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- What Is Gay Guy Music Video Night? 2025's Best New Entries to the Beloved Tradition

MUSIC | MICHAEL CUBY | DEC 18, 2025, 12:12 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

2025’s Best New Entries in Gay Guy Music Video Night

Pop stars and rappers alike gifted us with plenty of pregaming visuals this year.

RCA Records

Nothing feels more sacred than the beloved, ancient tradition of Gay Guy Music Video Night. A simple concept that can take many forms, Gay Guy Music Video Night refers to the age-old practice of gathering a group of your favorite gay guys (and anyone who wants to join) to convene around a television screen, open up YouTube, and play a constant stream of music videos. Gay Guy Music Video Night can happen at any time (though it is typically invoked at a pregame or in an “afters”-type situation) and at any place (though it is usually — and ideally — inside the apartment of a gay with an at least halfway decent living-room setup).

But what can be played at Gay Guy Music Video Night is slightly more complicated. Sure, technically speaking, anyone can play any music video at Gay Guy Music Video Night. There is no decree stating that it must be from a certain time period, that it must be by a certain artist, or that it must ascribe to any particular aesthetic. But to avoid the scornful gaze of your fellow gays, it is best to always remember that music videos by women are usually best (unless you’re making something really gay like Troye Sivan’s “Rush”), music videos featuring choreography are always welcomed, and when it comes to genre, pop and (female) rap will always reign supreme.

In 2025, pop stars and rappers alike gifted us plenty of new visuals that could easily become mainstays at Gay Guy Music Video Night. With new releases from the likes of Lady Gaga, Addison Rae, and FKA twigs, there was no shortage of memorable options to choose from.

Below, we highlight the ten best new additions to every gay guy’s YouTube queue.

“Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga

Though not the same thing, awards shows are a natural extension of Gay Guy Music Video Night; they provide a chance to seek communion with your fellow LGBTQs as you bicker over undeserving winners and mourn your poor, snubbed faves. Which is why, perhaps, it felt so kismet when Lady Gaga — arguably our generation’s most prolific contributor to GGMVN — debuted the music video for her second MAYHEM single, “Abracadabra,” during a commercial break at this year’s Grammys. (Everybody say, “Thank you, Mastercard, for spending money the right way.”)

At my Grammys watch party, you could hear a pin drop in the room, as my fellow gays stared at the television screen in a trance, witnessing the ultimate return of what a now-infamous meme once referred to as “That Rah-Rah Bitch.” The video features all our favorite hallmarks of Gaga’s best visual output: high-glam costumes, intricate choreography (courtesy of co-director Parris Goebel), and a narrative (this one, about Gaga’s war with a different version of herself, embodied by the alter-ego “The Lady in Red”). Coupled with a career highlight of a song — itself, a callback to aughts hits like “Alejandro” and “Bad Romance” — the “Abracadabra” video took our little gay hearts by storm, told us to dance or die, and has held on tight ever since.

“Midnight Sun” by Zara Larsson

Zara Larsson is a testament to the belief that it’s never too late to break out. Despite being active in the pop music sphere for over a decade, the Swedish singer didn’t fully find her (American commercial) stride until this year, thanks in large part to the landmark success of her sparkling single “Midnight Sun.” A figurative ode to the never-ending joy of nightlife — and a literal ode to Sweden’s summers, where the sun never really sets — Zara’s little sliver of pop confection has become a mainstay at gay clubs. The song acts like a sleeper-cell, and when activated, everyone is driven to the dance floor for a mandatory singalong and requisite twirl.

The song’s accompanying visual only adds to this sensation. With its icy blue waters, cotton candy clouds, crisp green grass, and spray-painted tank tops, it’s a music video that feels like summer — and who doesn’t want to escape into the warmth during those frigid nights when the pregame becomes the game because no one wants to brave the snow to hop around bars? Throw some floating butterflies and Clip Art-inspired graphics in the mix, and you have a recipe for gay guy catnip. It’s a Lisa Frank fantasy and a glittery sticker-pack come to life. Summer isn’t over yet!

“Gnarly” by KATSEYE

No Gay Guy Music Video Night is complete without a girl group. Sure, one can always default to the classics: the Destiny’s Childs, the Danity Kanes, the Pussycat Dolls, the Spice Girls, and if you’re feeling frisky on a Friday, even the Fifth Harmonys. But gay guys have an innate longing for fresh blood, and thankfully, this year, KATSEYE came to deliver in spades.

“Gnarly,” the third single from the winners of Netflix’s uber-popular Pop Star Academy, is nonsensical and vapid, but that’s exactly what makes it work. KATSEYE introduce the concept that “they could describe everything with one single word,” and though I would have never thought to describe boba tea, Tesla, or partying in the Hollywood Hills as “gnarly” before this, I can’t say they’re wrong. The song’s music video is equally chaotic, full of crazy camera movements, headache-inducing jump cuts, bulging eyeballs, and a still unexplainably large number of rather delicious-looking sandwiches. But the reason we keep coming back? The dancing. As anyone who watched Pop Star Academy (or their internet-breaking GAP ad) can attest, these girls can dance, and the choreography for “Gnarly” — complex enough to be compelling, but not so much that aspiring TikTok influencers can’t spend a few days learning it themselves for viral clicks — satisfies in all the right ways. Turn this video on and at least two people in the room are guaranteed to immediately hop off the couch, ready to hit every beat as if they, themselves, were one of the last people to be cut in the Pop Star Academy bootcamp.

“Headphones On” by Addison Rae

Addison Rae has ruled Gay Guy Music Video Night for two years running. Last year, the former TikTok star-cum-Netflix slop actress came out swinging with the one-two punch of “Diet Pepsi” and “Aquamarine,” and this year, her streak continued with brilliant visuals for singles like “High Fashion” and “Times Like These.” But among it all, it was “Headphones On” that took the cake.

“Headphones On” is the video you put on when everyone has turned away from the TV to engage in their own mini-conversations. The song, about tuning out the world to escape into a fantasy of your own creation by way of your favorite music, is a bona fide crowdpleaser — and the music video is beautiful in its similarly solitary simplicity. There is no choreography (like in last year’s star-making “Aquamarine”) nor is there a cinematic sensibility (like in the neon-soaked world of “Fame Is a Gun”). What there is, however, is a hot pink shoulder-length wig, a purple American Apparel drawstring hoodie, a gorgeous white horse, and plenty of glorious shots of the Icelandic countryside. (The video is an homage to Björk, whose music Addison sought solace in as she tried to deal with her parents’ divorce.) There’s something very “iTunes visualizer” about the proceedings, which makes it ideal background noise (complimentary).

“Cuntissimo” by Marina and the Diamonds

Every Gay Guy Music Video Night needs at least one entry that only one gay in the room wants but insists on putting on in a desperate attempt to convert the rest of the crowd. For me this year, that was “Cuntissimo,” one of several great comeback singles by the unfairly discarded former Queen of Gay Guy Indie Pop Marina and the Diamonds.

“Cuntissimo,” the song, is all about carefree living — it’s “Salma Hayek in the sun”; it’s “smoking a Vogue out in the rain” — and the brightly-lit music video is a great extension of that playfully hedonistic spirit. Featuring Marina and a band of beautiful women strutting through a massive palace while dressed in the most luxurious of couture finery, the video takes Marina’s claims to “go to Lake Como and take over a chateau” to its natural endpoint. As this group of glamorous partiers spray-paint designer gowns, have pillow fights while running through the flying feathers that are somehow suspended in mid-air, and altogether make a mess of what must have once been a pristine Italian villa, Marina invites viewers into her world of unapologetic revelry. It’s every gay guy’s fantasy — and it’s why I’ll never stop spreading The Gospel of Cuntissimo.

“Thirst Trap” by Audrey Hoebert

Has anyone developed a more instantly recognizable visual language quicker than Audrey Hoebert this year? The Los Angeles-born singer (and Gracie Abrams co-songwriter) has brilliantly translated her stage persona — shy girl with insecurities who wears her heart on her tattered sleeve — into her music videos, which are defined by an unabashedly quirky and corny approach to everything from dancing alone in your room to lucking out at the local bowling alley.

The highlight of her debut run of music videos is “Thirst Trap.” There are practical features to admire, like the effects that make it look like she’s falling through a tornado-ridden sky, as if she’s a modern-day Dorothy trying to find her way back to Kansas. But what stands out is her willingness to be silly. Though she’s a trained dancer, she’s not afraid to look goofy when she freely moves her body, nor is she too self-conscious to make silly faces when the camera zooms in for close-ups. An easy sense of humor is Audrey’s biggest attribute, and this video makes good use of that, whether she’s allowing the camera to pan down and show that she’s walking on a treadmill while dressed in a blazer and red Mary Jane kitten heels or clapping her hands to “change the lighting” for her selfies, only to find herself temporarily blinded by a ray of white. It all circles back around to the overarching theme for her album: Who’s the Clown? As long as you’re willing to laugh at yourself, nothing else has the power to bring you down.

“Gorgeous” by Doja Cat

Few things are gayer than female rappers and supermodels, so Doja Cat must have been vying for a spot on this list when she gathered a crew of some of today’s hottest fashion fixtures to star in the video for her single “Gorgeous.” Styled like a vintage holiday ad campaign for your mother’s favorite makeup brand, “Gorgeous” is a beauty lover’s fever dream (even when Doja is rapping about putting on the wig just to take it off when she “damn well pleases”).

But that cast… With appearances by recognizable runway staples like Paloma Elsesser, Anok Yai, Irina Shayk, Ugbad Abdi, Yseult, Alek Wek, Imaan Hammam, Mona Tougaard, Karen Elson, Sora Choi, and recent Them cover star Alex Consani, this video would be a shoo-in for the Oscars’ newly-minted Best Casting category if music videos were eligible for Hollywood’s top honor. This makes it perfect for throwing on when one of the more fashion-minded gays in your midst threatens to turn on the latest Chanel show; after all, the ’80s-inspired looks here are characters in and of themselves. Doja said, “It’s a crime to be gorgeous.” She was so right.

“BEAT UP CHANEL$” by Slayyyter

Every Gay Guy Music Video Night needs an underdog — and now that Charli XCX is a superstar with a Grammy and at least four movies scheduled for release in 2026, it was high time we focused our collective queer force on more niche names. Enter: Slayyyter. Already a beloved fixture amongst the Brooklyn nightlife set, the pop star has been blowing out speakers at your favorite raves for years. But with her 2025 run of singles — her first under a major label — the Missouri-born, former independent artist expanded her reach beyond the bowels of the warehouse, gifting gays the kind of club-ready songs guaranteed to get any party started.

At the top of the crop is “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” a seedy bass-heavy anthem about living life in the fast lane (and looking great while doing so). The video perfectly captures this spirit, finding Slayyyter flanked by a group of tank top-clad muscle trade as she chainsmokes cigarettes, shoots a gun at a Chanel bag, and intimidatingly wields a swinging baseball bat. With its embrace of trailer park couture, it’s a glitzy depiction of offbeat life, but therein lies its central allure. Slayyyter says she wants sex, money, bitches, and the stickiest weed. Who are we to resist?

“Chanel” by Tyla

A late entry to the list, Tyla capped off an incredibly fruitful year with one of her catchiest singles to date. The second song on this list to directly reference The House That Coco Built, Tyla’s “Chanel” is an instant earworm about the joys of materialism (especially when someone else is footing the bill), and the accompanying visual is a feast for fashion-starved eyes.

Like many of Tyla’s videos, there is a large focus placed on her beauty because, well, who doesn’t want to watch Tyla walking around looking hot while an Afrobeat blasts behind her? But this time, as the South African singer struts down long hallways and gyrates against bare walls, she is styled head-to-toe in Chanel… from every era. Those ’90s-era leather-and-chain accessories that you’re constantly favoriting on The RealReal? Tyla has covered herself in them. That super-rare quilted hula-hoop bag from Spring/Summer 2013? Best believe she’s hanging that big thing over her tiny shoulders. This is the archive queen, and she’s graciously invited all of us in to gush over a slew of prized pieces that we’d otherwise never be able to get our own hands on. This is a video for those of us who want to live vicariously through someone with far more access than us — and what’s gayer than that? Put me in Chanel, indeed.

“HARD” by FKA twigs

Yet another frequent purveyor of a near-constant stream of GGMVN-approved visuals, FKA twigs has spent the better part of the past couple years churning out one iconic music video after another. But since the simply sublime video for EUSEXUA’s title track came out in 2024, I looked further down the album cycle. Thankfully, twigs can’t stop working and followed up the early 2025 release of EUSEXUA with a companion piece, Afterglow, just last month.

Shot in black and white in what looks like a desert oasis, the video for “HARD” is easily one of the best of this new era. There are clear calls to GGMVN classics of yore: when she’s encircled by a group of shirtless men in ballet tights, it can’t help but evoke images of Gaga’s “Alejandro” (in the best way possible). Ditto for the fluid choreo, which shirks some of the more deliberately stylized moves twigs has become known for in favor of something softer, sexier, more gently balletic. It’s all a clever evocation of the song’s themes, which wrestle with the gap that exists between lust and love, piercing into the moment when you realize that random hookups are no longer enough and that you might need something more. But don’t get bogged down in the philosophical. Whether she is using her hair as an anchor to drag a body across the sand or spontaneously cutting it all off, “HARD” also has a lightness to it. By the time she’s dancing while blindfolded in its final moments, it’s clear that she has managed to exceed all expectations yet again. All eyes on twigs. (At least when I’m in possession of the remote control.)

