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- West Virginia v B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox: The Supreme Court's Trans Athletes Case, Explained

- Red Carpet Troll Arrested After Charging at Ariana Grande. Cynthia Erivo Got Between Them

- The Right Is Now Transvestigating Charlie Kirk and His Wife, Erika

- City Council to Florida AG Over Drag Show: We Did Not Ask For Your Legal Opinion

- After Kicking Cis Lesbians Out of a Bathroom, Boston Hotel Reaches Discrimination Settlement

- Human Rights Campaign Cuts Ties to Weapons Manufacturers After 2-Year Activist Campaign

- Support for Same-Sex Marriage Has Dropped, Amid Conservative Attacks

- Olympics Move to Ban Trans Women and Cis Female Athletes With "Male Levels of Testosterone"

- Maine Parents Demand Town Board Break the Law, Bar Trans Kid From Basketball Team

- Florida AG Calls for Christmas Drag Show to Be Canceled, Targets Trinity the Tuck and Suzie Toot

- Michael Heard, Adult Star Behind "Yes King" TikTok Audio, Reportedly Dead

- In Rare LGBTQ+ Win: Supreme Court Decides Not to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage

- 4 Dead After Speeding Car Crashes Outside Tampa Gay Club, Bradley’s on 7th

- SNAP Benefits Are Delayed For Thousands. Here’s How Queer Food Justice Activists Are Responding

- Woman Crashes Out at School Board Meeting Over Queer Teacher Bringing Husband's Brownies to Class

- Texas Court Approves Partial Drag Performance Ban

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | NOV 13, 2025, 4:42 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The Supreme Court's Trans Athlete Ban Cases, Set for January, Explained

The ramifications of these cases could reach far beyond sports.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases about transgender athletes in January, which legal advocates warn could have broad consequences for trans civil rights far beyond the world of sports.

On Wednesday, the Court scheduled oral arguments in the cases West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox for January 13, 2026. In both cases, trans athletes have alleged that laws banning trans girls and women from school sports leagues in Idaho and West Virginia violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

Conservatives hope that the Court will eventually rule in favor of both state bans, which advocates say could imperil many other trans civil rights by creating a pretext to classify trans people based on a binary definition of “biological sex” — a project being aggressively advanced by the Trump administration. Here’s what you need to know about both cases before arguments begin next year.

What are the issues in Little v. Hecox?

In 2020, the ACLU brought a lawsuit against Idaho Gov. Brian Little to block the enforcement of H.B. 500, which banned trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports leagues in public schools, colleges, or universities — the first such categorical ban to become law in the U.S. The suit (originally titled Hecox v. Little) argued that the law violated students’ rights to equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. It was brought on behalf of Lindsay Hecox, then a track athlete at Boise State University, and an anonymous cisgender high schooler who was concerned about being subjected to “sex verification” in order to participate in school sports.

A district court issued an injunction against the law in 2020, which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals partly upheld in 2024, agreeing that Hecox would likely succeed on the merits of her equal protection claim. Little then appealed the Ninth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that the state ban did not violate the Constitution because it “says nothing about gender identity” and was necessary to protect cis women from “male athletes benefiting from obvious physiological advantages.” Little’s petition to SCOTUS also asked the Court to hear West Virginia v. B.P.J. simultaneously. The Court agreed to hear both cases in July.

In September, Hecox filed to dismiss the proceedings on grounds of mootness, attesting that she no longer had any intention of participating in BSU athletics. “In the five years since this case commenced, Ms. Hecox has faced significant challenges that have affected her both personally and academically,” including the death of her father in 2022, her attorneys wrote. “Ms. Hecox has also come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters because of this litigation,” they added, and continuing to try out amid such attention would “distract her from her schoolwork and prevent her from meeting her academic and personal goals.” But the Idaho district court struck Hecox’s motion to dismiss on procedural grounds, and on October 20, the Supreme Court deferred consideration of Hecox’s motion to dismiss until after oral arguments, per court records.

What are the issues in West Virginia v. B.P.J.?

West Virginia lawmakers passed their own ban on trans women in women’s sports in 2021, which was blocked by a district court a few months later. The case was filed jointly by the ACLU and Lambda Legal on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a trans girl who was then 11 years old. The district court agreed that West Virginia’s ban likely violated not only the 14th Amendment, but also Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans sex discrimination in education.

In 2023, the Supreme Court declined to grant West Virginia’s emergency motion to enforce the law against Pepper-Jackson, though Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. In 2024, an appeals court upheld the district court’s ruling on Title IX grounds, but instructed the lower court to reappraise Pepper-Jackson’s equal protection claim. The state, claiming that Pepper-Jackson had since “displaced hundreds of [cis] girls in track and field,” then petitioned the Court to hear the case and determine whether the ban violates either Title IX or the 14th Amendment. The Court agreed to do so alongside Little v. Hecox in July.

What has Becky Pepper-Jackson said about her case?

Pepper-Jackson’s mother Heather Jackson filed a response on her behalf with the Supreme Court on November 10, arguing that West Virginia’s arguments were “brimming with contradictions” and that the law had effectively “banned exactly one sixth-grade transgender girl from participating on her school’s cross-country and track-and-field teams with her friends.”

“Rarely has there been such a disconnect between a law’s actual operation and the claimed justifications for it,” Jackson’s brief contended.

In a statement released through the ACLU the same day, Pepper-Jackson, now 15, said that she wanted to join school teams “for the same reason other kids on my track team do — to make friends, have fun, and challenge myself through practice and teamwork.”

“[A]ll I’ve ever wanted was the same opportunities as my peers. Instead, I’ve had my rights and my life debated by politicians who’ve never even met me but want to stop me from playing sports with my friends,” Pepper-Jackson’s statement went on. “I know this case isn’t just about me, or even just about sports. It’s just one part of a plan to push transgender people like me out of public life entirely.”

How could Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. impact other trans civil rights?

Banning trans people from sports — whether a local roller derby league or an international track competition — is bad enough. But legal advocates have long warned that the effects of those bans do not stop at athletic participation. Trans sports bans, including Idaho’s and West Virginia’s, legally rest on the assumption that trans women are “biological males” with inherent physiological advantages over cis women, and thus must be treated as though they are men. That assumption, which is not supported by science, can open the door for other policies that harm trans people by defining them based on a narrow view of “biological sex” — such as housing trans women in men’s prisons, where they face severe risks of violence (a process sometimes called “v-coding.”)

“What we don’t know — and won’t know until that ruling [in West Virginia v. B.P.J.] is handed down — is whether that ruling will be narrowly tailored to the context of athletics or implicate a broad range of rights for transgender people,” wrote ACLU Communications Director Gillian Branstetter in September. As Branstetter noted, many conservative political attacks on trans rights over the past decade have targeted access to public accommodations, accurate identity documents, and other areas in which trans people already often experience discrimination.

“Depending on the precise language of the court’s ruling, it could likewise implicate our fight for equality in those contexts and potentially many more, like our access to health care and our safety while incarcerated,” Branstetter wrote. “This is why, even though the number of transgender students in athletics is small, their right to play has become a central focus of politicians who want to push transgender people out of public life altogether. Their hope is that a Supreme Court ruling against the rights of girls like Pepper-Jackson will allow them to discriminate against transgender people in many more contexts and, eventually, deny us our freedom to be ourselves entirely.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/supreme-court-trans-athletes-ban-scheduled-west-virginia-hecox-little-explained on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | NOV 13, 2025, 12:50 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Red Carpet Troll Arrested After Charging at Ariana Grande. Cynthia Erivo Got Between Them

When security failed at their jobs, Cynthia Erivo stepped into the breach.

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - NOVEMBER 13: Michelle Yeoh , Ariana Grande , Cynthia Erivo , Jeff Goldblum and Jon M. Chu react during the handprint ceremony of the "Wicked: For Good" Asia-Pacific Premiere at Universal Studio Singapore on November 13, 2025 in Singapore. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images

After jumping a barricade to lunge at Ariana Grande, self-described troll Johnson Wen has posted on his social media accounts that he was arrested and then released.

Footage of Wen’s charging at Grande went viral on Thursday morning. In the clips seen on social media, he launches himself over a barricade and runs toward Grande at the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good.

As he puts his arm around Grande, co-star Cynthia Erivo physically separates Wan from Grande while several security professionals work to escort him away. Erivo and Michelle Yeoh can be seen comforting Grande in several videos of the incident which have since gone viral.

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Wen posted the viral video on his Instagram account alongside the caption, “Dear Ariana Grande Thank You for letting me Jump on the Yellow Carpet with You.” Several commenters underneath Wen’s post decried his actions.

“Do you think this is okay?” one fan account wrote. “This is sick! It ruined the experience for fans who dreamed of this moment and put lives at risk. All for pure ego! Seek help.”

Shortly after the incident, Wen, who goes by “Pyjama Mann” on Instagram, posted a video to his stories with the caption “I’m Free after being arrested.”

Wen, who self-describes as a “troll” on his Instagram account, is known for disrupting public events and posting about it on social media. Earlier this year, he jumped on stage during a Katy Perry concert in Sydney and, in August, charged on stage during a set from The Weeknd in Melbourne.

In the past few years, music artists have noted that fan behavior at concerts has become more disruptive and dangerous. Earlier this week, singer Halsey was groped on stage during a performance in Washington, D.C. Of course, Wen’s stunt brings such violations to a new level and on a more global stage. Wen, who has also disrupted events at the Paris Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, has reportedly racked up more than $20,000 in fines over his viral stunts, per the Daily Mail.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/ariana-grande-cynthia-erivo-wicked-for-good-fan-troll-johnson-wen on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | NOV 13, 2025, 12:38 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The Right Is Now Transvestigating Charlie Kirk and His Wife, Erika

Transphobia truly impacts us all.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

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We all knew it was inevitable: the MAGA conspiracy set is knee-deep in transvestigating Charlie Kirk and his widow, Erika Kirk.

For the blissfully offline (oh, how we envy you), “transvestigation” is a transphobic conspiracy theory advanced over the past eight years, adherents to which believe countless celebrities, politicians, and other public figures are secretly transgender. The conspiracy usually involves armchair phrenology, as believers overlay diagrams of skeletons and skulls over photographs to highlight alleged “discrepancies,” and pseudoscientific analyses of body language and posture. It’s abject nonsense that conveniently ties in with QAnon, “Pizzagate,” and other right-wing conspiracies — and nobody, not even far-right figureheads themselves, are safe from suspicion.

