4 and 5, and they just felt like such tells that I was a gay child that I actually destroyed them. I ripped them up. I had such internalized shame at the time about that. All that came back to me when I saw those photographs of Prince George.

The play makes clear that we actually truly do not know and would not dare to predict his future sexuality. That instance of self-identification and recognition was really just sort of a departure point for this thought experiment: Should that be true, how might this play out on this grand stage of family and society and interpersonal relationships? But really, the story is a vehicle for us to examine our own relationships with power and colonization and queerness.

Going off that, did you ever consider just using fully fictionalized characters? I imagine that referencing real-life people would always come with added complications.

It’s interesting. The play was initially going to be produced in London, with this theater company that will remain unnamed. I had the support of the artistic director, who was very excited about the show. But then, the board of directors read the script and were like, “Absolutely not. You have to change all the names. This has to be a fictionalized royal family.”

I really sat with that note and tried to interrogate why it felt like I couldn’t do that artistically. For me, it was that so much of the play is about this ensemble of queer and trans performers who, compared to the royal family, are existing in the margins of power and are looking inward at it. So much of the dramatic tension in the show is about us stepping into these roles and embodying these real people and tangibly feeling the distance between where these performers are as individuals — who they are as people, what kind of politics their bodies hold — and the real-life individuals that they’re embodying.

For instance, it’s a different political proposal for Rachel Crowl, as a trans woman, to say, “I’m playing the Queen of England” if we’re in this fictional universe. It’s like Brandy in Cinderella — there’s no real stakes to it because we’re post-race, post-sexuality, post-politics. But for her to say, “I’m stepping into the role of Kate Middleton as a trans woman, and I’m not just going to do a broad drag send-up. I’m actually trying to embody this person, as fully and spiritually as possible,” it’s almost like ballroom realness. They’re doing a critique or even a deconstruction of who Kate Middleton is.

I think people come to the show expecting it to be this broad satire, so they’re maybe surprised to find that we’re portraying the characters in the show as real individuals. Rachel’s really doing her very best Kate Middleton. Tyrone is really doing his best Prince William. At the end of the day, they are symbols, but they’re also real people — and I think that by portraying them as real people, by rendering them as complex, fully formed individuals, we also hold them to account as real people. They’re not just symbols, and actually, the dramas of sexuality and power do play out on a human-to-human level and on an interpersonal level.

Did that same thinking extend to the depiction of sex? These characters are obviously aged up, but because you’re using “real” people, I could see some people being uncomfortable with the idea of imagining this vivid, kinky sex life for someone like George who, for all intents and purposes, is still a child right now.

I talked a lot about this with Jeremy O. Harris, who is a producer on the show and has been a great thought partner. I was like, “Should we fictionalize the show? Should we fictionalize this prince?” And he was like, “Look, ultimately, if we’re staging a show with the British Royal Family and there’s this young prince we’re talking about, people will draw these [conclusions anyway].” So, rather than shying away from it, rather than pretending we’re not doing something, it’s better to actually lean into the moral disquiet of the show and say, “Look, this is uncomfortable and we’re going to talk through why this is uncomfortable.”

But also, I was just like, Would it be so horrible to imagine that the heir to the British throne might grow up to have a life that resembled my own? For me, this is a work of self-portraiture. I basically go about imagining, in this fictional scenario, that George might have my life. All the various travails that he encounters in the script — whether it’s substance abuse, an exploration of fetish, the disintegration of certain relationships, or tension with his family — are things that I have directly experienced. I’m writing not from a place of sensationalism, but from a place of deep empathy for him. Obviously, it’s a fictional character, so we can’t predict his actual life. But the thought experiment was: What if he grew up to have my life? What if I was to place myself within George in order to examine the distance between our experience and our lives?

John McCrea as Prince George and Mihir Kumar as Dev

Marc J. Franklin

The play has this deliberately provocative title. (Technically speaking, a majority of the population shouldn’t even say it aloud.) Did you ever fear the title to be a deterrent?