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/gay-guy-music-video-night-lady-gaga-katseye-doja-cat-2025 on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

News

- Project 2025 Was Just the Start. Heritage Foundation Has an Anti-LGBTQ+ Scheme for 2026, Too

- Robbers Who Targeted Gay Men on Grindr Sentenced to Prison

- Trans Prisoners Allege Targeted Harassment by Supervisor at Nation’s Worst-Ranked Facility

- Texas Judge's New Lawsuit Is the Latest in Fight Against Same-Sex Marriage

- Trump Admin Threatens 12 Companies Over Chest Binders

- Texas Wants Citizens to Take Pics and Tattle on Trans People Using the Bathroom

- Dr. Oz Makes Bizarre Rant About the Cost of Bottom Surgeries: “Testicles, That’s Extra”

- Trump and RFK Jr. Move to Block All Hospitals From Offering Trans Youth Care

- 3 Democrats Signed on to Marjorie Taylor Green's Bill Criminalizing Trans Youth Care

- Texas Church Condemns ICE in Caged Nativity Scene Atop Rainbow Pride Steps

- Lane V. Rogers, OnlyFans Star Known as Blake Mitchell, Dead at 31

- Florida’s Attorney General Is Having a Conniption Over a Christmas Drag Show

- Gavin Newsom Praises “Humanity” of Reagan, President Who Famously Ignored AIDS Crisis

- Grindr CEO Says App Will Be “AI-First” and “Not in the Business of Politics”

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | DEC 23, 2025, 12:10 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Project 2025 Was Just the Start. Heritage Foundation Has an Anti-LGBTQ+ Scheme for 2026, Too

The plan appears to oppose trans people and same-sex marriage.

Tom Williams/Getty Images

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After spending this year working to implement as much of its gargantuan right-wing policy agenda, Project 2025, as possible, the Heritage Foundation has unveiled its anti-LGBTQ+ goals for 2026.

Over the past month, the far-right think tank has been preparing for next year, releasing an ad campaign and doing multiple interviews about its plans. The activity has brought renewed attention on Heritage Foundation’s 2025-2026 policy priorities, which were titled “Restoring America’s Promise” when they were released in March. At the time, the group named nine key priorities, including “root[ing] out the deep state” and “counter[ing] the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”

The bulk of its anti-LGBTQ+ goals lie in the priority titled “Put Family First,” in which the Heritage Foundation declares that “every child conceived deserves to be born to a married mother and father who will love, guide, and protect them throughout their lives.”

The organization goes on to claim that “family breakdown and rampant abortion tears at the soul of our country and saps it of strength and moral authority,” while “radical ideologies that deny social and biological truths about sexual embodiment, marriage, and unborn life poison our courts, our culture, and our laws.”

“The Heritage enterprise will advance policies at the state and federal level to restore the nuclear family to the center of American life and to reduce both the demand and supply for abortion at all stages of human development,” it concludes. This language appears to oppose same-sex marriage given its emphasis on children being born to a married father and mother. It also appears to oppose transgender identity given its condemnation of ideologies that “deny social and biological truths about sexual embodiment” — this falls inline with a longstanding Heritage Foundation fight against trans people.

Elsewhere, the Heritage Foundation indicates its anti-trans views in a priority titled “Expand Education Freedom,” in which the group declares that the education system is “failing our children” through “the scourge of woke ideas like critical theory and radical gender ideology.” The terminology “radical gender ideology” is often used by conservatives to refer to trans and nonbinary identities.

The Heritage Foundation has been around since 1973, when it was founded by conservatives who found President Richard Nixon too liberal and feared both fiscal liberalism and federal government expansion. It has been consistent in its campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights, from consulting with then-governor Mitt Romney to figure out ways around preventing the legalization of gay marriage from being implemented in Massachusetts to lobbying against Title IX protections for trans students implemented during the Obama administration.

More recently, the organization has made headlines for its 920-page policy blueprint Project 2025, which presents a far-right Christian vision for the second Trump administration that includes several anti-trans measures, as well as the dismantling of the Department of Education and undoing other federal checks and balances. Although the Heritage Foundation has been releasing regular “Mandate for Leadership” blueprints ahead of incoming presidential administrations since the 1980s, Project 2025 has received considerable attention given that the group staffed and advised the first Trump administration (in July 2024, a CNN review found that at least 140 people working for Trump were involved with the Heritage Foundation). One of Project 2025’s architects, Russell Vought, currently runs the Office of Management and Budget.

Following late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s temporary removal in September, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr seemingly confirmed speculation that the Trump administration’s actions are a part of Project 2025. At the time, Glee star Kevin McHale shared an X post stating that “This was all in Project 2025,” after reposting another X post that framed right-wing attacks on media — which also include the Trump administration’s lawsuit against 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal — as First Amendment assaults. In response, Carr — who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC — shared a GIF of Jack Nicholson nodding in apparent confirmation.

As a recent The 19th report pointed out, the second Trump administration has fulfilled a number of Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ directives, including purging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data on gender identity and cutting federal funds for gender-affirming care.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/heritage-foundation-project-2025-2026-plan-trump-administration on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | DEC 23, 2025, 10:28 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Robbers Who Targeted Gay Men on Grindr Sentenced to Prison

The criminals were a part of a ring that committed fraud and theft against at least 22 victims.

Metropolitan Police

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Two robbers in London who used Grindr to target their victims have been arrested and sentenced to a combined eight-and-a-half years in prison.

According to a December 22 Metropolitan Police report, 22-year-old Rahmat Khan Mohammadi and 21-year-old Mohammed Bilal Hotak were found guilty of burglary, fraud, and theft at Isleworth Crown Court on November 4.

Between October 2024 and March 2025, the men were part of an organized crime group that committed 35 burglaries and 20 frauds targeting 22 victims. Mohammadi and Hotak used Grindr to contact their victims and arranged to meet them in their homes. Their profile typically had no photo, and when prompted to share one, they would send a picture of someone else.

Once they were inside, the pair convinced their victims to unlock their phones and share their passwords in order to play music on YouTube. Once the phone was unlocked, Mohammadi and Hotak used a variety of methods to distract their targets, such as asking them to shower before sex, asking to use the bathroom, and making a drink. They escaped with the phone or other valuable household items, such as passports, watches, and wallets, then used victims’ personal data to withdraw funds, transfer money to other accounts, or make payments.

Prosecuting lawyer David Patience claimed that because the burglars’ victims were targeted because of their sexuality, the robberies could be viewed as hate crimes.

“They did not target women, heterosexual men — they targeted gay men,” he said in court. “They thought they would be easier to commit offenses against.”

During sentencing, Judge Adenike Balogun said that “I have taken note of the psychological trauma as well as the inconvenience caused to the victims, and the distress that all of them have expressed at allowing you into their homes — into their private spaces — only to be violated.”

Although Balogun acknowledged that Mohammadi and Hotak’s targets were picked “because of their perceived vulnerability,” she concluded that they weren’t ultimately robbed due to “hostility,” but because using Grindr presented “an opportunity to gain easy access into the homes of victims.”

“I suspect you were… banking on the victims not reporting the crime,” Balogun added.

Mohammadi was sentenced to five years in prison, while Hotak was sentenced to three-and-a-half years.

Following an extensive 2023 review that condemned the Metropolitan Police for institutional misogyny, racism, and homophobia, the force said that it worked with the Met’s LGBT+ Advisory Group and the anti-LGBTQ+ abuse charity GALOP on the case to ensure “we were able to conduct our work with sensitivity and care.”

“We know Grindr is used by many LGBT+ people not only for dating, but also for community, connection, and mutual support — particularly for people who may feel otherwise isolated," GALOP’s co-chief executive, told the BBC in a statement. “Learning about the harmful and calculated manipulation of Grindr to target LGBT+ people is likely to have a real impact on our whole community’s sense of safety. More must be done to ensure minoritised victims of crime have meaningful access to safety and criminal justice.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/london-grindr-theft-ring-rahmat-khan-mohammadi-mohammed-bilal-hotak on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

POLITICS | DEC 22, 2025, 5:00 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trans Prisoners Allege Targeted Harassment by Supervisor at Nation’s Worst-Ranked Facility

Incarcerated trans people tell Them that people were offered “buckets of hot water” instead of a shower due to new policies they say are violating their rights at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

Transgender people incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York say a new set of shower policies have led to increased anti-trans harassment and abuse. Advocates are sounding the alarm over these shower policies and other issues affecting incarcerated people at Bedford, alleging that the prison administration is violating federal and state laws.

These allegations come amid the release of new data from the U.S. Department of Justice showing that Bedford Hills has the highest estimated rate of sexual victimization of any prison in the country. In its survey of over 100 incarcerated individuals at Bedford published earlier this month, 18.6% reported “forced or coerced sexual acts,” with 13.5% reporting this misconduct from a staff member.

Incarcerated trans people hold certain protections through the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) — a set of protections the Trump administration is trying to roll back — which requires that prisons offer trans, intersex, and religious incarcerated individuals the opportunity to shower separately. Research shows that incarcerated trans people are over 10 times more likely to experience sexual assault than their cis counterparts, necessitating policies like protected shower time.

“Those statistics are not surprising,“ says Sara Kielly, a 35-year-old trans woman in her fifth year of incarceration at Bedford, during an interview with Them conducted at the facility. “The leadership here has created a culture where sexual harassment and violence flourish.“

While the new policies at Bedford don’t explicitly ban incarcerated trans people from protected shower time, the sources Them spoke with say its harsh overall limits on shower access mean that these separate showers are not always available — and that when trans people use these rare slots, a target is put on their backs in the general population.

Sources tell Them that the changes in policy began after Michael Blot joined Bedford on August 21 as the new Deputy Superintendent of Security. Nur, a trans man incarcerated at Bedford who requested to use his Muslim name only, tells Them that “a major plague of violence from the staff” began during this transition of leadership, “as soon as [the] administration switched powers and the new schedule was implemented.”

“New York's prisons are perpetuating a profound human rights crisis."

During the second week of November, a new schedule and operating procedure for Bedford was introduced, according to versioned copies of the Facility Operating Manual (FOM) reviewed by Them. This new policy restricts many modes of free movement throughout the facility, banning indoor recreation time entirely, and sharply regulating access to showers, setting a maximum of two incarcerated individuals showering at one time in areas that typically accommodated six to seven people.

“Beginning November 10, 2025, additional structure was implemented in five units [at Bedford] that previously had minimal control,” Nicole March, Assistant Public Information Officer at the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), confirmed to Them. “Incarcerated individuals now sign up for showers, kitchen access, phones, and laundry using scheduled time slots, [but] shower access has not been eliminated or limited to once per day.”

In contrast to these assertions from DOCCS, incarcerated individuals and legal advocates allege that these new rules have made it impossible for folks at Bedford to reliably access the showers.

“Sometimes people are going three, four, five days without taking a shower,” says Sophie Gebreselassie, a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society, regarding her clients at Bedford. Both Gebreselassie and Kielly report that staff have offered “buckets of hot water” to people in their cells who were otherwise unable to snag a slot to shower that day.

The current version of the FOM specifies a rule of “2 I/I’s [incarcerated individuals] at one time” while showers are open. Trans people at Bedford reported to Them that with this new limit on shower usage, dedicated shower time for trans folks was taken off the schedule, a potential violation of PREA, according to attorneys at Legal Aid.

“You had to either shower when a slot was available or not shower at all,” says Kielly. “This meant no religious or trans showers.”

Over time, Kielly says, Blot allowed officers to use their discretion to allow trans folks to “request” a private time slot to shower. However, Gebreselassie says this new system “create[d] an environment where perceived disparate treatment can grow” against trans folks at Bedford “because they are so deeply limiting access to showers.” To request a private shower as a trans person at Bedford now means potentially taking that slot away from someone else at a time when other incarcerated people are also desperate for the time.

Several trans people at Bedford told Them they have experienced increased harassment and abuse from their fellow incarcerated people in cases where officers were offering a separate shower.

“Trans showers create[d] resentment,” Kielly says, “and further harassment of those who choose to avail themselves to the right.”

Beyond these tensions surrounding the new shower system, Kielly and others at Bedford say that the ban on indoor recreation time — noted in the new Bedford operating manual in a section titled “No Indoor Recreation” — was an unprecedented change to the mobility of incarcerated folks, keeping people bound to their cells for longer.

“While indoor recreation is not currently offered in the upper housing units, yard and gym access has been expanded,” March says. “Outdoor recreation has not been eliminated.”

The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) law, enacted in 2021 across New York state, sets limits on how long prisoners can be kept in segregated confinement. Gebreselassie’s team has two open lawsuits accusing New York State of violations of this law.

“The policy on its face is very draconian,” says Gebreselassie in reference to Bedford’s new operating manual. “But more so it requires a staff that is organized, well deployed, sufficiently staffed, on time, a lot of coordination. It’s so obvious how it falls apart, and when it falls apart, people are left in their cells to languish […] we’ve seen over and over again that these sorts of limitations lead to violations of the HALT law.”

According to CiCi Herrera, a trans woman who has spent the last four years at Bedford, the continued availability of outdoor recreation time still binds elderly and sick incarcerated individuals to their cells. “If you’re old and you can't be in the cold and you can’t go to the gym, you’re spending 24 hours in the cell,” Herrera tells Them. “There is not even a bench to sit on [outside].”

“DOCCS remains committed to operating in compliance with the HALT Act and the Prison Rape Elimination Act while maintaining facility safety and order,” March says.