Transvestigators on social media started training their eyes on Erika Kirk roughly two months ago in mid-September, shortly after her husband, Turning Point USA cofounder Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed in Utah. On Facebook and X, right-wing users began spreading the rumor that Erika was an “invert” — a term conspiracists use to describe trans people — and derisively referring to her as “Erik.”

The “investigation” has shown no signs of slowing down since then, as X user Audrey Rose Beavers noticed earlier this week, sharing a screenshot from a Facebook group titled “Transvestigation Disclosure NOW,” which has over 53,000 members. A user named Karen Starbucs posted several photos of Erika Kirk from her days as a Miss Arizona pageant contestant, alleging they showed evidence Kirk is secretly trans. “[T]hat is a man. as most pageant winners are,” Starbucs contended, pointing to Kirk’s jawline, collarbone, and thigh gap.

Comments on the post were somewhat divided, though many took Starbucs’ side. “Of course almost all models, especially agent models and Victoria secret models are mostly [trans women],” one wrote. Another simply called her a “filthy Luciferian.” Others cited a video Erika Kirk filmed over a decade ago, in which she described herself in childhood as a tomboy, as evidence that she was actually assigned male at birth. Some even took the opportunity to posthumously transvestigate Charlie Kirk as well; “that’s why Charlie Kirk seemed so feminine and emasculated because she was a transgender handler. That’s why he was so pretty,” one person wrote.

“Transvestigators” often believe that so-called trans “inverts” are assigned “handlers” by whoever is controlling the alleged conspiracy — which, as one may have guessed, is where the Kirk case degrades into full-blown antisemitism. Since taking her late husband’s place as CEO of Turning Point, Erika Kirk has been folded into larger far-right conspiracies which allege she is part of an international trafficking scheme orchestrated by the Israeli spy agency Mossad. (Some believers contend that Kirk’s death was an orchestrated killing by the Israeli government, while others believe he is actually still alive.) There is, of course, no evidence to support that claim, which proliferated in right-wing circles over the past month thanks to disinformation platforms like The People’s Voice.

Right-wing pundits have sought to weaponize “transvestigation” for their own profit and notoriety for several years now. Candace Owens has repeatedly claimed since 2024 that French first lady Brigitte Macron is secretly trans, earning her a defamation lawsuit that is currently ongoing. It’s also been exactly a year since Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld appeared to allege that actor John Krasinski is a trans man; other past targets of the conspiracy theory include Michelle Obama, actor Erin Darke, and even Dylan Mulvaney, who some conspiracists believe was a trans man before becoming a trans woman — for reasons. Welcome to the club, Erika; there’s no amount of performed femininity that will convince these leopards not to eat your face.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/charlie-erika-kirk-transvestigator-trans-transvestigation on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

POLITICS | NOV 12, 2025, 3:33 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

City Council to Florida AG Over Drag Show: We Did Not Ask For Your Legal Opinion

James Uthmeier had called Drag Race stars like Trinity the Tuck and Suzie Toot demonic.

DOMINIC GWINN/Getty Images

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The Pensacola City Council will not take action against a Christmas-themed drag show scheduled for next month, after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier pushed for the city to cancel the show, calling it obscene, “demonic,” and “anti-Christian.”

Uthmeier’s November 7 letter took aim at “A Drag Queen Christmas,” a touring revue by Murray and Peter Present featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race queens slated to perform at Pensacola’s Saenger Theater on December 23, which is owned by the city and operated by a private management company. In his letter, Uthmeier urged the council to cancel the show’s contract, calling performers like Suzie Toot and Crystal Method “demonic” and alleging the show would constitute “city-sanctioned religious mockery.” Uthmeier further claimed that the council could legally withdraw from the contract by designating the show “injurious to the public health, safety, or general welfare of the community.”

But at a meeting on Monday afternoon, councilmembers panned Uthmeier’s letter, agreeing it was not a formal legal opinion and that canceling the show could result in civil rights litigation against the city.

“With all due respect to the Attorney General’s office, this was an unsolicited opinion,” said councilmember Charles Bare, who voted against discussing the letter at all. “We did not ask for a legal opinion from this person, and as far as I’m concerned, this is his personal opinion written on government letterhead wasting taxpayer dollars [...] it is disingenuous to the people of our city to take this seriously and to do anything about it.”

“It didn’t seem to be a legal opinion, it seemed to be more of a personal opinion, because it didn’t seem like there was any precedent or case law or anything that was mentioned in the letter,” agreed councilmember Casey Jones.

Council Vice President Allison Patton remarked that Uthmeier’s references to the First Amendment — including his claim that the show itself “may amount to religious discrimination” — seemed to be “a less than thorough vetting of this incident.” Patton also noted that “A Drag Queen Christmas” is scheduled to stop at St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater, which, like the Saenger, is owned by the city and operated by a private firm. “I’m not aware of any similar letter to the city council in St. Petersburg,” Patton said.

Patton went on to say that if Uthmeier offered to indemnify the city from legal costs by canceling the show, “then certainly if that was brought to us, I would think we’d want to have a conversation about that as well.” Uthmeier’s office reportedly did not respond to multiple requests for comment from ABC affiliate WEAR as to whether he would offer to cover those costs.

Multiple drag queens that were mentioned by Uthmeier have reacted online to his letter. “I’ve always wanted my name in the papers,” Suzie Toot posted to Instagram Stories on Monday, sharing Them’s headline. She reposted Uthmeier’s letter on X as well, writing, “Step aside tootsie scooter, Demonic Betty Bop in town.” (The attorney general had referred to her by the moniker in his letter, a misspelling of “Betty Boop.”)

Trinity the Tuck also responded to her name being mentioned in an Instagram video. “Drag is an art form that is free speech and we are allowed to do that by law,” she said in the three-minute post. “I don’t even know why this, Mr. Urethra is even bringing my name into this: I’m not even on the lineup this year. But, thank you so much for paying attention to my ass and knowing who I am by name.”

Instagram content

Uthmeier previously worked as legal counsel in the U.S. Commerce Department during the first Trump administration, where he was involved in the administration’s push to add a question about citizenship to the national census. He then joined Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration as chief of staff in 2021 and was DeSantis’ campaign manager during his unsuccessful 2024 bid for the presidency. DeSantis appointed Uthmeier as attorney general earlier this year; he has since received Trump’s endorsement for reelection, and announced a probe into JPMorgan Chase this week over the bank’s refusal to accept Trump Media deposits during a Biden-era investigation. Uthmeier is also credited with coining the name “Alligator Alcatraz” to refer to the South Florida Detention Facility, where hundreds of people have allegedly been held for months without charges in unsanitary conditions, according to civil rights lawyers. In April, Uthmeier created the new “Office of Parental Rights” — from which his letter to the Pensacola council was sent — to enforce Republican anti-trans legislation.

This isn’t the only local government that declined pursuing an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda out of fear of the judicial process. The town board of St. George, Maine rejected a request to bar trans youth from sports that correspond with their gender on Monday for similar concerns.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/florida-attorney-general-pensacola-drag-queen-christmas-suzie-toot on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | NOV 12, 2025, 12:48 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

After Kicking Cis Lesbians Out of a Bathroom, Boston Hotel Reaches Discrimination Settlement

Ansley Baker and Liz Victor will also be pursuing a claim, independently of the settlement.

Boston, MA - June 10: Ansley Baker, right, meets with her attorney Lenny Kesten on June 10, 2025. When she and her girlfriend Liz Victor, left, went to the women's restroom at the Liberty Hotel recently, Baker was approached by a male security guard who demanded to see her ID to check her gender. (Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)Boston Globe/Getty Images

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Boston’s Liberty Hotel has apologized to a cisgender lesbian couple and settled a state discrimination complaint, after hotel security removed the two women from the building in May, accusing one of being a “man in the women’s bathroom.”

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) announced in a statement last week that it had settled a complaint brought by Commissioner Sunila Thomas George, which accused Liberty Hotel of violating state anti-discrimination laws on the basis of “gender stereotyping, gender identity, sexual orientation, and retaliation.” Under the terms of the new consent decree, the hotel agreed to “cease and desist from all discriminatory conduct,” expand nondiscrimination training for staff, and make a $10,000 donation to an unspecified LGBTQ+ nonprofit organization.

“This outrageous incident at the Liberty Hotel left these two women emotionally shaken, humiliated, and deeply distressed,” George said in the statement. “They were denied services, subjected to demeaning treatment in front of other patrons of the hotel, and falsely accused of actions they did not commit, which is not only degrading, but unjust according to Massachusetts civil rights law.” State law prohibits discrimination based on protected characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity, in hotels and other public accommodations.

In May, during a Kentucky Derby-themed event held at the hotel, Ansley Baker and Liz Victor said they were using a women’s multi-occupant restroom when a security guard entered and began banging on stall doors. The guard accused Baker of being a “man in the women’s bathroom,” Baker alleged, yelled that “no men are allowed,” and told her to leave. Baker said she and Victor were “heckled” by other women in line for the bathroom as they were escorted to the lobby, and even after she showed her ID with an “F” gender marker, security forced both of them to leave the hotel.

As CBS affiliate WBZ-TV noted, the hotel claimed days later that Baker and Victor had used the same stall together and that one of them “put their hands on our security team[.]” Both women denied those allegations, and MCAD’s statement last week said the hotel had released a “false statement to the media,” which the commission found to constitute unlawful retaliation. The guard who initiated the incident no longer works at the hotel, the station reported.

“We deeply regret that our initial statement may have created unintended impressions about the actions of Ansley and Liz. That was not our intent,” Liberty Hotel general manager Mark Fisher told WBZ-TV, adding that hotel management was “committed to learn from this and do everything we can so that nothing like it ever happens again.”

An MCAD spokesperson confirmed to Them via email that the complaint was brought by the state, not the couple themselves, though the two served as witnesses in the investigation. Baker and Victor told WBZ-TV they plan to file a civil complaint of their own against the hotel, saying there had still been no accountability for the initial false statement. “[W]e're in the position now to hold these folks accountable and then hopefully make a difference moving forward,” Victor told the station.