That definitely was a question for me. Would The Times reprint the title? Would The New Yorker reprint it? Could we put it on the side of a building or in public-facing ads, like on buses or at bus stops? The fact that we can is interesting to me. I don’t take that for granted because I’m like, We might live in a society where we can’t in 15 years. But it delights me, to be honest. When I walk out of Port Authority and I look up and just see the word “FAGGOT” emblazoned on the side of Studio Seaview in these 20-foot letters with this huge butt on Ninth Avenue, I’m like, “Okay, girl. You did that.”

When you hear about a play imagining a gay heir to the Royal Throne, I think it’s quite easy to assume where it’s going: his family won’t accept it. So I was quite surprised that, when George comes out, there aren’t too many issues around his “queerness,” per se. Was there a reason you didn’t want to go the traditional homophobia route?

I mean, not to say that that story doesn’t have value, but it’s not personally that interesting to me. Look, I’ve written the “being gay is hard” stories. But I feel like I’m not at that place in my life right now. That’s not my struggle, thankfully. I’m [more] interested in trying to understand how else my sexuality is interacting with social constraints and power. There are just so many colors and facets to the queer experience that I’d love to see on stage.

A huge impetus to write this play was collapsing the distance between my lived life and the theater that I was making. I was living in London, working as a BDSM escort, and I was like, Look, my lived life can’t be more interesting than the theater that I’m making. I wanted to see that on stage. I wanted to see complicated work about fetish, and its historical, personal, and spiritual significance. I wanted to see how desire and the search for the ecstatic could bind people but also destroy relationships. There are just things in my own journey that I was really wanting to wrestle and grapple with in the theater. So that’s what the play became.

The sex in the play is very explicit and raw, not just in the act itself but also in the dialogue that accompanies it. We get this very vivid dirty talk, but it also feels very real for the ways many of us have sex. How did you approach that aspect?

Someone I would love to uplift is Dave Anzuelo, who was our intimacy coordinator. Great intimacy coordination should certainly be about making a safe space for actors to be able to be that vulnerable with each other, but it’s also about creating…if not the conditions for, then the simulation of real chemistry between performers. It’s the sense of, “Oh, this is about pleasure, this is about desire, and we believe it to be such.” So [I wanted to make sure that] we see their desire for one another, but we also see the nuances of, say, a first encounter with poppers. What does it feel like to do poppers for the first time, to have that hit your body in a certain way and have a sense of withholding but then give way to something? Or, What does it mean to pull out and be like, “Oh, am I clean?” It’s all these little nuances of gay sex that are both delightful and a little bit abject and vulnerable. It was really beautiful working to craft sex that felt not like we were gesturing at sex, but like sex itself. That was something we really wanted — to be like, “We want to show gay sex on stage. We want to show butt-fucking on stage.”

But we also wanted to not create a hierarchy of value around the activities we engage in within a given day as queer people. On any given day, I’ll wake up, have a shower, have a conversation with my friends, go to the bank, go home and have some butt-sex, go to work. These are all just things that are unfolding in our day, and we wanted to give equal weight and space and also equal clarity to the ways in which we stage that.

This is a story ostensibly about Prince George (or your imagined version of a future him), but I found it quite clever how you still managed to present queerness as this larger tapestry. The cast features a brown gay man, a Black gay man, a white trans woman, a Black trans woman, and an older white gay man, and they all get these moments to speak to their specific experiences in ways that feel deeply personal. As a playwright, how did you approach writing for experiences that don’t exactly mirror your own?

That’s a great question. I really wanted the piece to feel polyphonic and multi-perspectival, and in the play, yes, there are these direct-address monologues, which I did author. But I think of them almost as haute couture pieces that I’ve designed specifically for those actors to perform, based on conversations we’ve had in rehearsal and in the workshop process.