Between the new shower rules and restrictions on recreation time, Kielly says she thinks Blot is trying “to create deliberate conflict and animus amongst [the] population, and then try to use the fallout of that to justify his actions.” She tells Them she has witnessed large-scale physical confrontations within the last month — between incarcerated folks and sometimes involving staff members — unlike anything she has seen in her five years at Bedford. Amid these rising tensions, Nur says he is concerned with the potential ramifications, especially as he notices Bedford staff allegedly using force more frequently now that Blot is in charge.

“It's deeper than the shower [issue],” Nur tells Them, “the population are on the brink of being the next Robert Brooks at the hands of the staff,” referencing the name of an incarcerated man who was beaten to death by correctional officers at a men’s New York state facility in December 2024. “The only time people pay attention to us is when it’s too late.”

“We are fighting for the future”

While new to Bedford, Blot has worked in correctional facilities for over two decades at various locations across Westchester and Dutchess county, with government payroll records and court documents listing him as a corrections employee at facilities like Sing Sing, Fishkill, and Green Haven.

Recorded incidents of misconduct from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) — published by NYCLU for the years 2000 to 2020 — cite Blot once for alleged “inmate abuse” and twice for negligently leaving his post. However, none of these misconduct cases led to his suspension, according to the data.

Them also found over ten civil court cases from the past two decades that list Blot as a defendant, several of which allege Blot’s violation of the human rights of incarcerated people. He has been accused of sexually assaulting an incarcerated individual (Bright v. Annucci, 2024), using excessive force in the deployment of chemical spray (Folborg v. Blot, 2025), and tampering with and destroying evidence (Nova v. Martuscello, 2025).

Legal experts have been calling attention to Blot’s history in court as he takes on his new role of Deputy Superintendent of Security at Bedford. Among those raising the alarm is Kelly Harnett, a legal analyst formerly incarcerated at Bedford, who has spent weeks analyzing public court documents related to Blot’s past following his appointment.

“DOCCS (Department of Correction and Community Supervision) is currently acting with deliberate indifference […] by knowingly, yet negligently hiring an alleged sex offender to run the only maximum security prison for women,” Harnett tells Them.

Them requested direct comment from Blot for this article, but March in her capacity as DOCCS PIO affirmed that the “Public Information Office serves as the sole authorized spokesperson on behalf of the agency and its employees” and that “the Department does not comment on pending litigation.”

Nur also conducted legal research into Blot’s past litigation through part-time access to the law library inside Bedford. In a November 9 letter to Prisoner Legal Services that Them obtained, Nur cites several of these cases and documents “complaints of abuse and excessive use of force as an officer” lobbied against Blot coinciding with his “moving up the rank as a Sergeant and now DSS.”

”I mention this important factor as [a] reminder,” he says, ”that the misogynist who is now the head of security in BHCF was once a foot soldier in numerous violent acts against the incarcerated population.”

Some state lawmakers are trying to pass legislation that could bring more oversight to facilities like Bedford. “New York's prisons are perpetuating a profound human rights crisis,” Democratic New York State Senator Julia Salazar tells Them, “including crimes and mistreatment that have been covered up.” Governor Kathy Hochul signed one of Salazar’s sponsored bills into law last Friday, which expands state surveillance systems and investigative oversight on correctional facilities. Salazar is now working with groups like the Transgender Prisoners' Rights Coalition and New Pride Agenda in hopes to pass a bill enshrining new protections for trans incarcerated folks.

Advocacy groups on the ground are calling for government agencies to intervene directly at Bedford. Fight 2 Live (F2L), a prison abolitionist group supporting queer and trans incarcerated folks of color, launched a petition and mailer campaign last month asking members of the public to contact elected officials. Their campaign’s core demands are the immediate removal of Michael Blot from Bedford and a reestablishment of protocol from before his tenure: bringing back trans, intersex, and religious shower times, unrestricted shower access for all incarcerated individuals, and indoor recreation time.

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“The normalization of physical and sexual abuse, solitary confinement, as well as the actual practices of the [carceral] system [...] there are purposefully these gaps in wanting to not see these people as human,” says Mitchyll Mora, an F2L member who helped start the organization over a decade ago. “There is a level of consciousness raising that needs to happen.”

For people inside Bedford, this consciousness raising is done by facilitating connections with the outside world. The petition and call-in campaign was formed as a result of an in-person meeting between F2L visitors who came to Bedford and incarcerated members like Nur and Herrera. Kielly has been able to report on conditions in Bedford while being incarcerated and publishes stories across various regional newsrooms, relying on an editor who transcribes her stories over the phone. Last February, Kielly reported breaking news for the nonprofit newsroom New York Focus about how incarcerated people at Bedford weathered a recent prison guard strike.

“Trans people are really good with the pen, and that is why we are targeted,“ says Kielly, adding that she believes her reporting has led to retaliation from Bedford staff members, but that she remains keen on publishing work using her real name.

“The more people who call to complain, that’s how they know we have a problem,” says Herrera. “We are fighting for the future of all people who come through here. Nobody should experience anything like this.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/investigation-trans-prisoners-allege-targeted-harassment-bedford-hills on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | DEC 22, 2025, 3:53 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Texas Judge's New Lawsuit Is the Latest in Fight Against Same-Sex Marriage

Dianne Hensley opposes what she calls the “court-invented right to homosexual marriage.”

First Liberty Institute

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A Texas judge is calling for the federal judiciary to overrule Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case which recognized gay marriage across the U.S., claiming in a new lawsuit that the “court-invented right to homosexual marriage” is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit was filed December 19 by Waco Justice of the Peace Dianne Hensley against members of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, who sanctioned Hensley in 2019 for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings, the Texas Tribune reported. Hensley is represented by attorney and former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, known for his role crafting Texas’ draconic 2021 abortion ban.

Much of Hensley’s lawsuit concerns her ongoing feud with the Commission, which began with the 2019 sanction against her. Though the Commission withdrew its sanction last year, Hensley continued her litigation against the body for alleged religious discrimination. In October, responding to a lawsuit from North Texas county judge Brian Umphress, the Texas Supreme Court quietly enacted a new rule stating that judges may not be sanctioned if they “publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.” Commission members said in a December 1 filing that the rule “only gives a judge the authority to ‘opt out’ of officiating due to a sincere religious belief,” but not to “welcome to her chambers heterosexual couples” while still refusing to marry same-sex couples. Hensley’s suit argues that the Commission’s interpretation violates her religious rights, seeking damages and an injunction against the Commission allowing her to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. (The Commission reportedly did not respond to the Tribune’s request for comment.)

But Hensley’s lawsuit also contends that Obergefell, which identified the right to marry as a “fundamental right” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, was wrongly decided and should be overturned. Writing for Hensley, Mitchell acknowledged that only the Supreme Court can overrule its own decisions, but said that Hensley “wishes to preserve this claim for an eventual

petition (or cross-petition) for certiorari in the Supreme Court.”

“The Supreme Court has given credibility to these attacks on religious freedom by inventing a constitutional right to homosexual marriage, which is enabling and encouraging activists to paint Christian individuals and institutions that oppose same-sex marriage as un-American and morally equivalent to racists,” Mitchell wrote in the lawsuit, claiming that the Obergefell decision “failed to identify any provision of constitutional text that establishes this supposed constitutional right to homosexual marriage.” The Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which found that abortion was not a “fundamental right” under the Constitution, is “incompatible with the idea that homosexual marriage is a ‘fundamental right’” because neither right is explicitly guaranteed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, Mitchell further argued.

Conservatives have renewed their quest to overturn Obergefell over the past several years, with at least five states calling on the Supreme Court to do so this year. But it’s still not clear whether the Supreme Court will answer those calls. Justices Samuel Alito and [Amy Coney Barrett](https://www.them.us/story/scotus-amy-coney-barrett-dobbs-obergefell-hodges-gay-marriage) expressed ambivalence about overturning the precedent in recent public remarks. The Court declined to take up the issue last month, in response to a request by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who hoped the Court would invalidate six-figure judgements against her and reverse Obergefell entirely.

As Chron noted, should Obergefell be overturned, all U.S. states would still be required by the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. But 32 states currently ban gay marriage either by state law, a constitutional amendment, or both, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Those states — including Texas — would be able to enforce those bans if the precedent set by Obergefell is overruled.

The Court ruled in favor of conservatives and the Trump administration on numerous occasions in 2025, however, often using the “shadow docket” to issue rulings without explanation. In November, the Court allowed the administration's anti-transgender passport policies to resume after they were blocked by lower courts for several months. The Court is scheduled to hear arguments on laws banning trans athletes from gendered competitions on January 13.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/texas-dianne-hensley-marriage-equality-lawsuit-unconsitutional-same-sex on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | DEC 22, 2025, 12:33 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trump Admin Threatens 12 Companies Over Chest Binders

Popular companies like For Them, TomboyX, and gc2b were all contacted by the administration.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent warning letters to a dozen manufacturers and retailers of chest binders last week, claiming that the binders were not registered as medical devices in violation of federal law.

The letters were collectively issued December 16 and announced two days later, during a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) press conference where HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new rules proposals that aim to block healthcare providers from offering gender-affirming medical care. The letters claimed that manufacturers of chest binders — which transgender men and some nonbinary people commonly use to flatten their chests and relieve dysphoria — had failed to register their products as Class I medical devices with the FDA, violating recordkeeping requirements of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

“Your firm should take prompt action to address any violations identified in this letter,” the letters’ boilerplate text read. “Failure to adequately address this matter may result in regulatory action being initiated by the FDA without further notice. These actions include, but are not limited to, seizure and injunction.”

The 10 binder manufacturers targeted by the FDA letters were FLAVNT, The Fluxion, For Them, gc2b, GenderBender, ShapeShifter Apparel, TomboyX, TOMSCOUT, TransGuy Supply, and UNTAG. Two more letters were also sent to online retailers Early to Bed and Passional Boutique, accusing them of violating interstate commerce laws by selling binders made by one or more of the ten manufacturers. Them emailed several of the affected businesses for comment but did not receive a reply at time of writing.

During last week’s press conference, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary claimed that the brands were guilty of “illegal marketing of breast binders for children, for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria.”

“Pushing transgender ideology in children is predatory, it’s wrong, and it needs to stop,” Makary said, per MS NOW.

Makary did not cite evidence that any of the brands market their binders to children; Them found no such marketing copy supporting Makary’s claim on the brands’ websites. Conservatives have claimed for years that discussions of gender identity alone are harmful to children, and their rhetoric has escalated over time; during the HHS press conference, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz falsely claimed that trans youth regularly receive vaginoplasties and phalloplasties costing up to $150,000; in fact, the vast majority of gender-affirming surgeries performed on minors are breast reduction procedures offered to cisgender boys.

The FDA warning letters are the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign against gender-affirming care, which began in January with several executive orders seeking to define “biological sex” as binary and broadly eradicate what Republicans refer to as “gender ideology.” Last week’s HHS rules proposals aim to block hospitals from Medicaid and Medicare certification if they offer gender-affirming care, prohibit state Medicaid plans from funding that care, and remove gender dysphoria from a federal disability nondiscrimination statute. Some Republican-controlled states like Florida have similarly moved to block medical organizations from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth, while others — like Kentucky — have limited adults’ access to such care as well.

American Academy of Pediatrics President Susan Kressly condemned the administration’s “unprecedented actions and harmful rhetoric” in a statement last week, responding to the HHS press conference and rules proposals.

“These rules are a baseless intrusion into the patient-physician relationship. Patients, their families, and their physicians — not politicians or government officials — should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them,” Kressly said. “The government’s actions today make that task harder, if not impossible, for families of gender-diverse and transgender youth.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trump-administration-chest-binders-trans-nonbinary-warning-tomboyx-gc2b on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | DEC 19, 2025, 12:41 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Texas Wants Citizens to Take Pics and Tattle on Trans People Using the Bathroom

Taking photographs of people in the bathroom is possibly illegal in the state.

The Washington Post/Getty Images

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In his latest anti-trans attack, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wants to deputize citizens via an online tip line for reporting violations of the state’s new law restricting bathroom access.

Senate Bill 8 (SB8), also known as the “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” went into effect on December 4. The law restricts bathrooms and changing rooms in government-owned or government-operated buildings, schools, shelters, and prisons based on a person’s “biological sex” assigned at birth. Institutions found in violation of the law are subject to up to $125,000 in fines.

Paxton’s tipline, officially known as the Texas Women’s Privacy Act Complaint Form, encourages Texans to report alleged violations of the law directly to the attorney general’s office. The form requires users to provide their full names, address, phone number, and email, and to indicate their willingness to testify in court and/or sign an affidavit. In addition to including the exact date and location of an alleged violation, users must also submit “evidence” in the form of a gif, jpeg, png, pdf, doc, or docx file. In other words, Paxton wants you to photograph people using public restrooms.

“I encourage anyone who believes a state agency or political subdivision has violated SB 8 to submit a complaint via the form on my website,” Paxton said in a December 17 press release announcing the tipline, which referred to trans women as “mentally ill men.”

“Together, we will uproot and bring justice to any state agency or political subdivision that opens the door for men to violate women’s privacy, dignity, and safety,” he continued.

As the Dallas Observer pointed out, it’s actually a felony to record people’s bathroom usage. The Invasive Visual Recording section of Texas’ Penal Code prohibits any photography or video recordings of clothed or naked intimate areas in a state bathroom. The crime of doing so is punishable by up to a year in jail. In 2023, Williamson County GOP Chair Michelle Evans’ phone was confiscated by Texas’ Department of Public Safety and she faced a district attorney investigation after she shared a photo of a trans woman inside a Texas Capitol restroom.

As previous incidents — like a Minnesota Buffalo Wild Wings worker allegedly demanding that a cisgender teenager “prove” her gender by showing her chest in an on-sight bathroom — have shown, this sort of deputization is often ineffective and can lead to harassment.