Baker and Victor’s experience was one of several cases of bathroom discrimination that made national headlines this year, amid an escalating campaign from the Trump administration to restrict bathrooms and other accommodations solely based on a person’s “biological sex” assigned at birth. In Illinois last week, security guards removed a trans man from a local arcade after he used a women’s restroom, where he said he “typically feel[s] safer”; in August, a cis teenager in Minnesota filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise, alleging that a worker followed her into a bathroom and tried to force her to leave. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a “bathroom bill” into law in September, under which government-owned buildings, schools, and prisons must separate bathrooms by “biological sex” or risk fines of up to $125,000.

“At a time when protections for gender identity and sexual orientation are being challenged nationally, the MCAD remains committed to upholding these rights and holding businesses accountable to the law,” MCAD executive director Michael Memmolo said in the commission’s statement last week. “Our mission is to create a Commonwealth where discrimination is not only addressed but actively prevented.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/boston-liberty-hotel-cis-lesbian-bathroom-ansley-baker-liz-victor-settlement on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | JAMES FACTORA | NOV 11, 2025, 2:55 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Human Rights Campaign Cuts Ties to Weapons Manufacturers After 2-Year Activist Campaign

“We won’t allow our history, identities, and struggles as queer people to be commodified to buttress institutions upholding the genocidal war machine,” Rand J tells Them.

Alexa Wilkinson

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The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has ceased its financial relationships with weapons manufacturers Northrop Grumman and RTX (formerly Raytheon), according to the organization.

As noted in a statement from Gender Liberation Movement and Adalah Justice Project, the move comes after pressure from various organizations including ACT UP New York, Writers Against the War on Gaza “and many others in the LGBTQ+ community, including former HRC employees” in a two-year campaign. The news was first reported by Lex McMenamin at The Intercept.

In a phone call with Them, Rand J, a queer Palestinian organizer with Adalah Justice Project who is widely known by her Instagram handle, @officialjakegyllenhalal, said that the work of pro-Palestine queer and trans organizers is “a cross-collaboration in terms of our collective liberation.” She pointed to the examples of ACT UP New York calling for a ceasefire in January 2024, and the subsequent at HRC’s Greater New York Dinner the following month, at which Indya Moore and Sara Ramirez were present. Similarly, No Pride in Genocide hosted a march in Washington D.C. in February 2024 protest of “pinkwashing,” a term used to refer to the LGBTQ+ rights movement being used to cover up human rights abuses.

“As we see it, we’re practicing what we’re preaching by actually being arm-in-arm through this struggle, especially while trans people are also severely under attack in this country,” Rand told Them. “We know that we’re not going to abandon each other in these fights.”

A paper mache rocket with the HRC logo that says “From HRC to Gaza" at the HRC Shame Ball protest on February 3, 2024, outside of the organization's annual New York Dinner.

Alexa Wilkinson

Until last year, Northrop Grumman was listed as a “Platinum Partner,” the highest level of corporate sponsorship, on HRC’s website. According to the Action Center for Corporate Accountability of the American Friends Service Committee, “Northrop Grumman supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including various missile systems.”

“These are tools of state-sanctioned destruction and death, not of human rights or equality, and they do not distinguish between queer and straight lives,” the Adalah Justice Project statement reads.

The release notes, however, that HRC has not committed “to divesting permanently from these or other weapons companies,” and “also fails to call for an arms embargo on Israel, despite these being the explicit demands from queer and trans organizers.” As a result, it ends with a demand to HRC and other LGBTQ+ organizations to “cut ties with all weapons manufacturers and institutions profiting off genocide and militarism in Palestine, the U.S., and across the world,” “commit to not enter into any future partnerships with weapons manufacturers and institutions profiting off genocide and militarism,” and “publicly call for an immediate arms embargo on Israel to block the bombs.”

Rand called HRC’s announcement “a huge win for the movement to stop the genocide in Gaza, but it is just the beginning.”

Protestors holding signs at the HRC Shame Ball protest on February 3, 2024, outside of the organization's annual New York Dinner.

Alexa Wilkinson

“We won’t allow our history, identities, and struggles as queer people to be commodified to buttress institutions upholding the genocidal war machine,” she said. “HRC and other LGBTQ+ organizations must now commit to divesting from militarism permanently. We don’t aspire to be included in the systems killing us—we seek to dismantle them entirely.”

Queer and trans organizations and public figures have indeed been among the most vocal in the fight to end the war on Gaza. On the celebrity front, Hannah Einbinder recently concluded her Emmys speech saying, “Go Birds, fuck ICE, and free Palestine;” earlier this year, while accepting an award at HRC’s Los Angeles dinner, she used her time on stage to express that she was “horrified by the Israeli government’s massacre of well over 65,000 Palestinians.”

When reached for comment, HRC confirmed that the organization is not currently sponsored by Northrop Grumman or Raytheon. “What’s happening in Gaza and throughout the region is devastating. The starvation of children and families, the violence to its people and aid workers is horrific,” the organization said in an emailed statement to Them. “And while our focus is on LGBTQ+ equality in the United States, we have spoken out about the crisis, the rising cost of extremism in the United States and around the globe and how Islamaphobia, anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ hatred are globally linked. We have also championed the right to protest here in the United States, as it and other pro-democratic principles are being undermined and threatened by this administration.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/human-rights-campaign-hrc-northrop-grumman-rtx-weapons-manufacturers on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | NOV 11, 2025, 2:36 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Support for Same-Sex Marriage Has Dropped, Amid Conservative Attacks

In 2021, support was at a record high.

two grooms being separated on wedding cake by knife cutting into cakePeter Dazeley

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In a new poll, Americans’ public support for gay marriage dropped significantly for the first time in years.

The Economist/YouGov’s 2025 annual poll surveyed 1,623 adult U.S. citizens between October 24 and October 27, 2025. When asked if they think same-sex marriage should be legal, 54% said yes, 33% said no, and 13% were unsure. These numbers mark a considerable drop from just a few years ago, when Gallup’s 2021 poll found that a record-high 70% of Americans supported same-sex marriage.

The 2025 Gallup poll found a 47-point gap between political parties’ support for marriage equality — 41% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats agreed that same-sex marriages should be “recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages.” This marked the lowest that Republican support for marriage equality has been in a decade, and the largest gap between the parties since Gallup began asking the question in 1996. However, the poll found that, overall, 68% of all U.S. adults surveyed supported same-sex marriage rights for same-sex couples.

This year’s Economist/YouGov poll found that, on average, Americans are still markedly less supportive of trans rights. 41% of 2025 respondents agreed with the statement “our society has gone too far in accepting people who are transgender,” and 64% opposed allowing transgender students to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

The poll sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. region of residence, 2024 and 2020 election turnouts and presidential votes, current voter registration status, and baseline party identification.

In recent years, right-wing figures have attempted to chip away at the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, particularly when it comes to marriage equality. GOP senators in at least five states have passed resolutions asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell; the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, passed a similar nonbinding resolution at its 2024 annual convention. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers in four states have introduced legislation hoping to establish “covenant marriages” as an explicitly religious form of marriage, signaling some Republicans’ desire to legally link marriage with religion. Last month, the Texas Supreme Court enacted a rule allowing state judges to refuse to marry same-sex couples if doing so would violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

On Monday, November 10, the Supreme Court turned down former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis’ request to revisit its landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Although U.S. marriage equality is safe for now, the current, hyperpartisan Supreme Court has issued a slew of other anti-LGBTQ+ decisions this year alone. The justices ruled in U.S. v. Skrmetti that states could ban gender-affirming care for trans minors and ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents can remove their kids from classrooms with LGBTQ-inclusive books. Just last week, the Court ruled in favor of a Trump administration policy prohibiting Americans from displaying a gender marker on their passport that doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/support-for-gay-same-sex-marriage-survey-decrease-dropped-2025 on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | NOV 11, 2025, 11:21 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Olympics Move to Ban Trans Women and Cis Female Athletes With "Male Levels of Testosterone"

IOC Head Kirsty Coventry previously said she would come up with new guidelines to “protect the female category, first and foremost.”

Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is moving towards a decision on whether transgender women can compete in women’s sports, per reports.

The Times reported that, at a meeting last week, IOC medical and scientific director Dr. Jane Thornton — a former Canadian Olympic rower — presented the findings of a “science-based review into transgender athletes and competitors with differences of sexual development… competing in female sport.”

Sources reportedly told the outlet that Thornton’s presentation “stated that scientific evidence showed there were physical advantages to being born male that remained with athletes, including those who had taken treatment to reduce testosterone levels.” The new policy is also “likely to cover DSD [Differences of Sex Development] — those who were raised as girls from birth but have male chromosomes and male levels of testosterone.” This latter addendum would cover athletes like Imane Khelif, a boxer who made headlines at the most recent Olympic games.

An IOC spokesperson confirmed that the presentation had taken place in a statement to The Guardian, which read: “An update was given by the IOC’s director of health, medicine, and science to the IOC members last week during the IOC commission meetings. The working group is continuing its discussions on this topic and no decisions have been taken yet. Further information will be provided in due course.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, Thornton and her colleagues’ findings and a new policy for trans women athletes could be announced as soon as the next IOC session, which will be held in February ahead of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

In 2021, a paper published in the journal Sports Medicine found that there is no existing research to back up trans athlete bans. In fact, a 2024 British Journal of Sports Medicine study funded in part by the IOC found that trans women athletes may face several disadvantages when competing with cisgender women, such as less lower body strength and a lower maximum rate of oxygen consumption than both cis women and cis men.

Previously, each sport within the IOC’s international federation was allowed to set its own guidelines for trans inclusion. However, in June, IOC president Kirsty Coventry signaled that trans women would be banned from competing in women’s categories when she announced that the IOC would come up with a new gender eligibility policy to “protect the female category, first and foremost.”

If the IOC bans trans women from women’s sporting events, the organization would be in line with the second Trump administration’s wishes to bar trans athletes from the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. During an August news conference about the Olympics, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he would consider requiring genetic testing in order to verify that athletes are cisgender.

“There will be a very, very strong form of testing, and if the test doesn’t come out appropriately, they won’t be in the Olympics,” he replied.