I’m always very wary of asking an actor to do the emotional labor of divulging experiences of traumas in their lives. But what I love about the rehearsal and show-building process is that you do reckon with the themes of the show. You talk about your own personal relationships with the politics of the show or with the interpersonal dynamics that are represented within the show. And [using] those conversations, I wrote the monologues in the voice and syntax of the actor, drawing on what I knew of their experiences in a way that feels like I’m meeting them halfway. So I think of it as a collaboration.

The monologue that, of course, is real is N’yomi [Allure Stewart]’s at the very end. The play plays with fact and fiction throughout, but that’s the one moment where the truth really just ruptures through the fiction. It culminates in this extended moment of basically verbatim text that arose out of a conversation between N’yomi and I in the rehearsal hall, in which I removed my own voice from the conversation. I shaped it a little bit, but it’s really all N’yomi and her actual story. I think it’s such a potent summation of all the various threads of the piece.

Before we wrap up, I wanted to take a quick pivot because I know you’re gearing up to film for your feature directorial debut, Rapture. What can you tell me about that?

Rapture is a film that I wrote and will be directing, starring Kit Connor, Will Poulter, and Manu Rios. It’s set at a Cistercian monastery in Yorkshire in 1348, the year that the Black Death arrives on what we now call the British Isles. It’s about how this order of monks contends with the arrival of this apocalyptic plague and the moral crises that arise therein, but at the heart of it is this deep, passionate relationship between these two young monks who have grown up together. It’s queer body horror.

I think all three of those actors I mentioned — among some other great performers, some of whom are also queer — are going to give these exciting performances that we haven’t seen from them before. I feel like it’s going to be a juicy film — and hopefully, a pretty terrifying one, too. We’re in the thick of pre-production at the moment, but the hope is to be going into principal photography fairly soon. I’m just really excited to share this story with the world.

Prince Faggot is playing at Studio Seaview through November 9.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/prince-faggot-gay-sex-scenes-george-kink-fetish-jordan-tannahill on Sep 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM EDT.

Table of Contents

Them.: 2025 Sep 17

News

Trump Admits He Would Remove Pride Flags If the 1st Amendment Didn't Stop Him

Billie Eilish and Indya Moore Join PSA About Palestine: "It's Important to Speak Out Now"

Jerry of Ben & Jerry's Resigns Citing Censorship Amid Trump's Attack on LGBTQ+ Community

Michigan Republican Bill Bans All Porn and Depictions of Trans People

Maine Schools Are Standing Up to the DOJ’s Demand for Info on Trans Youth

WeHo and Fire Island Called Out for Lowering Pride Flags Over Charlie Kirk: “Don't Make Our Joy Honor Our Oppressor”

History-Making Gay NBA Player Jason Collins in Treatment for Brain Tumor

DC Comics Cancels 'Red Hood' Over Trans Writer Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Charlie Kirk Comments

Is Charlie Kirk's Shooter Trans? Everything We Know About the Trump Ally and His Anti-LGBTQ+ Views

Republican Legislator Turns Democrat, Credits Gay Son: “I've Had Enough”

Nancy Mace Flips Out Over Lawmaker’s Observation that “Boob Jobs” Are Gender-Affirming Care

Harry Potter Fanfiction by Nonbinary Author SenLinYu Turns Into 7-Figure Movie Deal

Entertainment

Doja Cat Has an Iconic Laugh on Her New Album, 'Vie.' The Internet Thinks It's RuPaul's

Community

You've Worn the “Protect the Dolls” Shirt. Here's How to Actually Live Up to the Slogan

Style

Tracey Africa Norman, Reported Inspiration to Angel of 'Pose,' Is Back on the Runway

Naomi Watts' Trans Daughter Kai Schreiber Is Having Her Best Fashion Week Yet

'Drag Race' Stars Take Over Emmys 2025 Red Carpet as Michael Jackson, Miss Piggy and a "Slaysian Labubu"

Culture

Jordan Tannahill's ‘Prince Fggt’ Delves into Prince George, Gay Fetish and Class Politics