In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the tip line “wrongfully encourages Texans to violate each other’s privacy in bathrooms.”

“The Attorney General has tried for years to vilify and dehumanize transgender Texans, but he can’t strip away every person’s right to privacy and right to live our lives free from gender stereotyping,” Klosterboer continued.

Paxton’s tip line isn’t the only way in which the state of Texas is surveilling its trans citizens. Earlier this week, The Texas Newsroom reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety has compiled a list of 110 trans people who attempted to update their driver’s licenses between August 2024 and August 2025, without revealing why it’s collecting the data.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/texas-trans-bathroom-law-tip-line-illegal-ken-paxton on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | ABBY MONTEIL | DEC 19, 2025, 10:59 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Dr. Oz Makes Bizarre Rant About the Cost of Bottom Surgeries: “Testicles, That’s Extra”

Oz pushed the myth of widespread surgeries on trans kids.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

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While arguing in favor of three draconian proposals aiming to outlaw gender-affirming youth care, Dr. Mehmet Oz went on a patently inaccurate and bizarre rant about “150k penis surgery.”

Oz, a television personality known for his misleading, pseudoscientific health claims, currently serves as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. On Thursday, December 18, Oz and U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced three anti-trans healthcare proposals: one that would ban hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to minors, another that would bar state Medicaid plans from funding such care to patients under 19, and a third that would exclude “gender dysphoria not resulting from physical impairment” from federal healthcare nondiscrimination protections.”

While announcing the proposals, Oz launched into a bizarre tangent about the alleged cost of vaginoplasties and phalloplasties — gender confirmation surgeries often referred to as “bottom surgeries” — despite these procedures very rarely being performed on minors.

“A vaginoplasty, a procedure a child does not need, costs $60,000,” Oz claimed. “Shockingly, a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis, costs, on average, in America… $150,000 per child.”

He continued to falsely speculate on surgery prices, adding, “I do believe, with doing some work, that these prices have continued to increase due to increased manufactured demand... A scrotalplasty, where you add testicles? That’s extra.”

Despite what the volume of news coverage of trans kids allegedly getting surgery suggests, gender-affirming surgeries are rarely granted to minors. A June 2024 study published by researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that only 85 minors underwent gender-affirming surgery in the U.S. in 2019, and 82 of those procedures were chest-related surgeries including breast reduction and top surgery. Of those procedures, most were granted to cisgender patients — the study found that of the 151 breast reductions performed on minors in 2019, 97% of those were performed on cis boys.

Oz’s claims about the cost of gender confirmation surgeries are also blatantly inaccurate. According to a medically-reviewed 2024 price breakdown from the Gender Confirmation Center (GCC), the average vaginoplasty costs between $23,000 and $24,500, while the average phalloplasty costs between $35,000 and $50,000.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/dr-mehmet-oz-150k-trans-phalloplasty-penis-surgery-fact-check-children on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | SAMANTHA RIEDEL | DEC 18, 2025, 5:02 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Trump and RFK Jr. Move to Block All Hospitals From Offering Trans Youth Care

The administration is using Medicaid and Medicare funding as their way in.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled three proposed rules aimed at outlawing gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth on Thursday, the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign against trans civil rights.

Draft versions of the rules were uploaded to the Federal Register on Thursday, and are scheduled to be officially published Friday, December 19. One proposal would ban hospitals from providing gender-affirming care (which the documents refer to as “sex-rejecting procedures”) to minors as a condition of their Medicaid and Medicare program certification. Another would prohibit state Medicaid plans from funding such care, and ban State Children’s Health Insurance Program plans from funding that care for anyone under the age of 19 — meaning that some trans people who are no longer minors would still be blocked from accessing care.

The third proposal affects the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and would exclude “gender dysphoria not resulting from a physical impairment” from federal healthcare nondiscrimination protections — effectively allowing entities and programs that receive HHS funding to deny treatment to people with dysphoria. The proposal would roll back a Biden-era rule adopted in 2024, which said that “gender dysphoria may rise to the level of a disability,” entitling people with dysphoria to “protection against discrimination in programs or activities funded by HHS” under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Agency officials revealed plans for the proposals back in August, and NPR obtained draft copies of the proposals in October. Their public debut this week comes one day after the House passed a bill sponsored by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth nationwide.

After the rules appear in the Register on Friday, they will be subject to a period of public comment, lasting 30 days for the OCR rule and 60 days for the other two proposals. Final versions of the rules are expected to be enacted at the end of the public comment periods, an HHS official told NBC News on Thursday.

The rules repeatedly cite HHS’ own report on gender-affirming care, which was first published in May but was rereleased last month to reveal the names of its previously anonymous authors and peer reviewers. Those authors and reviewers included members of anti-LGBTQ+ groups such as the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine, a group which has pushed for “gender exploratory” talk therapy to replace medical care — a stance the HHS report also endorses. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in May the report “misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care.”

Accompanying the proposed rules on Thursday was a declaration from Assistant Secretary for Health Brian Christine, who accused the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) of suppressing evidence reviews and failing to address conflicts of interest. The declaration contained no evidence for those allegations. (Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit against WPATH, AAP, and the Endocrine Society earlier this month, alleging the organizations made “false and misleading” claims about gender-affirming care.) Christine, a right-wing Catholic who has endorsed religious “pastoral care” as a replacement for medical treatment, instructed healthcare providers in the document to “refuse interventions that pose unnecessary and disproportionate risks of harm, even when requested by patients or families.”

LGBTQ+ advocates and rights groups unanimously condemned the proposed rules on Thursday, warning they will harm trans youth and their families. Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, said in a press release that the rules “are not based on medical science. They are based on politics. And if allowed to take effect will serve only to drive up medical costs, harm vulnerable children, and deny families the care their doctors say they need.” National Women’s Law Center president Fatima Goss Graves agreed, writing in a statement that the proposals “only serve to exacerbate the health care crisis caused by the Trump administration, which continues to put government between families and their doctors, while prioritizing ideology over coverage.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said on Thursday it would oppose the proposals in court if and when they are enacted, calling them “an unprecedented federal intrusion into the private medical decisions of families and their doctors.”

“These gratuitous proposals are cruel and unconstitutional attacks on the rights of transgender youth and their families,” said Chase Strangio, director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, who became the first trans person to argue a case before the Supreme Court last December. “By attempting to strip away essential healthcare, the administration is not ‘protecting’ anyone; it is weaponizing the federal government to target a vulnerable population for political gain. Healthcare decisions belong to families and their doctors, not politicians.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/trump-rfk-jr-trans-health-care-ban-hhs-funding-hospitals on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

POLITICS | DEC 18, 2025, 1:28 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

3 Democrats Signed on to Marjorie Taylor Green's Bill Criminalizing Trans Youth Care

The bill classifies such care as “mutilation” and “castration” and threatens doctors who provide it with felony charges.

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 18: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, pictured, R-Ga, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky held a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, with victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as the House prepares to vote to release records related to him. Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images)The Washington Post/Getty Images

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would ban gender-affirming medical care for minors nationwide, classifying such care as “mutilation” and “castration” and threatening doctors who provide it with felony charges.

H.R. 3492, titled the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” by its sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, passed by a vote of 216-211 in the House on December 17. Four Republicans broke with their party to vote against the bill, but three Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Donald Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines themselves to pass Greene’s bill out of the chamber. It now heads to the Senate, though insiders are doubtful that it will become law, per The Guardian.

If passed into law, the bill would reclassify hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers, and more than 16 different surgical procedures as either “genital or body mutilation” or “chemical castration” when provided to a minor. Those offenses would be folded into an existing section of federal law which bans female genital mutilation (FGM), and would punish doctors who provide transgender youth with blockers or hormones with fines and up to 10 years in prison.

The bill also seeks to federally define “biological sex” as “the classification of the person as male or female at birth,” based solely on whether their reproductive system “at some point produces, transports, and utilizes” sperm or egg cells. The Trump administration has attempted to enforce similar definitions this year through executive orders and departmental directives.

“All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people,” said Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the first out trans person elected to Congress, in remarks ahead of the House vote Wednesday. “They are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this, and they are extreme on it.” Last November, Greene targeted McBride with a proposal to ban trans women from women’s bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol, which House Speaker Mike Johnson later adopted in a rules package in January.

Like other laws banning gender-affirming care, H.R. 3492 carves out an exception for nonconsensual surgeries performed on intersex children. Because the bill’s language refers to all prohibited care as “mutilation,” however, that carveout specifies that such “mutilation or chemical castration is not a violation” if it is specifically performed on an intersex child, such as one who has “both ovarian and testicular tissue.” A child undergoing early puberty would be allowed to receive puberty blockers, one section of the bill reads, “to the extent such genital or bodily mutilation or chemical castration is for the purpose of normalizing puberty.” The bill’s text also specifically notes that “mental, behavioral, or emotional distress” should not be considered relevant to the “health of a minor” when determining whether a procedure is medically necessary.

It is the first time a bill seeking to ban gender-affirming care has admitted that nonconsensual surgeries are themselves a form of mutilation, according to the intersex advocacy organization interAct.

“H.R. 3492 attacks essential medical services for transgender youth and attempts to mischaracterize consensual care as ‘mutilation.’ The so-called ‘Protect Children’s Innocence Act’ then endorses actual genital mutilation, by name — so long as it’s happening to intersex kids. That is a striking admission of their policy priorities,” said interACT legal and policy director Sylvan Fraser Anthony in a statement on Thursday. “This bill was never about protecting anyone. We should all be troubled that our representatives disregarded the open hypocrisy of this legislation and the irreparable harm it will inflict on transgender and intersex youth.”

Greene, who has championed versions of H.R. 3492 since 2022, announced last month that she would resign from Congress in January. After winning her House seat in 2020 on the back of QAnon conspiracy theories, Greene emerged as a leader of the Republican campaign against trans rights, at one point intentionally misgendering a Democratic representative’s trans daughter during debate on the Equality Act. Greene struck a deal with GOP leaders in the House to bring her bill for a vote on her way out of office, in exchange for a vote in favor of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. That bill itself contained a ban on trans women in women’s sports at U.S. military academies, along with authorizing about $900 billion in spending for the 2026 fiscal year.

LGBTQ+ advocates and civil rights organizations roundly condemned H.R. 3492 this week and called on lawmakers to reject it. Brian K. Bond, CEO of the national LGBTQ+ advocacy group PFLAG, called the bill’s passage “a terrifying moment for families, healthcare providers, and for the health and safety of transgender young people” in a press release Wednesday.

“At a time when millions of families are already struggling with rising healthcare costs, this bill does nothing to address real challenges and instead targets medical experts, and vulnerable youth and their parents,” Bond wrote.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/marjorie-taylor-greene-trans-gender-youth-care-bill-pass-criminalize on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | MATHEW RODRIGUEZ | DEC 18, 2025, 10:59 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Texas Church Condemns ICE in Caged Nativity Scene Atop Rainbow Pride Steps

Oak Lawn United Methodist Church is making headlines again for its political messaging.

Courtesy of Oak Lawn United Methodist Church

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A Dallas Methodist church that has been known for making political statements has continued that tradition into the holiday season with a pro-immigrant message built into its Christmas Nativity scene.

Rather than the usual tableau — featuring Joseph, Mary, and Jesus surrounded by barn animals, straw, and eventually, the Three Kings — Dallas’s Oak Lawn United Methodist Church erected an outdoor Nativity scene that features an image of Mary and Joseph caged inside an immigration detention center, according to United Methodist News. The church is located in Dallas’s Oak Lawn neighborhood, which is known as an LGBTQ+ district.

While Mary and Joseph are stuck inside the metal cage, which is adorned with razor wire at the top, they await the baby Jesus, who is not added to Nativity scenes until Christmas Day. The cage itself includes signs in Spanish and English that say “Holy are trans lives,” Holy is the refugee," and "Holy are our unsheltered neighbors." The display, according to church leadership, is meant to make parallels between the Biblical story we all know and our present day world.

“At Christmas, we remember that God chooses to be with those the world pushes to the margins. May this scene call us to make room — in our hearts, in our city, in our policies — for the Christ who comes as an unhoused immigrant child,” the Church wrote in a Facebook post. The entire scene is at the top of the church’s front stairs, which were painted the colors of the LGBTQ+ Pride flag in another political statement from earlier this year.

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“We feel it’s important to depict the parallel of what’s happening in our world with what we understand to have been happening in the biblical story of the birth of Jesus,” the Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, senior pastor of Oak Lawn, told United Methodist News. She added, “This is our opportunity to draw the parallels between the two.”

Additionally, within the sanctuary itself, a model of Jesus’s birth stands with many of its characters missing; instead, the scene sports signs with phrases like “ICE was here,” “Where is Mary,” “Where is Joseph,” and “Where is the Christ Child?”

Texas is considered to be an epicenter of activity from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with about 1 in 4 of the agency’s arrests happening in the Lone Star State, per the Texas Tribune.

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The church’s display is part of a nationwide trend of churches that have replaced their usual quaint Nativity tableaus with more evocative and political ones, meant to draw attention to the Trump administration’s over-reliance on ICE and its real-world effects on communities.

The Holy Family — meaning, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph — and the story of the Virgin Birth are often used as allegories for how we treat immigrants and refugees in progressive Christian circles. In a social media post on Wednesday, Jesuit priest and author James Martin wrote on X that “The Holy Family is the ‘archetype of every refugee family,’” along with statements from several popes that have bridged a similar connection.

Oak Lawn UMC garnered headlines in October when it protested the state’s removal of rainbow Pride crosswalks by painting its steps. At the time, senior pastor Griffin-Allison said that “silence is not neutral.”