In August, the Department of Homeland Security also announced that it will now restrict visa eligibility for trans women seeking to travel to the United States to compete in women’s sports.

In February, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting trans student athletes from participating in women’s sports. Although the order mainly targets trans athletic competition at the K-12 level, it also orders representatives of major athletic bodies to promote “policies that are fair and safe, in the best interests of female athletes, and consistent with the requirements of Title IX.” In response, both the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) barred trans women and girls from women’s sports, despite the order itself not carrying the power to mandate a unilateral ban.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/olympics-trans-athletes-women-sports-kirsty-coventry on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | NOV 10, 2025, 3:26 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Maine Parents Demand Town Board Break the Law, Bar Trans Kid From Basketball Team

The parents wrote the pre-teen's inclusion “created a very uncomfortable situation for many families.”

Junior high school students playing basketballIshii Koji

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Update (11/12/2025): On Monday, the town board of St. George, Maine held a special meeting to address concerns raised by parents in a prior meeting. Those parents expressed their concerns in a letter that objected to a transgender child playing on a girls' third- and fourth-grade youth basketball league. They described the issue as “deeply concerning.”

The meeting, which is archived through a Zoom recording, limited public comment to members of the “St. George community” with two minutes per comment. At the end of the meeting, the board voted 3-2 against removing the child, citing the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects such inclusion.

"It's illegal to prevent a person from playing sports on the team of their gender identity solely because their sex assigned at birth is different from the people they will be playing with or against," Colin Hurd, deputy counsel for the Main Human Rights Commission, said before the public comment began.

Jane Conrad, the select board chair, told those assembled to “lobby your legislators” if they wanted a different outcome. If the board had chosen to bar the child, the town would likely be forced to engage in civil rights litigation, “and the taxpayers of our town would have to foot the bill,” under the current law.

Original: The town board of St. George, Maine will hold a special meeting Monday night after parents called for a transgender grade schooler to be barred from a girls’ third- and fourth-grade youth basketball league, claiming that the child’s inclusion is “deeply concerning.”

A group of parents protested the child’s presence in a letter submitted to the town board last week, the Bangor Daily News reported. That prompted the board to schedule a special November 10 meeting to address the issue. The parents’ group wrote that the preteen’s inclusion had “created a very uncomfortable situation for many families,” and they did not “feel comfortable having our daughters participate in the current structure.”

The letter did not describe specific concerns about the student, but rather expressed discomfort at discussing “sensitive topics” with other eight- and nine-year-old children, which the writers said they “never imagined would be part of youth sports at this age.”

“There must be a way to prioritize inclusivity while also protecting the comfort, privacy, and developmental readiness of every participant,” the group wrote in the letter.

The St. George youth basketball league is organized jointly by the St. George Municipal School Unit and the town parks and recreation department. Them requested comment from St. George Director of Parks and Recreation Ashley Geel, but did not receive a reply at time of writing.

The Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) bars discrimination based on gender identity, as Emily Chadwick, the school board member who presented the letter, reportedly acknowledged during last week’s meeting, saying state law was “not on [her] side.” Still, some in attendance pressed the town and school boards to follow the Trump administration’s executive orders instead, according to the Midcoast Villager, which seek to ban trans girls and women from gendered sports leagues and create narrow definitions of “biological sex.”

The administration’s attempts to ban trans women from sports at all levels — to which the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has already conceded — sparked a feud earlier this year between Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, after Mills publicly refused to comply with Trump’s first such executive order on trans athletes. The administration has since sought to deny federal funds to Maine and other states over their trans-inclusive civil rights laws, especially targeting universities like the University of Pennsylvania. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued the Trump administration in April, alleging that Trump’s February executive order violated the Constitution and Title IX civil rights law; that case was stayed at time of writing, pending the restoration of federal appropriations as a result of the government shutdown.

Several Maine school districts have said they will follow the administration’s orders rather than state law. A group calling itself Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine has launched a ballot referendum to amend the MHRA next year; one signature gatherer was reportedly removed from a polling location by police on Election Day last week.

Exactly how the St. George board will respond to the group’s letter remains to be seen, but Board Chair Jane Conrad seemed inclined to follow the current MHRA rather than the administration’s doctrine, per the Daily News.

“The answer, if you don’t like the law of the state of Maine, is to lobby your legislators,” Conrad reportedly told Chadwick’s group at last week’s meeting. “We are in charge of enforcing the law.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/st-george-maine-trans-youth-basketball-ban on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

POLITICS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | NOV 10, 2025, 1:01 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Florida AG Calls for Christmas Drag Show to Be Canceled, Targets Trinity the Tuck and Suzie Toot

James Uthmeier described the show as "“injurious to the public health, safety, or general welfare of the community.”

Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images

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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is demanding the cancellation of a Christmas-themed drag show in Pensacola, accusing the event of being obscene and “openly anti-Christian.”

In a letter to the Pensacola City Council dated November 7, Uthmeier asked the Council to cancel a performance of “A Drag Queen Christmas,” a nationally touring drag show that’s planned to take place at the city-owned Saenger Theatre on December 23. The show features a lineup of RuPaul’s Drag Race luminaries including Bosco, Suzie Toot, Shea Couleé, Lexi, and host Nina West — who Uthmeier referred to in his letter as “men dressed as garish women in demonic costumes.”

The attorney general specifically flagged Toot as the “demonic Betty Bop,” apparently referring to, but misspelling, Toot’s Vogue photoshoot as Betty Boop. Uthmeier also denounced performer Crystal Methyd’s “glamorous” devil drag in Rolling Stone and alleged that Trinity “The Tuck” Taylor — who appeared in the show’s 2021 revue, but is not on the bill for 2025 — named herself “Trinity” as a “not-so-subtle stab at the fundamental doctrine of Christianity.”

Uthmeier’s letter, which he also posted to X, claimed the show “openly mocks one of the most sacred holidays in the Christian faith,” and called on the city council — which owns the 100-year-old historic theater — to cancel the performance by declaring it “injurious to the public health, safety, or general welfare of the community.”

“Such city-sanctioned religious mockery may amount to religious discrimination,” Uthmeier claimed in his letter, going on to baselessly speculate that any of the performers could “expose themselves to the kids innocently enjoying Christmas festivities” near the theater. “The show’s content is designed to inflame religious strife, its timing is intentional, and its proximity to children is unacceptably problematic,” he added. (The show is advertised “18+ welcome” on the Saenger Theatre website and Ticketmaster.)

“[H]onestly, if this were a nativity play and we were ‘men in dresses’ portraying the wisemen or angels, no one would bat an eye,” Lexi told The Advocate in a statement on Friday, calling Uthmeier’s description of the event inaccurate. “They’d probably praise it. The double standard is obvious.”

As the Pensacola News Journal noted, Uthmeier’s letter is not an official opinion from the AG’s office, which would carry more legal weight. Council meetings have for months seen other religious conservatives object to the show, including former state Rep. Mike Hill, who told the council in September that allowing the show would invite “God’s judgment and retribution,” according to WUWF. At the same meeting, City Attorney Adam Cobb reportedly warned that canceling the show’s contract could expose the city to lawsuits on contractual or constitutional grounds.

Since Uthmeier became Florida’s attorney general in February, he has eagerly stepped up the state government’s ongoing war against transgender people and drag performances, establishing a new “Office of Parental Rights” in April to enforce anti-trans legislation enacted by Republicans. (Several of the “Drag Queen Christmas” performers are trans and/or nonbinary, including Bosco, Coulee, and Crystal Methyd.) In October, a teacher at Talbot Elementary School in Gainesville who requested the gender-neutral honorific “Mx.” was placed on administrative leave after Uthmeier wrote a letter to the school warning that the teacher had violated a 2023 law which bans the use of pronouns in schools that do “not correspond to [a] person's sex.” One school fired a nonbinary teacher less than six months after that bill became law for using “Mx.” in emails.

“Florida schools aren’t affirmation labs for confused adults. And public school teachers may not coopt students into their own sexual and biological confusions,” Uthmeier wrote last month.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/florida-attorney-general-james-uthmeier-christmas-drag-suzie-toot-trinity-tuck on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | MIKELLE STREET | NOV 10, 2025, 12:47 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Preacher Turned Adult Star Michael Heard Reportedly Dead at 53

Heard was an actor and the man behind a viral “Yes King” TikTok audio trend.

YouTube Screenshot

Michael Willis Heard, popularly known as the adult content creator Love and Light TV, has died at 53, according to multiple social media posts. Family members, friends, and contemporaries in the industry have been posting tributes following the news.

“Today my heart is crushed,” Victory Nation Bishop Stephen L. Write wrote to Facebook on Sunday. “My beloved son (spiritual son) has transitioned from Earth to eternity. Michael Willis Heard treated and respected me like his literal father and I loved him just as if I’d birthed him. Anyone who knew him understood that he was unapologetic about who his spiritual parents were … myself & elder Loretta Shouse.”

Born in 1972, Heard, who identified as pansexual and polyamorous, served as a preacher prior to his career in adult content. He also worked as a counselor before later getting into content creation that spanned a YouTube channel, adult videos, podcast and more. In his X-rated videos, he became known for his particularly vocal style of performance. These videos often went viral on social media, with some becoming popular TikTok audio clips, including one known as the “Yes King” clip. He also played Jacob Love in Raquel M. R. Thomas’s 2025 film Pastor available on Tubi and Amazon Prime.

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“My daddy man,” Heard’s daughter wrote to Facebook. “IDC who didn’t love my father and didn’t like his lifestyle and wished death on him! This was the greatest man to live on this earth! The love and compassion he had is unmatched.”

The daughter shared various photographs of Heard, including one featuring him in a coma in a hospital bed.

“Some of you may know him as a content creator of many sorts, he was a life coach as well as a pastor,” YouTuber Davyon Augustus wrote to social media. “I’ve known him for years and got news this morning that he died from a asthma attack that led to a heart attack that lead to him being brain dead. As shocked as I am about this news I also know this is one man who lived his life as freely and fully as possible so I have no doubts that he has transitioned without many regrets!"

