Kyrsten Sinema, the apparent winner in Arizona's Senate race, is the first Democrat to win that vote for decades. Read the rest

Last year, C.J. Duron and parents attended O.C. Pride, prompting various trolls to mock the family online. This year, C.J. is the youngest grand marshal in Pride Month’s 48-year history. Read the rest

Fondation Émergence created a great PSA they call the Pride Shield, where 193 pride flags (one for each country) show that together we can end the worldwide epidemic of violence against sex and gender minorities. Read the rest

MSNBC news host Joy Reid has been the focus of controversy this week over her old blog, and her assertion that someone may have manipulated the Wayback Machine's archive of that content to make her look bad. Read the rest

Since last time I wrote about Toronto's leading role in "reparative therapy" for curing LGBT people, the worst gender clinic was shut down and its head was fired. Now another "expert" had his license suspended after having sex with men he claimed he was "curing" of homosexuality. Read the rest

In the 1980s, Nelson Sullivan was ubiquitous in the downtown NYC art and club scene, documenting his community and culture on his handheld video camera.

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Following the move by Cindy Sherman (previously), iconic photographer Nan Goldin now has an Instagram account for her studio. Read the rest

UCLA released a study that found 796,000 California adolescents, or over one in four, self-report that peers consider them gender nonconforming. Our recruitment drive is working! Read the rest

Transgender teen Ally Lee Steinfeld was stabbed in the genitals, had her eyes gouged out, and was burned to a charred crisp. But she was not the victim of a hate crime, say the police and prosecutor.

Steinfeld, 17, was allegedly attacked by her girlfriend and two teenagers in an assault in Cabool, Texas Country, Missouri which left her with her eyes gouged out, court records said.

Steinfeld, who was born as Joseph Matthew Steinfeld, had been missing for a month before investigators found her charred remains in a bag dumped in a chicken coop.

It came weeks after a post on social media site Instagram where she described herself as "mtf", or male-to-female, later adding: “I am proud to be me I am proud to be trans.”

But the authorities insisted Steinfeld’s murder was not motivated by her sexuality or gender.

Prosecutor Parke Stevens Jr told news agency AP: "I would say murder in the first-degree is all that matters. That is a hate crime in itself."

If all murders are hate crimes, none of them are. If you can thank the Internet for one thing this summer, it's the fact it might force at least a perfunctory prosecution out of this gentleman. Read the rest

ABC News reports that a man was caught on camera dousing an LGBT youth center in Phoenix. They seem to have a suspect—"Police believe the suspect used to be a client at the youth center, but aged out of eligibility when he turned 25"—but have not named him and want the public's help finding him.

Here's the best shot from the security camera:

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Savannah, a 12-year-old girl, is giving a speech at her Utah church but is interrupted when an official at the church cuts off her microphone and tells her to sit down. He apparently did not like the fact that she was saying that God loved all parts of her. Read the rest

Crissle West slurs through the story of Stonewall from the perspective of transgender pioneers Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, portrayed by Alexandra Grey and Trace Lysette. Laugh and learn! Read the rest

As the "cool Pope" and other conservative religious leaders wage a war on "gender ideology," one of the biggest casualties may have been the peace vote to end Colombia's decades-long civil war.

Trans rights are increasingly used as a wedge issue by conservatives, and it often involves moral panics around "protecting children" from LGBT people in general and transgender people in particular.

The controversy began earlier this year when an unfinished draft of a teaching handbook, produced by the education ministry in tandem with international agencies including UNICEF, was published online. One sentence sparked particular fury: “One isn’t born a man or a woman, but rather learns to be one, according to the society and age in which they grow up,” it read. That passage, along with false versions of the handbook and other misinformation, circulated widely on social media. Critics accused then-Education Minister Gina Parody, a lesbian, of trying to indoctrinate students with “gender ideology,” a term used by many conservative groups and leaders throughout Latin America. Parody quickly became the center of a smear campaign, while others argued children needed to be protected from same-sex marriage. That was when the lines between the handbook controversy and the peace deal vote started to blur.

• Did an Anti-LGBT Panic Help Defeat Colombia’s Peace Deal? (Americas Quarterly)

Image: Iván Erre Jota Read the rest

The New York Times' tumblr of photos from its voluminous archive is full of impactful and gorgeous moments.

May 23, 1974: A kiss outside City Hall, where gay rights activists had gathered to show support for a gay rights bill up for a vote at the City Council. The anti-discrimination measure was defeated, 22 to 19, but the bill’s backers vowed to resubmit the following week, although they would “not press for action until after the November election.” It didn’t pass until 1986.

Photos include "back stories", literally notes on the back of a photo to add context including how the photo was used, how much the photographer was paid, and the published caption, if applicable.

via The Lively Morgue. Read the rest

The National Basketball Association won't be holding the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte, North Carolina, because of a recently passed state law that discriminates against transgender people. Read the rest

A recent study has found that the gay dating app Grindr is a pretty effective way to get black and Hispanic men who like to have sex with men to try home H.I.V. self-testing kits. The home test doesn't require blood, but rather uses a swab of the gums to generate reliable results in 20 minutes. Of the 56 Los Angeles area men who participated in the study and received kits, two men learned from the kits that they were infected. Read the rest

The Pentagon today ended its ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military. The historic announcement formally removes some of the risks faced by an estimated thousands of U.S. troops, who could have been expelled from the armed forces because of their gender identity. Trans people who serve in the armed forces still have harassment, sexual violence, physical assault, and prejudice to face, but the hatred and sickness no longer has a Pentagon directive to hid behind. Read the rest