“When forces of power try to erase symbols of queer joy and inclusion, the Church has a choice — to retreat into comfort or to step forward in courage. We’re choosing courage,” she said. “The rainbow is a reminder that God keeps showing up — especially for those the world tries to silence.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/oak-lawn-united-methodist-church-ice-nativity-scene-cage on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | MIKELLE STREET | DEC 17, 2025, 4:56 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Lane V. Rogers, OnlyFans Star Known as Blake Mitchell, Dead at 31

Rogers was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene of a motorcycle accident.

Instagram/@lanevrogers

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Lane V. Rogers, also known in the adult world under the professional name Blake Mitchell, died in a motorcycle accident on Monday. Relatives of the 31-year-old explicit performer confirmed the news to TMZ.

Rogers collided with a box truck while driving his motorcycle outside of Oxnard, California, per TMZ’s report. He was pronounced dead at the scene, with the Ventura County medical examiner confirming to the outlet that he died from blunt-force trauma.

“On behalf of Lane's family, we are heartbroken to share that there has been a terrible accident, and Lane has passed away,” close friend Matt Hisle shared. “The family is asking for privacy at this time. Information about a memorial will be shared soon. He will be missed.”

Rogers, who was bisexual, had initially joined the adult industry through cam and studio work. After growing up in small-town Versailles, Kentucky, and attending private school in North Carolina, he was outed as gay to his family by another gay man he wasn't interested in.

“Though I didn’t get to come out on my terms, I feel as though it made me get over the pressure of it much quicker and come to terms with things much more easily, but it was not easy at first,” he told Queer Kentucky in 2022. “And not a positive experience.”

Rogers started doing cam work in February 2014 with a connection he made on Grindr. He had met women who were making around $8,000 a month via cam shows, which exposed him to the idea. He then convinced the person he was seeing from Grindr to star with him on platforms like Chaturbate.

According to an April 2023 interview Rogers did with Back To Your Story, within the first few weeks, his stream rose to the top of the recommended feed, which subsequently crashed the site. “I’d never experienced that before, and I was like, maybe there’s something here,” he said. The instance launched his career, and he would go on to make as much as $10,000 in a month.

After splitting off from his cam partner, he was scouted by a porn studio and filmed his first project for Helix Studios in November 2014, titled “Take It From Blake.” Rogers went on to work for the likes of BelAmi and CockyBoys. Over the span of his career he won numerous awards, including a 2018 Grabby for Hottest Cock; a 2020 Str8UpGayPorn Award for Performer of the Year, 2022; and a 2022 Gayvn Fan Award for Favorite Body.

After joining OnlyFans in 2018, Rogers began to use his actual name in his work in 2019. “I wanted to make a change, more of a shift I guess, into the absolutely and truly authentic me,” he told Str8UpGayPorn at the time. “It’s always been a bit confusing for me to have to keep track of who I’ve introduced myself to as Lane or as Blake, and though I feel Blake is still ‘me’ in a way, he’s actually a character.”

In his studio work Rogers largely filmed scenes with men, but on his OnlyFans he filmed with women and trans performers. He opened up about his bisexuality in 2018 on YouTube — he had since deactivated his account on the platform.

“To be honest, I’ve had sex with men, and I’ve had sex with women,” he said, according to Instinct Magazine. “Some of those men and women were trans, and to me, I wasn’t attracted to the idea they were trans men or women, but the fact they were ‘men or women.’”

He continued, “It seems like it’s very difficult, sometimes, to get people to actually recognize and accept — truly and honestly — that I’m bisexual.” He also said his decision to do gay content over straight content was “because there's more money to be made as a male performer in gay porn than in straight porn.”

Four years of Rogers’ life were chronicled in His Own Way Out, the first in Taylor Saracen's three-book The Rise Up series. The semi-autobiographical novella was released in 2018. The series was published by 13 Red Media, the parent company of Helix Studios.

“Every major event in the book and every major relationship really happened,” Rogers said in an interview while on the book tour. “I'd call it a fictionalized account of true events.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/lane-v-rogers-blake-mitchell-obituary-dead-31-motorcycle-accident on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

POLITICS | DEC 17, 2025, 2:46 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Florida’s Attorney General Is Having a Conniption Over a Christmas Drag Show

A court order issued this week paves the way for Florida officials to continue targeting businesses.

Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

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Florida officials may now enforce a 2023 law banning minors from “adult live performances” against nearly all businesses in the state, following a federal appeals court order issued this week.

On Monday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Florida’s request to stay a 2023 district court injunction which had blocked state authorities from enforcing the “Protection of Children Act,” a 2023 law enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The injunction was issued in 2023 after queer burger chain Hamburger Mary’s sued the state, alleging that the law — which bans minors from “adult live performances” that “depict or simulate” nudity, sexual behavior, or arousal — was overly broad and suppressed drag performers’ freedom of speech. (The Supreme Court declined to stay that injunction in 2023.)

According to the terms of Monday’s order, Florida may — for now — enforce the law against all businesses except for the Orlando Hamburger Mary’s franchise that brought the original lawsuit. The full 11th Circuit agreed to hear the case earlier this month, vacating a May decision by a three-member panel of the court, which declared that the law was likely unconstitutional. A new brief from the state is due before the court in late January 2026, with a reply from Hamburger Mary’s expected in February, per a December 16 briefing notice.

“We are disappointed with the court’s decision, but we are going to keep fighting to protect the First Amendment rights of all Floridians,” said Melissa Stewart, an attorney representing Hamburger Mary’s, in an emailed statement to the Tallahassee Democrat this week.

In an X post Monday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier hailed the court order as a victory for his office and renewed his demands for a Christmas-themed drag show to be canceled.

“If you’re exposing children to lewd conduct, you’re on notice. We’re watching, Pensacola,” Uthmeier wrote.

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In a November 7 letter to the Pensacola City Council, Uthmeier opined that “A Very Drag Queen Christmas” — a touring performance scheduled to stop at Pensacola’s city-owned Saenger Theatre on December 23 — constituted “city-sanctioned religious mockery” which “may amount to religious discrimination.” Uthmeier claimed that the show “poses pronounced threats to the health, safety, and welfare of children,” solely because it would occur in the same downtown area as Pensacola’s annual Winterfest celebration.

“So, while Pensacola children are taking pictures with Santa, men dressed as garish women in demonic costumes will be engaged in obscene behavior mere feet away,” Uthmeier’s letter read in part.

Uthmeier’s claim that “A Very Drag Queen Christmas” will expose children who happen to be nearby the theater to “obscene behavior” has no basis in fact. The show is advertised as “18+ welcome” on both the theater website and Ticketmaster, and the Saenger Theater is not a part of Winterfest programming, much of which takes place outside, according to its official website.

Days after receiving Uthmeier’s letter, the Pensacola City Council said they would not take action against “A Very Drag Queen Christmas,” noting that Uthmeier’s letter was not an official opinion and that canceling the show could expose the city to a lawsuit.

“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,” said councilmember Charles Bare during the November 10, adding, “it is disingenuous to the people of our city to take this seriously and to do anything about it.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/florida-attorney-general-james-uthmeier-pensacola-drag-christmas-show on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

POLITICS | DEC 17, 2025, 11:38 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Gavin Newsom Praises “Humanity” of Reagan, President Who Famously Ignored AIDS Crisis

The post drew swift backlash on social media.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing online backlash yet again, after approvingly posting a quote on X from former Republican president Ronald Reagan.

“The presidency once served as a reminder of our common humanity,” Newsom’s press office wrote in an X post on December 15. “Ronald Reagan described its purpose as building ‘a nation composed of good and decent people.’” Reagan’s 1984 quote was accompanied by a black-and-white photograph of the former president.

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Many users swiftly derided Newsom’s post and its apparent attempt to invoke Reagan as a more principled and unifying executive than Donald Trump. “so close! ronald reagan actually facilitated the mass death of a generation of gay people,” wrote activist and YouTuber Matt Bernstein, referring to Reagan’s legacy on the HIV/AIDS crisis.

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Reagan infamously did not acknowledge AIDS in a speech until the summer of 1987, nearly two years after the death of Rock Hudson, the film star whose 1985 diagnosis is often credited with changing Reagan’s mind about the virus. By the time Reagan did speak publicly about AIDS, it had killed more than 20,000 people in the U.S. alone. His refusal to act sparked the creation of numerous LGBTQ+ community organizations including ACT UP; his administration’s actual policy goals, meanwhile, largely aligned with the newly-founded Heritage Foundation which had helped elect him, aiding its rise to become one of the world’s most influential conservative groups today.

Newsom, who has faced stiff criticism this year for ceding political ground on trans athletes’ rights, has a history of invoking Reagan’s legacy to reinforce his own bipartisan bona fides. In 2023, Newsom told Fox News that he “aspire[d] — on gun policy — to be Ronald Reagan,” apparently referencing Reagan’s signing of the 1967 Mulford Act, a gun control law that specifically sought to prevent Black people from owning firearms.

In 2019, Newsom also remarked that both Reagan and former president Richard Nixon were “rolling in their graves” at what the Republican Party had become under Trump. That comment came just a few months after historian Tim Naftali uncovered a 1971 tape in which Reagan and Nixon made racist remarks about African leaders at the United Nations, who Reagan called “monkeys” and said they were “still uncomfortable wearing shoes.”

“Ronald Reagan oversaw the AIDS and crack epidemic. He was openly racist. What humanity, exactly?” questioned former Ohio state senator Nina Turner, in a response to Newsom’s post on X Tuesday. “Shouldn’t be surprised this is coming from @GavinNewsom’s office, he ripped apart the tents of homeless Californians for a photo-op,” Turner continued, referring to a 2024 stunt in which Newsom appeared at an encampment he had ordered state agencies to “clean up.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/gavin-newsom-ronald-reagan-tribute-criticism on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

NEWS | DEC 17, 2025, 10:26 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Grindr CEO Says App Will Be “AI-First” and “Not in the Business of Politics”

In an interview, CEO George Arison claimed artificial intelligence can help solve “difficult” gay dating problems.

SOPA Images/Getty Images

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Grindr is promising that its dedication to AI is going to grow even stronger in the next year.

In a new interview with Wired, CEO George Arison said that Grindr is striving to be an “AI-first” company, using artificial intelligence to help its users find better matches in their area.

“We want to become an AI-first business,” Arison said, adding that he hoped that the technology could help address “some of the most difficult problems that gay people face.”

“Dating in the gay world is complicated by a lack of density,” Arison said. “In most geographies the totality of gay people is actually quite small, but dating in the world is all about geography. It’s about who is local to me.”

Arison said that, with consent, the app could explain “why it made sense” for people to speak to other users on the app, making them “much more willing to open a conversation.”

Arison’s comments follow the company’s rolling out of a series of AI tools earlier this year that users needed to opt out of, rather than opt into. In September, users reported encountering a push notification that told them it would train a generative AI model using their personal information to “help personalize the user experience and support more authentic, meaningful connections.”

Reports of the push notification came one month after the company said it would become an “AI-native” company in August. Grindr had previously released a 2025 Product Roadmap which included several AI features for paid subscribers.

Arison also indicated that he wants Grindr to become a social and public health hub, rather than just a hookup app. To that end, he said that Woodwork, which already exists as Grindr’s site for selling ED meds and GLP-1s, would further expand into STI and HIV prevention and treatment, including PrEP. When speaking about pre-exposure prophylaxis, Arison said, “You should be able to order it through the app as well, where you can do refills, and we send reminders. Or if you are on Yeztugo, which is a twice-a-year shot, we help set that up.”

Despite being asked by Wired about his personal conservative politics, which have become a source of controversy for the company, Arison refused to answer any questions about his leanings.

“Grindr is not in the business of politics at all. I don’t comment on politics, which has been my policy since I have been here, so I’m not going to comment on that,” he said. “People come to Grindr not for politics but for other things.”

Grindr’s embrace of artificial intelligence comes amid growing conversation about the frustrating, almost Sisyphean experience of using the landmark app. Users have long intimated that Grindr, which launched in 2009, is sacrificing user satisfaction in the name of investor value, a process in the tech industry known as “enshittification.” For some Grindr users, interpersonal connection is routinely thwarted by ads that block users’ ability to chat.

“It’s not a mistake,” John Voss, a product designer and the co-founder of Queer Design Club, told Them earlier this year. “Having ads gives Grindr a source of friction in the user experience that encourages people to pay for the ability to remove them.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/grindr-ai-first-ceo-interview-artificial-intelligence on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

Culture

- Hugo Gyrl: The Train-Hopping, Dumpster-Diving, Epic Punk Voyage of Artist Ellery Neon

- The “Ins” and “Outs” of 2026, According to Them Staff

ART | DEC 23, 2025, 11:50 AM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The Train-Hopping, Dumpster-Diving, Epic Punk Voyage of Artist Ellery Neon

The Hugo Gyrl artist has taken a long and winding road to the Met.

Justin J Wee

Ellery Neon enters the coffee shop in his signature color palette. He’s wearing a pastel lemon yellow sweater personalized with large silver rings, dark jeans that are slicked with patches of paint, and lime green sunglasses. It’s a palette you may have seen in his graffiti or murals in countless cities around the world. At the Brooklyn Museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Miss Major Griffin-Gracy’s Arkansas home. On community fridges and health care centers, lining the edges of apartment buildings, or in the drag wrestling troupe Choke Hole, which he cofounded. You may have seen this palette accompanied by an ebb and flow of letters spelling out the words “Hugo Gyrl,” the tag he’s been using for a decade. “Why am I making all this fucking gay ass bullshit?” he says with a laugh. There’s no short answer — you have to know how he grew up. “I think [it’s] because of my own history with any subculture or world-building situation.”