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Contemporaries in the adult industry also wrote messages about Heard. “Just learned that [Michael] got his wings,” Max Konnor wrote. “To be sad would be selfish of me because I know he is now where he belongs … he truly was too good for this world and the light and joy he brought to everyone who knew him shines still.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/love-light-tv-yes-king-tiktok-audio-michael-willis-heard-dead-death-obit on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | NOV 10, 2025, 11:24 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

In Rare LGBTQ+ Win, Supreme Court Decides Not to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage

Kim Davis had asked the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell in an appeal she filed.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

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The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request to revisit its landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex marriage a decade ago. The court announced its decision on Monday morning, without comment.

The petition to reconsider, and potentially to overturn, its Obergefell decision comes from former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2015, citing her religious beliefs. Davis petitioned the court in July, asking the justices to revisit a judgment against her that required her to pay over $300,000, per the New York Times, to a gay couple to whom she denied a marriage license. Her petition also asked justices to revisit the court’s 2015 decision.

Davis’s petition cited Justice Clarence Thomas’s own words several times. In the past, Justice Thomas has said explicitly that the court must revisit Obergefell, and made an allusion to it in a concurring opinion in the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Davis turned to the Supreme Court after losing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in March. The court ruled against her, citing a Supreme Court ruling that found that the First Amendment does not protect public officials acting in their official capacity, per the Times.

As the decision approached, Supreme Court Justices had signaled that they had no appetite to overturn Obergefell. Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained why the right to abortion could be overturned while the right to marry could not in an interview, pointing to its “very concrete reliance interests.” While the court may have denied Davis’s appeal, her legal petition was just one prong in a multi-pronged conservative strategy to undermine and cut back on the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, including marriage equality.

In four states, GOP lawmakers have introduced legislation to establish “covenant marriages” as a form of explicitly religious marriage, indicating a desire among Republicans to link marriage with religion in the eyes of the state. GOP senators in at least five states have also passed resolutions asking the court to overturn Obergefell; the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, passed a similar nonbinding resolution at its annual convention last year. The Texas Supreme Court enacted a rule last month that allows judges in that state to refuse to marry same-sex couples if doing so would violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Though it declined to take up Davis’s case, the Supreme Court, which has become hyperpartisan in recent years, has used its power on the bench to issue several decisions that directly hurt LGBTQ+ people. Just last week, the justices ruled in favor of a Trump administration policy barring people from displaying a gender marker on their passport that does not align with their assigned sex at birth.

In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson even called out the Supreme Court for its role in aiding the Trump administration’s agenda, saying that the president had begun to see SCOTUS as an “obliging audience” to his anti-LGBTQ+ plans.

Earlier this year, in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the Court ruled that states could ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. It also sided, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, with parents who wanted to remove their children from classrooms containing LGBTQ+-themed books, a move seen as a boon to the nationwide book ban movement.

Of course, the Supreme Court is not the only branch of government who seems to be operating in direct opposition to the LGBTQ+ community. On his first day in office, Trump passed a series of executive orders aimed at queer and trans people, including one banning “gender ideology” in the federal government and establishing that the U.S. only recognizes two genders.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/supreme-court-scotus-kim-davis-marriage-equality-verdict-ruling-obergefell on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | MIKELLE STREET | NOV 8, 2025, 12:41 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

4 Dead After Speeding Car Crashes Outside Tampa Gay Club, Bradley’s on 7th

Police report that the car had previously been observed street racing.

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In the early morning of Saturday, November 8, a vehicle crashed outside Bradley’s on 7th, a LGBTQ+ club in Tampa Bay, Florida. Three victims died on the scene of the incident and a fourth died at the hospital, according to local media reports. Eleven other victims were injured with one hospitalized in critical condition. All of the victims were over the age of 20, according to police

“Our hearts are broken this morning following the devastating crash outside Bradley’s in Ybor City that took four lives and injured 11 others early Saturday morning,” the establishment wrote in a statement. “We can confirm that our beloved co-host, Esmé Russell, was present at the time of the crash and is safe. Esmé, along with many patrons and staff, experienced the terror and chaos of the event firsthand. She is shaken but unharmed, and deeply grateful to the first responders and bystanders who rushed to help.”

According to Tampa police, they began monitoring a “vehicle driving recklessly on I-275” at a high rate of speed at 12:40 a.m., which had previously been observed street racing. Florida Highway Patrol later began to pursue the vehicle, unsuccessfully trying a PIT maneuver, in which police make contact with the suspect’s vehicle to cause it to stop.

“The driver continued at a high rate of speed and lost control and crashed into a business, hitting more than a dozen people who were outside,” the police said in their press release, naming the suspect as 22-year-old Silas Sampson.

RuPaul’s Drag Race star and Florida staple Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige shared the news, sending her “sincerest sympathies and condolences” to those impacted.

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“This tragedy has struck at the heart of Tampa’s LGBTQ+ community,” the bar wrote. “Bradley’s on 7th is more than just a nightclub, it is a sanctuary, a space of celebration, love, and chosen family for countless people across Tampa Bay. For years, it has stood as a cornerstone of our community’s resilience and joy.”

The venue was opened in 2011 and is owned by Bradley Nelson. Nelson has previously called Bradley’s the “Cheers of gay bars.” Earlier this year, Nelson announced that the bar is “guaranteed to be around another 10 years” after signing a new lease.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/florida-tampa-bradleys-on-7th-car-crash-silas-sampson on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

POLITICS | NOV 7, 2025, 4:23 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

How LGBTQ+ Food Justice Organizers Are Responding to the SNAP Crisis

Food insufficiency among LGBTQ+ people is only being exacerbated by the SNAP shutdown.

Jacarrea Garraway

Gabrielle Souza knows firsthand about the lifesaving power of mutual aid.

“As a Black trans woman who does not have a great connection with her family, in many ways I grew up alone and seeking my own resources, building community, building my own family network and network of support,” she tells Them over a Zoom call from Los Angeles.

Over the years, Souza built a “network of care” consisting of people who were looking out for her in a myriad of ways — whether it meant helping her with finances, mental health, or simply connecting her with resources “that could help me get to where I wanted to be and become the best version of myself.” It’s that kind of unconditional support that led Souza to become the executive director of the Okra Project, a national mutual aid collective that focuses on supporting Black trans people. The initiative was founded in Brooklyn in 2018 by Ianne Fields Stewart; though it’s since expanded into programs like rental assistance and mental healthcare, the heart of the Okra Project has always been feeding Black trans people, who are disproportionately likely to experience food insufficiency.

That disparity is especially difficult in the face of the recent government shutdown and subsequent delay of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly known as food stamps. At the time of writing, there is still a huge degree of uncertainty as to when or how SNAP benefits will be resumed, leaving millions of recipients in the dark. Though the White House has promised to use emergency money to pay out partial benefits, in compliance with a November 3 court order, The New York Times has reported that nearly five million people may not receive food stamps at all this month. However, on November 6, a judge ordered the Trump administration to fully restore SNAP funding for the month by Friday November 7.

While there is little research on food insufficiency among trans people, a study published in October in the open access medical journal Critical Public Health found that between 2021 and 2023, 21% of trans adults reported experiencing food insufficiency, as opposed to 8% of cisgender adults. Additionally, trans adults were twice as likely as cis adults to report being reliant on both SNAP (14% vs. 7%) and free meals or groceries (9% vs. 5%). In other words, food insufficiency has been a crisis among LGBTQ+ people for much longer than this current moment, and it’s only being exacerbated by the SNAP shutdown and the uncertain future of public assistance under the Trump administration.

But this also means that queer and trans food justice organizers are uniquely equipped for this moment, having spent years laying the groundwork for this inflection point. One of the cornerstones of the Okra Project, for example, is the organization’s annual Holiday Grocery Assistance Fund, which provides Black trans people with cash for food. This year, recipients will receive $400, twice as much as what the program usually provides, a decision that was made “in direct response to the rising need that we are seeing and hearing,” as Okra Project director of programs Max Rigano tells Them.

What also makes such queer- and trans-led programs unique is the agency that they grant to people who receive funds and meals. In a similar vein, the grassroots organization Southern Solidarity, which distributes “food, medical resources, and basic needs” on a weekly basis to unhoused people in New Orleans and New York, places a focus on protecting the dignity of the people they serve. Jasmine Araujo, the founder of Southern Solidarity, founded the organization five years ago when she realized no one in her neighborhood in New Orleans was supporting unhoused people during the initial stages of the COVID-19 lockdown. During its first two years, the Southern Solidarity team directly distributed food on a daily basis, sourced from nearby restaurants and members’ own gardens “to people who are disabled, who are queer, who are houseless or trans,” as Araujo tells Them. Now, the organization has shifted to weekly distribution, and have also expanded their work to New York City.

Jacarrea Garraway

Araujo maintains that the most important lesson she’s learned from this work is “always focusing on the autonomy of the people that we’re handing out food to.”

“It doesn’t matter how many meals or how many times a day you’re distributing, what really matters is that you’ve heard the needs and wants of the people that you’re giving food to or giving services to,” she says.

It’s an approach informed by the work of the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast for children program and the tenets of Black queer feminism, which also means that the work of Southern Solidarity is far more expansive than food distribution alone.

“We’re trying to do trainings on community defense, and doing that training for everyone involved, both the people that we’re feeding and the people that are volunteering,” Araujo says, which includes workshops on Stop the Bleed, de-arresting, reversing overdoses using Narcan, and more. “Black queer politics really permeates throughout all of what we do, and if volunteers aren’t able to work alongside other queer people, then they’re not going to be a part of the team.”

People on both sides of the distribution table, from recipients of aid to volunteers, are sometimes surprised to find queer and trans people spearheading these efforts.. But as Araujo tells me, it’s important for queer and trans people to have leadership roles in such organizations “because if the most vulnerable are not leading our movements then we’re gonna be in the dark.”

Jacarrea Garraway

“The people who should have a voice are the people who have the lived experience and who are engaging with Black radical feminist ideology, so that we know how to support and so that we know how to fill in the gaps that have been caused by these forces of oppression,” Araujo says.

The importance of centering the marginalized is also what drives Black Trans Liberation Kitchen, a weekly “fellowship service” founded by Brooklyn-based activist Qween Jean. Black Trans Liberation as an organization began in 2020, borne out of that summer’s protests against police brutality. Jean cites as inspiration her “beloved sister” Tommy Playboy, who passed away in 2023, describing her “as someone who was protesting but actively feeding the community.”

“It was an invitation for us to continue this work for a lot of the queer and trans people that had not been considered, it had not been taken care of, and so we wanted to do that and really build the foundation for it,” she says.

It’s true that in leftist circles, food justice — the belief that access to healthy food is a fundamental right that must be systemically addressed — does not always have the most glamorous connotations. Care work is generally undervalued in American society at large, and those dynamics often reinforce themselves even within ostensibly progressive spaces. (If you’re a certain flavor of online leftist, you’ve certainly seen the many jokes/memes about leftist men being well-versed in theory without doing the dishes.) More than that, some may not see food distribution as a legitimate aspect of movement work. But in Jean’s eyes, “it most certainly is, and it is something that requires full community investment.”

Jacarrea Garraway

“It is vulnerable, serious and mandatory work,” she says. “We need food to survive. We need water to survive. We need dwelling rights in order to sustain. And these are the things that unfortunately, the oligarchs and the billionaires and the people in power — they have tried to demonize people that aren’t able to have these resources.”

Jean emphasizes that all of these forces are “an intentional machine that crushes people’s stability and forces them into poverty.”

“Feeding people is a human act of love, a human act of resistance,” she says. “I just really would love to remind people, it is a gift and it’s a blessing that we can support and feed each other. That, to me, is a universal call to action, especially in this country right now, where people’s lifelines have been severely impacted, children’s holiday meals are now compromised.”

In response to the delay of SNAP benefits, Black Trans Liberation is holding an emergency fundraiser with a goal of securing $25,000 to feed 450 people, as well as providing winter coats and groceries.

The fundraiser is titled “Blessings,” “because we understand what it means to receive a plate of blessing that literally nourishes you from the top of your crown to the bottom of the soles of your feet,” Jean says. “It is a spiritual fortification process to be able to break bread — that is truly an act of love, to be able to break bread with your neighbors, and that is what we believe in, firmly, unequivocally.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/how-lgbtq-food-justice-organizers-are-responding-to-the-snap-crisis on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | NOV 7, 2025, 2:05 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Woman Crashes Out at School Board Meeting Over Queer Teacher Bringing Husband's Brownies to Class

"What public school have hired that man to come and teach that to those innocent children?” Margie Massoudi asked.

Screenshot

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In a state that no longer mandates life-saving vaccines for school children, one Florida woman has decided that the real danger facing today’s youth is a queer teacher bringing his husband’s brownies to class.

While speaking at a November 4 Duval County Public School board meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, an attendee named Margie Massoudi opened by thanking the conservative members of the board and reciting the Bible verse Matthew 18:6: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

She then began criticizing a queer teacher who had previously spoken about bringing his husband’s brownies into class for his students at an October 7 board meeting.

“To that teacher that… he said, ‘I’m weird, and I bring brownies to that class,’ and said, ‘My husband makes this,’” Massoudi said, affecting a tone when paraphrasing the teacher. “I have gay family members, and they saw that and said, ‘He’s crazy. He shouldn’t be in that school, in that class.’ What public school have hired that man to come and teach that to those innocent children?” (Massoudi begins to speak at 1:27:42 in the below video.)

In video from the meeting, a buzzer then sounds, signaling the end of Massoudi’s time to speak. As one TikTok commenter put it after a clip of Massoudi’s statement was shared on the app, “She’s talking about drowning people, but brownies are the problem?”

The comments that Massoudi referenced were made by a teacher who identified himself as Steven Isicoff during the October 7 board meeting. Isicoff has been teaching at Duval for seven years.

“I have been hired as a bald, bearded, I got a square [of hair] growing out the back of my head, and every single kid I teach knows that I’m queer without me needing to say it,” he said. “I sponsor a club, and when I bring in brownies, I get to tell my students that my husband made those brownies, and there’s nothing that will ever be able to stop me from being queer visibly. Just a weird guy in the classroom.”

Isicoff added, “I’m just happy to be here, and to tell you that I’m in the classroom, and that there are people just like me in a bunch of other classrooms. And you’re gonna have to try really hard to keep us out, because there’s just so many dang weirdos in the world, huh?”

X content

His comments were likely a result of the Conservative majority now on Duval County’s board. In the October meeting, School Board Chair Charlotte Joyce, Vice Chair April Carney, as well as members Melody Buldoc, and Tony Ricardo wore pink “This is the turning point” shirts referencing Turning Point USA, a conservative group founded by the late political agitator Charlie Kirk. Four board members — Carney, Ricardo, Rebecca Nathanson, and Reginald Blount — are also affiliated with the far-right group Moms for Liberty. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the group as an anti-government extremist entity due to their opposition to LGBTQ+ and racially inclusive school curriculum and support of book bans.

Meanwhile, in 2022, the Duval County Democratic Party shared an ad on X accusing Carney — whose campaign at the time was endorsed by Steve Bannon — of being present at the January 6 insurrection.

Earlier this year, Florida high school teacher Melissa Calhoun lost her job for referring to a 17-year-old transgender student by his preferred name. This spurred an investigation prompted by the student’s parent, who accused the school of “grooming” her child.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/duval-county-school-board-meeting-brownies-husband-steven-isicoff on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | NOV 7, 2025, 12:22 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Texas Court Approves Partial Drag Performance Ban

Many warn the legislation is a step on the way to a full ban.

Erika Goldring

A federal appeals court says that Texas can enforce a targeted 2023 law criminalizing drag performances that the state deems “sexually oriented.”

On Thursday, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed U.S. District Judge David Hittner’s 2023 ruling that Senate Bill 12 — which was initially introduced as an explicit ban on drag performances in the presence of people under 18 — was unconstitutional.

The law currently criminalizes performances in which a performer is nude or appeals to the “prurient interest in sex” in a public setting where minors might be present. As advocates have pointed out, these qualifiers are vague enough that they could be wielded against anyone who expresses their sexuality or defies traditional gender roles. Businesses that host these performances are subject to $10,000 fines, while performers found in violation of Senate Bill 12 can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott admitted to his plans to use the law to prohibit drag performers in a June 2023 X post, writing, “Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public. That’s right.”

In its decision, the Fifth Court found that not all drag shows are sexually oriented. This included the shows put on by the plaintiffs in the case.

In 2023, two groups launched lawsuits against the State of Texas in hopes of blocking the legislation with an injunction. One was led by drag performers and LGBTQ+ advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, while the other was filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project, with plaintiffs arguing that the law would negatively affect Texas’ performing arts scene. Hittner then ruled that Senate Bill 12 “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech” and issued a permanent injunction preventing it from taking effect.

Now, the Fifth Circuit has unblocked the law and returned the case to the district court. In its decision, the Fifth Circuit found that because the drag shows featured at ACLU plaintiffs’ Woodlands Pride and Abilene Pride festivals weren’t “sexually oriented” and “erotic,” they remained fully legal.

In a footnote, Trump appointee Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote that there is “genuine doubt” that such actions are “actually constitutionally protected — especially in the presence of minors.”

Meanwhile, in his partial dissent, Circuit Court Judge James L. Dennis wrote that the court’s decision “turns a blind eye to the Texas Legislature’s avowed purpose: a statewide ‘drag ban.’”

“In place of meaningful review, the opinion offers a strained and wooden account of injury and traceability that ignores the statute’s text and the practical realities of its enforcement,” Dennis added. “Worse still, the majority intimates in passing that it harbors ‘genuine doubt’ whether Plaintiffs’ drag performances are protected First Amendment expression. That gratuitous dictum runs headlong into settled First Amendment jurisprudence and threatens to mislead on remand.”

While drag bans such as Senate Bill 12 obviously directly affect drag performers, these laws are often written vaguely enough to impact trans and gender-nonconforming citizens in general. As Lambda Legal attorney Carl Charles told Them in 2023, broad language like Senate Bill 12’s could just as easily refer to “two trans people going out and singing karaoke.”

The ACLU of Texas and plaintiffs in The Woodlands v. Paxton released a joint statement on November 6 condemning the Fifth Circuit’s decision, calling it “heartbreaking for drag performers, small businesses, and every Texan who believes in free expression.”

“Drag is not a crime. It is art, joy, and resistance — a vital part of our culture and our communities,” the statement continued. “We are devastated by this setback, but we are not defeated. Together, we will keep advocating for a Texas where everyone — including drag artists and LGBTQIA+ people — can live freely, authentically, and without fear.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/texas-drag-performance-ban-sexually-oriented-ruling on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

Health

Community

- 'Ultimatum: Queer Love' Wedding: Haley and Pilar Talk Elopement's Gavin Newsom Surprise

TENDER | NOV 12, 2025, 12:21 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

From Sorority Rivals to Wives: Inside Ultimatum Stars Haley and Pilar’s Path to Marriage

When people began to speculate the pair was gay, Dizon had a monosyllabic response: “Ah!”

Sabrina Patterson @theturningpagephotoco

It’s a tale as old as time: Girl meets girl, they become “best friends,” secretly fall in love, and the rest is history. Or at least that’s kind of how Haley Drexler and Pilar Dizon’s story goes, but with a few twists and turns along the way (including rival sororities and a reality TV stint).

While the Bay Area couple has been together for more than 12 years, the last year has been a whirlwind. From starring on season two of The Ultimatum: Queer Love, almost breaking up and then getting engaged on camera for the world to see, to eloping at San Francisco’s City Hall, Drexler and Dizon’s life has seemingly been flipped upside down. But one thing is clear: Their love is stronger than ever.

This past summer, Drexler and Dizon were one of the couples featured on Netflix’s beloved sapphic reality TV dating show — which has since been devastatingly cancelled — The Ultimatum: Queer Love. In this series, six couples are split into two categories: Ultimatum givers (a.k.a. the partner ready for marriage), in this case, Drexler; and Ultimatum receivers (the partner being asked to commit), a.k.a. Dizon. The couples are then split up and spend time getting to know each other as 12 singles, eventually being paired up with a new partner for a “trial marriage.”

As you might imagine, chaos ensues. And while their time on the show was not smooth or easy by any means, Drexler and Dizon defied the odds and somehow made it out stronger than ever — ending the season with an engagement after Dizon proposed in the finale.