Ellery’s history begins in New York. A native of downtown Brooklyn, his parents were also artists: His father is the Lithuanian poet Vyt Bakaitis, who was born during WWII but left after the Soviet Union re-invaded in the 1940s, at one point living in refugee camps; his mother was the artist Sharon Gilbert, grandchild of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants.

A self-described angsty teen, Ellery attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts for visual art, with a personal style that was “a mixture of Rocky Horror Picture Show, Marilyn Manson, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” He sold drugs (but only briefly); he got into fights (but not at school); and he skipped class a lot before dropping out at age 16. It was 2001, when he found himself so frustrated by the pervasive air of false patriotism after 9/11 and the xenophobia it wrought, that he left home.

“A big part of my angst and anger around that age was… seeing the disparity in the way that laws were enforced based on people's ethnicity,” Ellery says. “Coming from an immigrant background as well, [with] my father, it just pisses me off so bad that immigrants get the brunt of that anger and policing.”

Justin J Wee

Ellery expected better from a famously liberal city like New York, even as a teenager: “The whole idea and ethos you're taught is to respect other people, regardless of where they're from. And then you see this huge disrespect happening to people, and no one's saying anything.” The world felt like a lie, he recalls. So he left New York. Greyhound offered free bus tickets for runaways trying to return home; he faked a story and used the ticket to get to Pittsburgh.

Ellery wasn’t out yet — he would come out at 17, in 2002. It was a time of reduced queer visibility. In a homophobic attack at a punk house in Pittsburgh, he says, he was cracked on the back of the head with a ceramic cup (he still has the scar), tied up, and thrown in a basement. He had to escape.

What became Ellery’s Hugo Gyrl ethos partly has its roots there. “A big part of my work and why I've done things like Hugo Gyrl is because it's just not easy being queer, and people will literally attack you and beat you over the head and tie you in a basement because they think you're being too faggy,” he says. “We have such a long way to go. I definitely struggled with self-esteem at times. I think that's a big part of the queer experience.”

When Ellery first tagged “You Go Girl!” on some freight trains, it was to cheer on some girlfriends who were about to train-hop around the country. That tag evolved into ongoing encouragement. “I like that [“You Go Girl!”] was kind of subversive and feminist and queer,” he says, “and the graffiti scene is very bro-y, it's very machismo. So I thought it was a good, subversive ‘fuck you’ at all of that.”

From Pittsburgh, Ellery recalls hitchhiking to Florida, working on a farm, and getting beat up again by his traveling companions. He then remembers hitchhiking back to New York with a black eye, only to be picked up by a firefighter who had been among those deployed to the World Trade Center on September 11. After returning home, Ellery promised his parents he’d get his GED, which he did. Then, while out walking around, he discovered an abandoned building in Brooklyn, just off of Third Avenue in Gowanus.

Justin J Wee

Justin J Wee

This particular building had originally been constructed in 1904 as the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Power Station, a massive entity built to manage the borough’s growing transit. Taken out of service in the 1950s, it was partially demolished and fell into disrepair, later becoming a brownfield and Superfund site, contaminated with toxic chemicals.

At 17, he decided to move in with friends and start a squat. Soon it had a thriving community and became known as the Batcave. They discouraged hard drug use, dumpster dove at local health stores for food, channeled rainwater for use in five-gallon jugs, and funneled electricity from the Gowanus Canal’s drawbridge (when it went up, they’d lose power). Eventually, they had a bike shop and threw punk shows and raves of their own.

People came from all walks of life — Ellery estimates there were as many as 20 people at its peak — and many were trying to get themselves out of traumatic living situations or away from heavy drug use. “We had a lot of people who were drinkers, but we were very much an anti-drug squat. I'm sure there's people who were still doing drugs, whatever. But the whole point of it… was to create a space where people could get away from that a bit,” he says. “It was a really successful community for a while.”

They hardly used money. Ellery was still drawing, he says, and began to practice graffiti in the Batcave. He stole spray paint from Home Depot with friends who taught him how, and the Batcave became another lesson in world-building for Ellery. It became a living example of what it could look like when people were encouraged to share their resources to help meet each other’s needs — to create a culture not based on capital. “It's important to let New Yorkers have their own culture that doesn't feel instantly commodified,” he says.

He has built a practice of creating free experiences for people — from parties to artwork to parades and more — throughout his life. And by 2003, Ellery was 18 and itching to explore again, this time by freight train. “It's such a thrill. You're getting on this giant box made of steel, going 60 miles an hour. It's insanely loud, and you feel so fucking free,” he says.

He remembers trying to go to the Free Trade Area of the Americas protest in Miami in 2003, and a friend threw away his sleeping bag, so they huddled together for warmth in one sleeping bag as they watched frost begin to line the car, fighting hypothermia. “I remember laughing a lot and having shortness of breath, but everything was very pretty and shiny. There was no way to get off the train, too, because it was just moving,” he recalls. “But then as the sun came up, we started to defrost, and we got off the freight train. I remember we went to a little gas station, and they had Frito Pie, and it was amazing. It was the best thing I ever tasted.” Ellery's travels also took him across Canada, from Moose Jaw to Calgary, down to New Orleans, all over the West Coast — all for free.

Justin J Wee

He continued to draw and always brought a sketchbook along. He survived on odd jobs and did occasional sex work. “Turns out, there's a lot of people who want a dirty punk kid to step on their face,” he says. He rarely talked about it because he didn't think people would understand. One person did learn about it, however, and wondered if anything was wrong. “I was like, 'No girl, I'm just making 200 bucks kicking some guy in the balls. This is fab,'" he says, adding that he found sex work empowering. “It wasn't survival sex work. It was doing enough to get by so I could do more important things, like steal spray paint and ride freight trains.”

Ellery wasn’t without run-ins with the law, either: “Oh my God, tons of petty crime,” he says, noting that he was also arrested at several protests, which he went to often. “When you have free time like this, of course, you go to the Iraq War protest in 2003 and end up in jail.”

In 2005, however, Ellery returned to New York from New Orleans to take care of his mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer suddenly. She died six months later. Ellery was 20. The Batcave had turned into a site of heavy drug use. Many of the original residents had moved on. He left, too, though he returned periodically to tag it, and went back to New Orleans.

Grieving his mother, he threw himself into volunteer work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Despite the storm's destruction, he saw how people came together, and he fell in love with the city. It was the perfect counter to the corporatization he saw happening in New York, which left him embittered and frustrated. He only returned to New York occasionally, and always in “weird-ass living situations,” one of which included a water tower along the lengths of what was the still-abandoned High Line.

“Time is the best spice.”

Ellery remained itinerant, moving about the country “dependent on work and love and the weather,” he says. In 2007, “You Go Girl” made its first appearance. He developed a style over time, tagging as he traveled throughout the years: Asheville, Mexico City, Oakland, San Francisco, Berlin, Havana (to the latter two, he hitchhiked by boat). He did settle in New Orleans for a while, in 2013, after getting arrested for graffiti; placed on probation, he had to stay in town, and did for a year and a half.

His bright color palette continued to manifest as “cartoonish figures of witches, who have historically been medicine women, herbalists, and queer people that were othered and ostracized and eventually hunted by their societies,” he wrote of the figures he crafts with green skin, batting lashes, towering wigs, and long neon claws. Another Hugo Gyrl signature is a “large muscled feminine cyclops,” a commentary on what he feels is the American relationship to consumption, “our eyes glued to our phones or other screens as our focus is bought and sold.” Ellery's style became ubiquitous and beloved enough that in 2010 he received his first mural commission. He adopted the tag Hugo Gyrl in 2015.

Justin J Wee

Throughout Ellery’s politically engaged and activist-minded artwork there’s an underlying element of service to his community, and not just with the encouragement of “You Go, Girl!” At the now-demolished Neponsit Beach Hospital at Riis Beach, he wrote “Queer + Trans Power” and “Know Your Power” during the pandemic, when he felt his community needed a reminder. In some instances his work became deliciously illegal gatherings; in others, it became art.

He has created artwork for community refrigerators, 2020 and 2021’s Brooklyn Liberation March, 2024’s Gender Liberation March, and the Doll Invasion; and graphic design and/or murals created with the Brooklyn-based “mutual aid network and community design studio” Public Assistants and community health care organizations like Brooklyn’s Callen-Lorde, New Orleans’s CrescentCare, Planned Parenthood, and PrEP4All.

He found his graphic design work at Callen-Lorde especially meaningful. “I had been going there since I was a teenage runaway hooker,” Ellery says. “That was so cool and full circle, to be like, Wow, I'm an artist. I can give back to this thing and be a part of this thing that helped me so much for so [many] years. Still, it's my primary health care.”

Artist Caledonia Curry, who also goes by Swoon, met Ellery while dumpster diving 20 years ago — they were both collecting food to host free dinners — and quickly became friends. She finds Ellery’s work significant because it takes up space in a world that’s constantly trying to suppress queerness. It’s not just in galleries; it’s in public, on murals and fences, and in the middle of Times Square (where Choke Hole has performed). It’s also “totally bombastically, in-your-face, joyous fun,” she says, while being socially conscious too.

The theme of creating a life to live as you see fit remains consistent throughout Ellery’s work. This has also translated into his work with Choke Hole, which he cofounded in 2018 with the artists Jassy and Visqueen. What began as a drag wrestling night hosted by the queens of New Orleans-based troupe High Profile evolved when Ellery offered to build them a wrestling ring with the assistance of two friends.

Prior to that, Ellery’s relationship to drag had gone through several evolutions, whether emceeing shows down the Mississippi River during Swoon’s Miss Rockaway Armada, an art project centered on handmade rafts that stopped to offer variety shows at different points along the river; or doing a drag number at Gay Bi Gay Gay, an alternative queer festival to counter South by Southwest, opening for bounce queens Big Freedia and Katey Red.

From its first event, Choke Hole was born screaming into the ether, also awash in neon hues and campy commentary, sending up another traditionally macho sphere. It gained a following among not just New Orleanians, but artists (and the Queer as Folk reboot). Artist Jacolby Satterwhite, during his Great Hall commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, chose to feature Choke Hole as part of the programming for his 2023-24 video installation “A Metta Prayer,” in which the troupe also appears. Kampnagel, Hamburg, Germany’s largest independent theater, brought in the troupe to perform this past April, and many other venues have followed suit.

Justin J Wee

Artist Raúl de Nieves chose to feature a Choke Hole performance during his own installation at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. He has known Ellery since 2009, when they met at an artist residency in Berlin. “I just love seeing him bring all these people together to create these worlds,” de Nieves says. “He really has such a magic to [himself]… That was something I learned from him in Berlin. When we were so young, there was so much cathartism to not being afraid to go into abandoned spaces and create these situations for us to all feel like we were a part of something.”

It was during the Pioneer Works event this past November that Choke Hole faced controversy. The program, meant to be satirical, is usually filled with hyperbolized renditions of faces and heels, as heroes and villains of the moment: a cockroach, a white cop with dreads, a real estate mogul, Eric Adams. This show, Armageddon, “satirizes the political climate in America, Europe, and the world: three candidates and their respective queer wrestling teams, representing different political ideologies, fight for political power in a brutal arena.”

Each performance is different, devised by a rotating cast of participants; for instance, one Armageddon lineup featured a heel in the form of an ICE agent. During the match, between Neon’s longstanding character, the three-nosed alien Gorleenyah, and the ICE agent, performer Chiquitita took to the stage to speak unplanned after Ellery handed her the microphone. She called out the performance, to raucous applause, for trying to bring light to a very real danger New Yorkers are facing at this moment.

“I’m gonna keep doing the work I'm doing, and I know what I care about.”

The match was originally meant to be “a cathartic way to take out some of the feelings about ICE, against ICE,” Ellery says. The Choke Hole team could tell when the match went on that it wasn’t working and planned to take it out at the next performance. “We were like, ‘Oh, that sucked,’ before we even knew what the internet backlash was gonna be…. Sometimes things don't land how you [expect], and that's part of drag and art in general.” Choke Hole issued an apology, removed the match from the show the next night as planned, and donated proceeds from the performance — over $3,500 — to the organization NYC ICE Watch, which notifies the community of ICE activity.

A surge of digital ire followed. Despite years of activism, Ellery was accused of being pro-MAGA and pro-ICE. “When people are talking shit about you online and they don't know you… it isn't terribly destructive to me, because I know who I am,” he says. “I’m gonna keep doing the work I'm doing, and I know what I care about.” The next Choke Hole show will be in New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.

Ellery continues to paint, while also acting as caregiver for his father, who is living with stage 4 lung cancer in Brooklyn. Around this time of year Ellery becomes, by his own description, more of “an indoor cat.” He’s been working on canvas from his fifth-floor walkup in downtown Manhattan and continuing his journey into the art world, a process that’s not without years of consideration.

In his youth, he felt frustrated that art seemed to only reach one type of person. He wanted his work to be more expansive — by bringing drag further into wrestling, which has since been seen as art, for example, or making graffiti, a process he sees as “bringing queerness into the streets and the visual landscape.”

But as Ellery got older, he didn’t want the work to be so fleeting, as graffiti and performance often are; instead, he wanted to capture life “in some way that's not just a photograph,” he says. “Also, there's ideas that I can't paint on the street because they're too freaky. I gotta find somewhere else to put them,” he says with a laugh.