Now, the fan-favorite couple has taken the next step: Marriage! Earlier this month, the pair took to Instagram to share sweet photos of their courthouse wedding — where yes, they ran into Gavin Newsom.

Below, Them catches up with the newlyweds to get the inside scoop on how their elopement went down, the origins of their love story (including how they met in college), and yes, their thoughts on the cancellation of The Ultimatum: Queer Love.

Hi, Haley and Pilar! I just have to say, we’re so happy for you both. I feel like watching your relationship evolve on reality TV was a rare win.

Pilar Dizon: We never thought we would be on reality TV, so we also consider the way that we ended up a win! Honestly, we thought it was going to be a lot easier than it actually was, so that was very naive of us, but it all ended net positive.

And for that we're thankful. I know you've both talked about your relationship, but can you walk me through how you met? In 2013, I believe.

Haley Drexler: Pilar was 18 and I was 19 when we first met. We were both orientation leaders at UC Davis the summer after our freshman year. We had a lot of near misses — both of us, for separate reasons, weren't supposed to be orientation leaders that summer, but then we both ended up locking it in. But then the funniest thing was that we had four hours worth of class together every week leading up to that summer.

PD: I never saw her.

HD: All spring quarter of our freshman year we never saw each other.

PD: We were looking at our tagged photos, and we have a photo where I'm in it posing with my friend and Haley's in the background of the photo, and I'm like, "We have been at the same parties together. We just haven't crossed paths." We joked we were destined to meet, and then as orientation leaders we became inseparable.

HD: We spent that whole summer together and became fully inseparable. And after that summer, I remember, I wrote Pilar this little letter and was like, "I feel like we're never going to be close friends again."

PD: Yeah, she had written to me, "If you were a boy, I would've already married you."

Sabrina Patterson @theturningpagephotoco

That's so gay.

PD: Right? This was before either of us knew what was going on. It just started progressing and neither of us talked about it. Soberly we're just like, "Oh, it's kind of fun to drunk kiss you." And we did that for a year.

It's very invisible string. When did it become official?

HD: Pilar and I were in rival sororities, which really turned up the heat.

PD: Everyone started talking about it and being like, "Well, people are starting to think you guys are gay." And I was like, "Ah."

HD: I was like, "I'm starting to think I might be gay."

PD: Yeah, I was like, "Is that a bad thing?" When we gave our senior speeches, Haley said, "Who gives a fuck who you fuck?" And I remember six girls came up to us and were like, "I'm dating my big," and I was like, "See, we were all here."

HD: Our sophomore year we were exclusively seeing each other, spending every night together. By December, our friends were teasing us all the time, and they were messing with us one night, like, "So are you two officially dating yet?" And in my head we had been dating—

PD: In my head, I was like, we haven't officially talked about it. I don't know what we are, but I'm having fun and I really like her. And then when I said that, my response was…

HD: "Haley hasn't asked yet." And so that night I was like, "Well, I already thought we were, so of course I want you to be my girlfriend. Will you be my girlfriend?" And she was like, "Of course. I just wanted you to ask."

One thing I've learned since being in this job is that more people than you would imagine have had the sorority-to-gay pipeline. Myself included.

HD: Yes. We're all gay. That's why we want to join an organization full of women: because we love women.

Obviously, you've had a different trajectory than some other couples, but what advice do you have, especially in this day and age, for making it work?

PD: I think one thing for me, having been together for so long and so young, we were so quick to have each other be everything. We had the same friends, the same interests, same everything. We wouldn't do anything apart. And I think we started becoming very co-dependent. In that, I found we're so strong because we both support and are fierce advocates of each other's dreams.

But also as individuals, we now each have our own lives. So, not losing yourself in your relationship, and also still having your identity and knowing that your partner will support you but is not your whole life.

HD: We also are big over-communicators. Our friends are constantly surprised at how much time we can spend with each other. We've also described it as, "Well, half the time that we're being a couple and being partners and then half the time that we're being friends."

Obviously, you got engaged on the show, but was there a separate occasion outside of that? How did you decide to do it? Who proposed first? Walk me through that.

PD: I was like, "Okay, so are you going to propose to me?" She goes, "Well, I'm giving you an ultimatum." And that was also part of it. I know on the show they had actually asked us for you to propose back to me.

HD: Yes, they did really want me to propose back.

PD: They also wanted us to get married on site. They were like, "We have an officiant here." We're like, "Uh..." We were separated at the time. They're like, "Do you want to do this?" I was like, "Well, I would want to talk to Haley." They're like, "Well, we're going to talk to Haley." And we didn't have a phone or anything. I was like, "I don't want to speak for both of us, but I think both of us would want our family and friends to be there. So I'm going to say no." And Haley had said the exact same thing.

HD: Even before the show, I had always told Pilar that — and as much as we don't ever fall into traditional gender norms and gender stereotypes — "I did ask you to be my girlfriend, so I've kind of been the boyfriend. You have to be the husband and you need to ask me to marry you." So I always knew that I was waiting for Pilar to be ready to propose.

PD: Haley said she would propose back within the year, and I'm like, "Ugh, knowing Haley, she's going to take 364 days to propose. Great. I want to wear my ring, I'm jealous." But Haley actually proposed less than a month later.

HD: Our biggest thing when we started dating was attending a lot of concerts and music festivals together. The first concert that we ever attended, just the two of us, was Zedd at the Fox Theater in Oakland. And Pilar recently had the opportunity to open for Alok [Menon] while they were on tour, and I saw the opportunity. I could not possibly steal the thunder from Alok and their whole set that they were doing, but thought maybe it would be possible for me to propose to Pilar because it's the first concert venue that we ever went to together.

PD: And my first time playing there.

HD: As we walked in, I had the ring box in my jacket. We walked downstairs to Pilar's, kind of, holding area, and I was like, "She has no idea I'm about to propose."

Sabrina Patterson @theturningpagephotoco

Sabrina Patterson @theturningpagephotoco

Pilar, did you have any idea?

PD: No, no. It was such a high for me, like, "This is a full-circle moment, playing at the Fox." This is almost like an anniversary for us. It was already so special that when Haley got onstage, I thought she was going to announce the person after me, but Haley hops on the mic and starts getting super emotional and then teary-eyed and starts talking about me. And I'm like, "Babe, just announce the next person and get off. Don't make this about us. What are you doing?" And then she's crying and then I'm like, "Oh!” And then I realized what was happening.

I love that. So how did you decide to do the courthouse wedding?

HD: We had talked about eloping ever since the Queer Ultimatum had wrapped. We still want to have a bigger ceremony or reception with all of our friends, but as we were starting to make the guest list, we realized how overwhelming it was getting and we kind of saw that the clock was ticking. We started talking about, "Well, maybe we just elope, we do something really small just to get the legal protection."

That's the whole reason I brought Pilar on the show. I was like, "I want the legal protection."

Around the time of the reunion, things started happening with the Trump administration that looked like we might have some rights getting rolled back. As time went on, we started to realize, "Oh, we actually really need to jump at this." So we started planning really seriously to elope. I think we gave our friends and family a month and a half. Once we picked the date it was like, "The clock has started to count down and we don't have a single detailed plan. We don't have dresses, we don't have this, but we do have our very small guest list."

Then I told Pilar, "What about San Francisco City Hall? It's beautiful, it has a ton of history behind it and–"

PD: "It's free."

HD: Everyone always would say to us, "But you're in California, that's not actually going to happen." I was like, "But here's the thing: Our worst fears we've seen time and time again can happen." And it's just the unfortunate world we live in.

What was the best part of that day, other than getting to be married?

PD: For me, it was just the epitome of “it takes a village,” because it was so intimate and it was kind of a bittersweet moment for me. I talked a lot about this on the show, like, “Would my parents be there? Would they not?” Ultimately, I decided to not invite them, and honestly, as sad as it was to not have them there, I'm so grateful because, we didn't plan for this, but every single person at our wedding ended up giving a speech and it was very emotional. We were crying during the entire dinner.

Then, very classic and on-brand for us: We have on our invite, "Ceremony 2:30." Of course, we were an hour and a half late to our own wedding. But had we not been late, we would not have been walking up as Gavin Newsom was walking out, and that's when they caught that video. It was just such a crazy serendipitous day.

So, Gavin Newsom was there.

PD & HD: Yes.

PD: I called him “Daddy Newsom” as kind of a word vomit thing, especially with how funny his trolling on TikTok have been. I didn't know anyone was recording and just said: "Oh, my God, it's Daddy Newsom."

How has your relationship changed since the Queer Ultimatum?

PD: I would say for me it's a lot of confidence and letting go of familial baggage.

I've been really reflecting on this and I think the best way that I can describe it is, like going down a path, and then your path splits off into two ways. You're at a fork in the road. I feel where I was at in 10 years of our relationship was stuck at that fork, like, "Do I go down this way or do I go down this way?" I hate feeling like I had to choose between family and Haley. I think I was holding a lot of space for “Are my parents going to accept me? Are they going to come around?” I wasn't making a decision and I wasn't committing to marriage and our life.

Now I’m confident in my decision and demanding the space that I deserve, like, "Hey, Mom and Dad, if you can't support us and love everything that means about us, I have my own family now, and my family is Haley." I feel like now our life is truly beginning.

HD: Yeah, I mean, I would agree with the confidence also, and in other ways I feel like we just are so confident in our relationship.

You see 10 hours worth of the season of the show, and we are maybe an hour and a half of those 10 hours. And people have a lot of notions about what our relationship was before, why we were there, all of these different things and what decisions we should have made while we were there or not.

PD: Like that we shouldn't be together.

HD: Yeah. And for a little bit, I do think that we let it get to us, but then we did really lean into each other and be like, "If we hadn't actually had all of the conversations to feel like we really, truly wanted to get married, we wouldn't have done it.” We didn't do it because it was comfortable or just the next step. It's like, “We really want to get married, we love each other.”

At the end of the day you might think that you know us, but you don't know us as well as you think you do. It's sweet that some people think that they do, but we made this decision for us.

Do you have any thoughts about Netflix canceling the show?

HD: Yeah, it's tough. It's disappointing, and I think that the biggest disappointment to me is the fact that it was just the queer season that was canceled. Especially having gone through it, I can think of a lot of arguments for just canceling the entire show.