While he finds many institutions troublesome and their relationship to the art world complicated, he is also interested in spaces like these because he believes his contributions are necessary, especially in terms of documenting underground, DIY queer culture. “I do want to have a seat at the table of art history to represent that, but I didn't feel like I was ready for that until now,” he explains. “I'm at a place where I want to take things seriously and make stuff for the walls — the inside walls, not just the outside walls.”

Ellery is finding a balance. In 2019, for example, he had a work in the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall. The next day, he was wheatpasting this work on a wall in Red Hook, got arrested, spent the night in jail, and incurred a $120 fine.

“I like making art that is in people's lives,” he says. “I want art that has a life outside of only its creation.” He enjoys the work he makes for events. Earlier this year, Ellery was asked to make a work for a party celebrating 30 Years of Jean Paul Gaultier’s fragrance Le Male, which included his signature hot pink cyclops, “perky butthole, balls blowin’ in the breeze,” he says with a laugh, wearing heels and the famed Gaultier sailor hat.

But maybe the best example of the multitudinous worlds Ellery both crafts and inhabits is happening at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Opened in 2023, the community-driven arts space was once home to the Batcave. The organization has preserved much of the building’s original graffiti, Ellery’s included, and acknowledged the Batcave’s legacy. Entering the building, the tiles overlooking the lobby bear the words “You Go Girl” in a faded version of that classic neon Hugo Gyrl color palette. Another original piece hangs out in the back of the gift shop.

Ellery was commissioned for the building’s opening to create an original work in what’s now the Grand Hall. Called “Flying Home,” it’s a vibrant blue pigeon carrying the building on its back. Ellery remembers, even as a teenager, sitting in the Batcave, dangling his legs out a window, singing, hoping it could become a place for art. It turns out that the person who bought the building and turned it into Powerhouse, the philanthropist Joshua Rechnitz, purchased it because he was attracted to some graffiti Ellery had done on the building’s exterior.

Ellery stopped in a few months ago to see a production there. The experience was not lost on him. “I was just seeing this beautiful performance somewhere that I had helped people kick heroin in when I was a teenager. And I was like, Wow, I’ve had such a rich life,” he says. “Time is the best spice.”

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/ellery-neon-artist-brooklyn-profile-you-go-girl-graffiti-pioneer-works on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

CULTURE | DEC 18, 2025, 2:28 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

The “Ins” and “Outs” of 2026, According to Them Staff

We’re sad to say being a Barb is so out.

Each year, Them predicts what will be “in” and “out” for the year to come. As resilient warriors on the frontlines of the internet, our staff sifts through budding trends emerging in the culture and engage in heated discussion about what to include in this irreverent forecast. Is Nicki officially out? Are pups truly going mainstream? How do we really feel about natural deodorant?

But before we get into 2026, let’s quickly review the hits and misses from last year’s trend forecast.

As we predicted, Gaylors are dead in the water as of this year when their most popular subreddit left a shadow of its former self. If sold out Heated Rivalry books are any indication, reading smut is so in — called it! We were so right to point to the resurgence of theater kids, thanks to Cole Escola, the rotating cast of Marys coming through Broadway, the prevalence of Wicked, and the chatter around Prince Faggot. We were also early adopters of Sniffies as a cultural object coming up from underground — even the New Yorker has a Sniffies essay now. And, though it is slightly gauche to say, the Pope is out. But long live Pope Crave.

While we love bragging about our rights, we’re not too proud to admit our wrongs: We predicted that stone tops would be in for 2025, but in actuality it was service tops that so clearly entered the zeitgeist. We also claimed that stanning politicians was out, but we underestimated the unprecedentedly sexy and charismatic victory of Zohran Mamdani, made possible in large part by the power of standom.

Our staff has varying disagreements among some of the “ins” and “outs” for 2026, as we are journalists and editors who take the homo-sapphic-trans zeitgeist very seriously. But we remind you (and also ourselves) that this is ultimately just for fun, so here we go. — Fran Tirado

IN

OUT

Pups

Passport drama

Femboys

Going to space

Fujoshing

Lengthy statements

Libbing out

T-shirt activism

Jinkx Monsoon

Nicki Minaj

Medievalism

Military fetishism

Gooning

Gooning discourse

Contact sports

Natural deodorant

Bernie Wagenblast

Being mean online as a pastime

Dairy milk

The apps

Lavender marriages

Lookalike contests

INS:

Pups

Our readers were quite peeved with us for pointing out a simple truth: puppy play is everywhere now. Sometimes it’s gestural — Nicole Kidman crawling on all fours in Babygirl or Sabrina Carpenter getting her hair tugged on an album cover. Other times, it’s out in the open, and all of a sudden Republicans are retweeting pup competitions. Ultimately, I think this is fabulous. I hope that the largely misunderstood subculture continues to flourish and thrive, and that we receive them with nuance, wonder, and a desire to learn. — Fran Tirado

What is Pup Play? Everything You Need to Know About the Queer Subculture

You’ve likely seen them at Pride, your local queer bar, or Pittsburgh, but queer pups are everywhere!

Femboys

If you read Them, you've known about the power of femboys for years. We’re excited that the general public has finally caught on. Femboys were the second most-searched category on PornhubGay in 2025. And honestly, it’s about time we as a society thanked femboys for their service: from going triple platinum on countless TikTok For You pages to infuriating the alt-right, they’ve truly given us so much. If 2024 was the year of the lesbian, maybe 2026 will be the year of the femboy. — Quispe López

Everyone Was Searching for LGBTQ+ Content on Pornhub in 2025

The numbers are in and people love femboys and lesbians.

Fujoshing

Care to fujo out with us for a bit? Everyone else seems to be doing it, and good for them. Homoerotic hockey drama Heated Rivalry has successfully helped bring being a fujoshi to a mainstream audience, even if they don’t know the term fujoshi yet, a Japanese word for people (historically women) who obsess over media featuring gay male romance. Allow us to officially broaden your horizons. — Quispe López

What Is a Fujoshi, and How Does One "Fujo Out?"

Some history on the Japanese slang for the “rotten girls" of the manga community.

Libbing Out

In the wake of recent collective organizing victories, we can lib out for just a second, as a treat. Soon enough, we'll go back to being critical and nuanced about our politicians but right now, we’re talking Obama-era, “hope and change”-level libbing out. “Lena Duhnam’s Girls still airing on HBO”-level libbing out. — Quispe López

Zohran Mamdani Spent Halloween Campaigning in Gay Clubs

The NYC mayoral candidate spent Halloween with the LGBTQ+ community.

Jinkx Monsoon

Jinkx Monsoon has always been a world-class performer; it’s about time everyone else noticed. From being the first queen to win RuPaul’s Drag Race twice, to her 2025 Oh! Mary run on Broadway, it is undeniable that Monsoon’s star is on the rise, and her moment has arrived. In 2026, we’d like to see her get even more recognition and who knows? Perhaps the silver screen is calling. — Quispe López

Who’s Afraid of Jinkx Monsoon?

Our September cover star Jinkx Monsoon gets candid with writer Evan Ross Katz about the highs and lows of fame and how she’s using her platform to delightfully troll those attacking the LGBTQ+ community.

Medievalism

Everyone is saying “Arm the dolls” but I’m out here saying “Buy the dolls real swords.” Between Rosalía’s chastity belt and Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero, gothic revivalism and the simplicity of the Middle Ages have never looked so good. — Fran Tirado

Rosalía Wore a Chastity Belt in Her New Music Video, So Now I Want a Chastity Belt

She wore the supposed medieval device during her “La Perla” music video.

Gooning

As the world burns, we need to take pleasure in the small things to recharge. After all, it’s important to self-care in the midst of fighting impending fascism. What better way to lean in than the ultimate form of self-pleasure. We’re not saying you have to set up a goon cave or reach goon state (debatable if anyone actually can), but it wouldn’t hurt. — Quispe López

What Does Gooning Mean — And Is Anyone Actually Doing It?

Gooning is the queer internet’s latest slang, but what does it actually mean? Let’s investigate.

Contact Sports

Look, queer people might be relatively late to the party on this one. MMA has long been a straight-guy obsession. But 2025, with its flurry of extramural wrestling events, introduced us to the joys of watching people aggressively shove their bodies against each other. These are grim times, and the prescription is transgender piledrivers and lesbian chokeholds. — Samantha Allen

Inside the Slick, Sexy World of Lesbian Oil Wrestling Where WWE Meets Softcore Smut

20 Court Harris photographs of the growing phenom.

Bernie Wagenblast

As a trans woman who loves trains — and there are indeed many such cases — Bernie Wagenblast is basically the closest thing I’ll ever have to a superhero. The reporter and radio host, who came out in 2023, has voiced multiple New York-area transportation systems, including doing the announcements for many numbered Subway lines. This year, we photographed her with a sick lamp. Join us in the cult of Bernie come 2026. — Samantha Allen

Bernie Wagenblast Is Our MTA Princess

Pari Kim of Love on the Spectrum fame talks to the trans MTA voice actor about trains, online bullying, and LGBTQ+ representation.

Dairy Milk

You know what’s really queer? Not having a brand. While every other type of milk seems focus-grouped to death, dairy milk retains its clear plastic jug; I couldn’t tell you anything about the brand that it came from, and when I drink it, I don’t wonder whether some middle manager has reached his KPIs.

If you hadn’t noticed, 2025 was the year that alternative milks reached near saturation point, to the extreme that it seems there is almost no nut, grain, or vegetable that seems to have gone un-milked. But, 2026 will be the year that we put away the cheesecloth and once again embrace the udder. Yes, there are people for whom lactose is a true-and-evil villain, and we won’t begrudge them indulging in a little nut juice, as a treat. But as queers continue their trendy return to nature, that’s also going to mean embracing the milk of our youth, the one that comes straight to us at the store, without tons of extra fillers, thickeners, and rebrandings. — Mathew Rodriguez

Recession Indicator? Queer People Are Drinking Dairy Milk Again

Is oat no longer the GOAT?

Lavender Marriages

As visibility has come with very noticeable backlash, more queers are looking at our foreparents and admitting: maybe they had it right. Things we had once seen as sad or necessary, such as living in stealth, now have their tiny pleasures. The lavender marriage is among one of those yesteryear phenomena that queers will embrace. While straight people go backwards to tradwifeism, in which gender roles apparently force women to make everything from scratch, looking toward lavender marriages as a solution, rather than a problem, has relatively few drawbacks. Instead of embracing conservative ideals, lavender marriages allow queers to live out their lives among their best friends, queer the institution of marriage, have as much sex with as many people of as many genders as they want, and still get some wedding cake. As Justin Theroux says to Drew Barrymore in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, “Give us the rings.” — Mathew Rodriguez

Lavender Marriage: From Old Hollywood to TikTok, Everything You Need to Know

Lavender marriages have a long and nuanced history.

OUTS:

Passport Drama

If you’re a trans person who wants to be able to leave the country, this year was a real rollercoaster. First, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its ban on trans gender marker changes only for the State Department to retaliate by requiring us to fill out a special “attestation form” to process our applications. Then, in November, the Supreme Court gave Trump’s ban the go-ahead after all and the administration even hinted that it might retroactively invalidate trans people’s passports — a threat that, so far, has not materialized. Is your head spinning yet? Mine has been for months. Maybe in 2026, the White House could stick with dismantling all of our other rights and let us at least go on vacation. — Samantha Allen

How Trump's Anti-Trans Passport Ban Impacts You

Here’s what you need to know about Trump's trans passport ban.

Going to Space

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: we don’t need to know what’s up there! But personal fear of space aside, it seems as though Jeff Bezos’ space rocket ruined the allure of exploring the Milky Way for everyone, and just made Katy Perry’s return to music flop harder. And if Mariah Carey says she’s not going to space anytime soon, that’s a good enough reason to avoid it for now. — Quispe López

Katy Perry Is Going to Space With an All-Female Crew on Jeff Bezos’ Rocket

It’s a woman’s galaxy, and Katy Perry is going to it.

Lengthy Statements

As William Strunk wrote: Omit needless words. — Samantha Allen

Ethel Cain Releases Lengthy Statement Addressing Recent Firestorm of Controversies

The singer apologized for past “racist statements” and addressed other social media posts in a four-page document.

T-Shirt Activism

The success of the “Protect The Dolls” shirt was a great start to the general public thinking about the material reality of trans women, but we’re ending performative activism and virtue signalling alone in 2025. Next year, it’s time to open your wallets and actually protect the dolls instead of stopping at sporting a t-shirt. In 2026, you have to do more for the dolls than just say you’re going to do the bare minimum. — Quispe López

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

“Give Money Directly to Doll.”

Nicki Minaj

I’m someone who maintains a lot of problematic faves. I wear SKIMS. I still love Harry Potter. I enjoy Rosalía’s reggaeton songs and still listen to Azealia Banks (though my public standom finally came to a screeching halt this year). And though I was never a Barb, I believed Nicki Minaj to be one of the greatest music artists of our generation. That is no longer the case. Nicki is over. If she was releasing music that was good enough to complicate that claim, we’d be in a different position. But Pink Friday 2 was floppiana and that makes sense because a known side effect of transphobia is a decline in your stock price. Time to sell, Barbs. — Fran Tirado

Nicki Minaj Continues MAGA Turn by Feuding With Gavin Newsom Over Trans Kids

Minaj has also been reposting AI content featuring herself and vice president J.D. Vance.

Military Fetishism

I found Boots to be very watchable, and many of the performances lovely. But as someone who did actually make it to the last episode of the series, I kept thinking to myself: Are we not supposed to be… horrified? Twinks brainwashing themselves as they are indoctrinated by the military-industrial complex? Screaming about becoming killing machines? And horny? Horny the whole time? This series was a horror to me, despite the porny ways it was marketed to LGBTQ+ audiences. To me it was a good reminder as to why military uniforms are never sexy, despite the Tom of Finland-adjacent community who may disagree. — Fran Tirado

The Pentagon Released a Statement on Netflix's Gay Military Series Boots. Yes, the Pentagon

The show is based on the memoir of real-life marine veteran Greg Cope White.

Gooning Discourse

While gooning might be so in, talking about gooning, especially as a symptom of the “male loneliness epidemic,” is so incredibly out. Radical thought: What if we could just have sex and pleasure for pleasure's sake? Also, plenty of queer people goon and aren’t lonely because of it! Just saying. — Quispe López

Natural Deodorant

Maybe you could have gotten away with natural deodorant during the lockdown years, but it’s 2025 and we’re congregating in too large of groups for you to get away with swiping your pits with bergamot zest and calling it a day. To quote Liz Lemon in 30 Rock: “We, as a group, might not smell great.” Whip out the aluminum. It’s time. — Samantha Allen

Being Mean Online as a Pastime

At what point in the trajectory of gay identification did the girls decide that we should be ruthlessly mean to each other online? Shade, I get. Dragging celebrities and politicians, absolutely. But the vitriol and volume at which gay people make fun of other everyday gay people online is baffling to me. And all because… you're bored? Because being both gay and mean can be an entire brand now? Get a hobby! Let she who has never done anything embarrassing on the internet cast the first stone. — Fran Tirado

Why Are Gays So Mean to Each Other Online?

On the Gay Internet, everyone is a content creator. How do we reckon with what we've created?

The Apps

Katy Perry once asked if you ever felt like a plastic bag, floating through the wind, wanting to start again. To that, I ask you: Have you ever felt more like a cog in a capitalist machine than when you log into a dating app, looking for either a relationship or a bedtime romp, and encounter ads? Enshittification has come for our intimacy, and queers, it’s time to rededicate ourselves to finding people the old-fashioned ways. You have way more fun things to do than watch mobile game ads while your heartstrings go unplucked. — Mathew Rodriguez

Why Does Grindr Feel Like It’s Getting Worse?

“If you’re not paying for the premium subscription fees, it’s almost unusable."

Lookalike Contests

Some of the competitors in the scourge of Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, and Timothée Chalamet lookalike contests look a lot like their namesakes. Others don’t even bear a passing resemblance. But no matter what, they all look like unemployed people. — Samantha Allen

What If We Told You That All Males Are Performative?

Judith Butler literally declined to comment.

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/ins-and-outs-of-2026-jinx-monsoon-nicki-minaj-boots on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

Style

- Sole-mates? How to Find Your Match by Gay Footwear

FASHION | DEC 18, 2025, 4:00 PM EST | VIEW ON WEBSITE

Sole-mates? How to Find Your Match by Gay Footwear

Forget love languages, astrology, and the apps. Just look down.

No childhood game of MASH could have prepared us for today’s dystopian dating scene. On the increasingly Sisyphean apps, we analyze absurdist three-word blurbs in search of compatibility, getting caught in obsessive and often pointless loops. Swapping love languages and Letterboxd lists aren’t a guarantee of salvation (from being single, if you view it as such), though they can be productive exercises in whittling down prospective partners. Even then, there’s no guarantee that shared interests or emotional availability will actually translate into offline chemistry.

Which is why I’m half-seriously recommending a new approach to putting your best foot forward, literally. For the sartorially sensitive minds pondering Personals pages (or Hinge, or Grindr, etc.), a new heuristic for your love life may be worth a try-on. To give it a go, just look down. Seriously! Think of this article a sort of legend for what you may encounter in the wild. Want to know what a cute stranger might be like based solely on their shoes? The answers are beneath, literally.

Shoes can reveal almost everything you need to know about a crush, at least initially. In queer circles, footwear often serves both as a statement accessory and as an extension of personal identity. And as both Carrie Bradshaw and survey data can attest, shoes occupy a space of disproportionate significance in the average wardrobe, making them an often reliable summation of someone’s entire being. For those with a trained eye, each heel-to-toe roll can be a context clue. What someone reaches for before heading out the door speaks to their lifestyle, hobbies, allegiance to slow or fast fashion and, of course, the communities they identify with. And here’s the kicker: These are equally important factors when deciding who to pursue romantically!

In queer dating scenes, especially, shoes speak (or squeak) volumes. There are some obvious associations, such as the strappy Teva and Chaco sandals worn by adventurous mountain mamas, or those glaze-splattered studio clog clunkers and the cohort of creatives who tromp around in them. But what makes a specific shoe queer? Well, it’s not explicitly the absence of arch support (looking at you, heroines in drag) nor platforms with enough heft to kick down a wall, though rainbow-painted sneakers are tough to argue against.

The answer is complicated. Much of queer fashion, from Harlem Renaissance dandyism to 1970s androgyny to the gay Y2K revival, is tied to a phenomenon known as disidentification, which, in this context, refers to a type of performance art achieved through reformulating the mainstream. It’s a “survival strategy” that marginalized people use to negotiate with the dominant culture, as famed queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz explained. In that vein, for example, alternative movements adapted work boots to their desired aesthetic by way of popularizing Doc Martens in the ’70s. That cycle is how queer fashion is often born.

Queer people have also used fashion as a form of “flagging” or “signaling” — think Oscar Wilde’s green carnation, handkerchief codes, or even carabiners. These identification aids don’t have a direct equivalent in the shoe market beyond a few select stereotypes, admittedly making it difficult to practice this dating method with a perfect success rate. Still, the ambience and setting in which you spot some sweet kicks on a sweetie can help fill in the blanks. And if you think shoes are a silly way to scout potential matches, well, desperate times call for desperate measures.

This situational approach is, of course, best practiced out in the wild: a bar, Subway car, grocery aisle, abandoned warehouse rave, you name it. The truth of the matter is that dating is in a period of reckoning, especially among young people fatigued by apps. A growing interest in offline connection is beginning to tank online matchmaking services. Casual sex seems to be a safer investing bet, with Grindr and Feeld reporting rising revenue, but those can be uncertain waters.

So why not try looking at some laces? In fact, your gaze is probably eye-to-eyelet already. One of very few silver linings to come from around-the-clock, reflexive scrolling is a newfound familiarity with what lies below, and with that, an appreciation for some really cool kicks. So, take a gander down south, and cross-reference this playful guide to queer footwear in your quest to find your perfect fit.

Blundstones

Blundstone Women's Originals #1351

$210

Blundstone

Marketed as “the only boot you’ll ever need,” people who slip into these all-purpose Chelsea boots are on the prowl for their person. For the average Blundstone devotee, their ideal partner in WWOOFing, WFRing and life is outfitted as their mirror image, or perhaps more accurately, river basin reflection. The perks of finding one of these (brand) loyal lovers include a picturesque windowsill lush with microgreens and a shared gender-neutral closet complete with rows of faded canvas pants and cozy wool socks.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s a real product review: “My partner and I wore Blundstones for our wedding day and these boots looked and felt perfect with my dress.” - L.M.

What’s more romantic than a Blundstone 4 Blundstone wedding photoshoot — can you imagine? However, if the crunchy granola gospel isn’t quite to your tune, you should know that these fanatics wear the boots off-trail, too; they can be seen at airports, beer gardens, even clubs. Untz untz!

Tabi Flats

Maison Margiela WMNS Tabi Ballerina Flat

$890 $356

KITH

Perhaps the internet’s most-hated stomper of the season has a small but dedicated fanbase. They are often worn by a Black cat femme with an It Girl Pinterest board, titled something sardonic yet aspirational, which she will absolutely never show you. Her vision boarding will have more of a say in the trajectory of your relationship than you ever will. But if you fancy a Tabi Flat Gal, perhaps you’d like that.

She’s likely just past the Lady Bird phase of life or on the Millennial cusp with a much cooler job than you, where she gets plenty of compliments on her satin trotters. Her mysterious career barely pays her enough for the real Maison Margielas pictured above, so don’t ask where hers came from.

If you do happen to catch her eye, she is probably sporting those slender oval Miu Miu frames, but she swears she bought them before podcasters “appropriated” her couture. Despite her chilly first impressions, she has a spry energy and an inspiring lust for life. Still, tread lightly. Those hooves can kick.

Skechers Jammers

Jammers - Chic Terrain

$90

Sketchers

If Holden Caulfield was reborn after 2000, he would almost certainly be romping around New York in a ‘90s iteration of this chunky work shoe. Let that be both a warning of this archetype and a reminder that fiction is fiction. The ideal wearer of these Jammers, whom you should be able to imagine bobbing around in a red hunting cap, rejects modern recreations of the shoe. They either bought an overpriced pair on ThredUp or came across them at a thrift store by happenstance — either way, they will eventually talk your ear off about the decline of true craftsmanship across industries.

A proponent of crochet scarves and Cameron Winter, this urban wanderer dreams of becoming a pocket poet upon meeting you. So, if you have the stomach for sap, this sweetheart could be the one!

Garden Clog

Italian Garden Clogs

$78

Gardenheir

OK, so Mx. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle might be more eco-acquainted than eco-friendly. Serving as a walking advertisement for repurposed hemp and local food co-ops, these green-thumbed groupies crave cage-free eggs with the really orange yolks. They are well-intentioned by nature, but their willingness to run errands in — let’s be honest — ugly shoes of questionable comfort is peculiar, absolutely. Garden clogs may be water-resistant, but don’t be fooled, it doesn’t take much to start a sweaty slip-and-slide within. It’s unlikely that this romantic prospect will slip out of your life with the same ease, but it’s up to you to determine how much you care to trust an adult who regularly reaches for these in a concrete jungle?

In the event that they tend to soil at least once a week or grew up wearing Keens, consider the previous statements null.

Literally Any Thin-Soled Sneaker

Dries Van Noten Leather-trimmed suede sneakers

$585

Net-a-porter

This contrarian may self-identify as “grounded.” And when it comes to the height of their shoes, they mean it literally. Resisting the platform fad, they sigh with relief when their head hits the pillow knowing that they are ahead of the curve. This diva who wears sunglasses indoors and trench coats year-round would never accept the label of “martyr,” but there’s no other explanation for trekking long distances in Onitsuka Tigers. You’ll say “what a trooper!” until you realize it was within their control all along to select more sensible footwear for anything other than standing perfectly still or sitting down.

You have to hand it to this stylish honcho though, they’re effortlessly chic and magnetic at parties. They’ll lure you in with exquisite people-watching commentary, denouncing the Faustian sell-outs in attendance and whispering the hosts’ dirty laundry in your ear. Later, you may come to realize they were just gloating, but for some reason you’ll still be thinking about them when the night ends.

Black Leather Oxford

Dr. Martens 8053 Leather Platform Shoes

$180

Dr. Martens

The quintessential Black Oxford babe contains multitudes, from a cushioned derby to a no-frills formal fit to the platform Doc Martens. This soft leather lover will (hopefully) treat you with the same tenderness and care he shows his beloved Oxfords. He’ll spend eternity buffing circles of polish residue and even longer waxing poetic about his latest batch of RYO cigarettes. Depending on which variety he owns, he may also wear a tiny, tiny beanie, but revealing the correlation here would take away all of the fun!

Vintage Heels

Manolo Blahnik Paliss 50 appliquéd grosgrain mules

$1,145

Net-a-porter

A legendary Depop warrior, this talented lady hunts vintage pumps for sport. The reigning queen of low-ball offers, she’s plucked everything off the internet’s shelf, from Jessica Simpson stilettos to a Manolo Blahnik mule splurge she won’t let you forget. This doll will be kind enough to transform your closet on a budget and Marie Kondo your emotional toolset, and you know what? You should let her.

If you find yourself involved with her for long enough, you may eventually find your name or likeness smuggled into a Substack entry. But she’ll get you to start journaling, and when you begin to enjoy it — tell her. Her mind is as sharp as her heels!

Birkenstocks

Birkenstocks

$140

Birkenstocks

Heterosexuals on the East Coast like to escape to Sandals in Jamaica — interestingly enough, founded by a man named Gordon “Butch” Stewart. But queer East Coasters have Fire Island, a place where grown men unleash their carnal desire to strip off dress socks. It is vacation after all.

These easygoing guys who opt for corkboard slip-ons, including sandal aficionado Zachary Quinto, might just be a safe bet to accompany you to the annual Invasion of the Pines. While the original suede or leather look is promising for future suitors, showcasing refined taste and down-to-earth qualities, the plastic ones are a no-go. Shower shoes stay in the shower. Abort mission — I don’t care if they get wet.

Mary Janes

Harmony Delight Classic Mary Janes with Puffy Strap

$289 $170

John Fluevog

This analog princess, gender-neutral, will likely not be wearing just any Mary Janes. The slip-ons that evoke memories of childhood and innocence began trending in mainstream fashion again around 2023, coinciding with the return of ballet flats. The shared timeline led to many feminine, soft styles hitting the market, but plenty of queer people took the opposite approach. If the Mary Janes you’ve spotted are sporty chic — like Cecilie Bahnsen’s collab with Asics — you should have already asked for their number. They know corporate America has taken Samantha Parkington’s look to heart, and they want no part in it. Their edgier pairs with a flair, whether that be velvet or stars or a daring chartreuse, will coo in your direction. It’s worth exploring a connection in that third space you keep running into each other at (open mic night, likely), because if nothing else, you can pick up some style tips.

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This article was downloaded from https://www.them.us/story/gay-shoes-dating-guide-blundstones-tabi-clogs-oxfords on Dec 29, 2025 at 7:24 AM EST.

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