But I think that there's a whole other discussion point around why was it only the queer season. Some people say that it's about ratings, but Netflix specifically has designed their platform so that you can't know the ratings beyond whether or not you were in the top 10, which we were.

PD: Which we were. So it wasn't about the rating.

HD: As far as I can tell, it's not about ratings. So I think it's disappointing, and I think that we are seeing a lot more queer shows be canceled and, I feel, without having a strong understanding of anything behind the scenes. I personally feel like it has to do with the administration and with the greater culture that we're living in right now, where we are having all of these things rolled back. Not only are we having our rights rolled back, we're also just having our entertainment rolled back.

Sabrina Patterson @theturningpagephotoco

I know you were a little nontraditional on your wedding day. What is a nontraditional wedding thing that you did that you would absolutely recommend? And what is a traditional wedding thing that you don't think anyone should do?

HD: One nontraditional thing that we did — and I do think this is also because we eloped and Pilar loves to find a little loophole — we did go shopping for our dresses together. It was so fun because of what I said earlier, about how we spend half of our time being partners and half of our time being friends. So it was so fun to shop for our dresses together, and we didn't even realize until we got there that we both had very different ideas of what we were going to get for our dresses. I walked in and was like, "We're eloping, so it's going to be short and cute and fun." And Pilar was like, "I'm getting a gown."

PD: And I think that's something so special that I know is traditionally supposed to be separate and you have that first look. I can't imagine not being a part of that process. That was so fun for both of us.

HD: Alternatively, I've seen a lot of this in the wedding industry recently, but I think thinking that you have to have a cake and do a cake cutting is so traditional. I think that the concept of needing to cut a cake and do all of that — wedding cakes are outrageously expensive.

PD: Yeah, I feel like we customized everything to be exactly what we wanted.

And that's why we're gay, and that's perfect.

Interview has been condensed and edited for clarity

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/ultimatum-queer-love-haley-pilar-wedding-elopement-gavin-newsom-pictures on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

Answers & Advice

- How to Get an X Gender Marker on Your Passport and Other Important Government Documents

SAFETY AND LEGAL | NOV 10, 2025, 3:15 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

How to Update the Gender Marker on Your ID, Passport, and Other Government Documents

Legal experts broke down how to change your gender marker across government documents for trans folks across the country.

The state of transgender documents in the United States: This article breaks down the current state of X gender markers on passports, how to update the gender marker on your state ID, and more as of November 10, 2025. Due to a November 6 Supreme Court decision, any person who applies for a passport — new or renewed — will receive one with their sex assigned at birth. This decision applies as litigation brought by trans plaintiffs continues to play out. This page will be updated on the most up-to-date information on ID documents.

While there were a number of policy developments that aided transgender, nonbinary, and intersex in obtaining legal documents with correct gender markers in the early 2020s, President Donald Trump and his administration have sought to roll back this progress.

On November 6, the Supreme Court of the United States gave the Trump administration authority to temporarily bar applicants from displaying any gender outside of their sex assigned at birth on their passports. This decision followed the Justice Department’s request for the court to temporarily pause a lower court order that required the government to issue gender-affirming passports to trans and nonbinary people. This SCOTUS decision was the latest in a months-long battle around Trump’s sweeping anti-trans executive order in January 2025, which sought to define gender according to one’s sex assigned at birth at all levels of government.

That executive order, which called to federally define gender as one’s sex “at conception,” was initially challenged in the class action lawsuit Orr v. Trump, first filed in February. In April, Boston U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick blocked the order in a preliminary injunction, requiring the State Department to grant trans, nonbinary, and intersex people passports that correspond with their gender. Another order was issued in the case in June, expanding Kobick’s injunction and blocking the Trump administration from denying passport gender marker changes. In light of the November 6 SCOTUS decision to temporarily uphold Trump’s trans passport ban while the litigation is pending, many trans, nonbinary and intersex people are asking questions about how and if they should change their gender markers on their passports, as well as other legal documents.

“One thing this does mean is that people who have a valid passport should not seek to renew it or to change the name on it unless they are willing to be given a passport with a sex marker reflecting their sex assigned at birth,” Jon W. Davidson, a senior counsel for the ACLU, tells Them.

While Trump’s passport ban is now temporarily in effect pending further court action, obtaining accurate gender markers on state IDs as well as birth certificates is still possible on a state-by-state basis. The current state of flux for trans, nonbinary, and intersex identity documents makes it all the more important to keep your paperwork safe. Ash Lazarus Orr, a representative for Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE) and named plaintiff in Orr v. Trump, recommends making multiple physical copies of important legal documents to keep on file.

In short, it’s a good idea to review your documents and consider what, if any, changes you may want to pursue. Below, learn more about the current state of changing gender markers on your passport, birth certificate, and other important documents.

How do I change the gender marker on my state ID? Can I?

Gender marker policies vary from state to state. According to the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), there are 22 states (plus Washington D.C.) that allow people to select M, F, or X as a gender marker on their state ID. Other states allow ID changes, but require additional documentation, which may include proof of surgery, a court order, or updated birth certificate.

Meanwhile, there are a handful of states — including Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Kansas — that have begun to quietly revoke gender change protections or issue outright bans. To learn more about your area’s policies, consult with Advocates for Trans Equality’s U.S. state and territories directory. The length of this process again depends on where you live, but it can generally take several weeks or months to get all your paperwork in order, especially if you're also interested in a name change. You should also expect some administrative and application fees, which can range from relatively minor to a few hundred dollars in price.

How do I change the gender marker on my passport?

Due to the Trump administration’s attempts to redefine the definition of gender on the federal level to sex determined “at conception,” changing your gender marker on your passport has been the subject of a lot of recent confusion. The ACLU has put together a list of commonly asked questions to guide trans, nonbinary, and intersex people through the process of obtaining a passport — but the November 6 ruling means trans and nonbinary people will likely not be able to obtain the correct gender markers, for the time being.

Following the latest Supreme Court ruling, while Orr v. Trump is being considered in court, any passports issued may only reflect applicants’ assigned sex at birth. Davidson tells Them that this means whether someone is applying for a first-time passport; is seeking to renew a passport that has expired, been damaged, or lost;, or wants to change just their name on their passport, the State Department will issue a passport with their sex assigned at birth. According to the ACLU, even if you have previously obtained a passport with an X gender marker or any accurate gender marker that differs from your sex assigned at birth in the past, you will receive a passport with the sex marker that was on your original birth certificate.

If you are applying for a new passport, you will need to provide your original birth certificate. If you do not have your original birth certificate, you will need to provide the State Department with other documents close to your time of birth. Currently, there is no guidance on what that means for intersex people, who may not have any documentation close to their time of birth with a gender marker that matches their identity.

“The ruling showed a callous disregard for the lives of transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people, but we will not be deterred in our efforts to right this wrong,” Davidson says. “We are committed to defending the rights of all people to live in accordance with their identity, free from government discrimination and oppression.”

How do I change gender markers on my birth certificate?

There’s no “one-stop shop” when it comes to updating your birth certificate. The exact requirements — and whether or not you have the legal right to change birth certificate gender markers in the first place — depends on where you were born. Many states do require court orders and/or medical evidence, which may include a medical provider’s support or proof of treatment or surgery. Lambda Legal has a state-by-state guide on birth certificate policies you can use to learn more.

What if my gender markers across my IDs and important documents don’t match?

If your documents aren’t the same, don’t panic. Some people may want or need their identification to match across the board, while others may feel satisfied with only an “X” on their state license. The right combination of ID depends on your situation, goals, and of course, your area’s laws.

However, Orr says it may be worthwhile to make sure your state ID (like a license) is consistent with your passport. “Odds are, you are going to be using those [IDs] far more than you’re going to be utilizing your birth certificate,” he says. Matching gender markers on your IDs may help you travel and accomplish daily tasks with greater ease.

Are there any resources or organizations I can reach to help change my gender marker?

Absolutely! There are a number of organizations that can provide advice and legal support as you change your gender marker and/or name on official documents. In some cases, organizations may also provide financial support, as the process can be both time-consuming and expensive depending on where you live and which documents you are updating. To help get you started, check out the following organizations:

- Advocates for Trans Equality. A4TE offers a step-by-step guide on gender and name change policies. Additionally, A4TE’s Name Change Project provides free legal services to low-income trans, nonbinary and GNC folks.

- Transgender Law Center. TLC offers a free legal Helpdesk in English and Spanish to help walk you through the basics of identity document changes. However, the help desk doesn’t provide individualized legal advice or representation.

- Trans Lifeline. The ID Change Library offers a searchable database on ID changes and includes both local and federal policy information and application fees. There is also information on Tribal IDs, military, employment and immigration documents, as well as resources for those with criminal records. Additionally, Trans Lifeline offers micro-grants to trans and non-binary people to update documentation. (According to Trans Lifeline, micro-grants are currently paused but may reopen in the future.)

Finally, it’s also worth seeing what resources are available in your area — LGBTQ centers, local PFLAG or Pride groups, and other community-led initiatives may provide free workshops, financial help, and other resources for ID changes.

There's no way to sugarcoat it — changing your gender markers particularly during this current political moment can feel unclear at best and scary at worst. That being said, the ACLU is continuing to fight on behalf of trans, nonbinary, and intersex people everywhere.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling was not a decision on the merits,” Davidson tells Them. “It was issued without full briefing, without argument, without a fully developed record, and without the normal deliberation given to appeals. We will continue to litigate our challenge to the current passport policy vigorously. We are not giving up.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/how-to-get-x-gender-marker-on-your-passport-birth-certificate-id on Nov 14, 2025 at 11:35 AM EST.

Table of Contents

Them.: 2025 Nov 13

News

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Florida AG Calls for Christmas Drag Show to Be Canceled, Targets Trinity the Tuck and Suzie Toot

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In Rare LGBTQ+ Win: Supreme Court Decides Not to Revisit Same-Sex Marriage

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Woman Crashes Out at School Board Meeting Over Queer Teacher Bringing Husband's Brownies to Class

Texas Court Approves Partial Drag Performance Ban

Community

'Ultimatum: Queer Love' Wedding: Haley and Pilar Talk Elopement's Gavin Newsom Surprise

Answers & Advice

How to Get an X Gender Marker on Your Passport and Other Important Government Documents