Bulgaria’s top court has ruled the country’s government must allow transgender people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents.

A trans woman from Bulgaria who moved to Italy, had tried to change her gender and name on her Bulgarian ID documents, but courts in the country denied her requests for nearly a decade.

The Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation in a 2023 ruling essentially banned trans people from legally changing their name and gender on ID documents.

The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which is the European Union’s highest court, in March ruled in the “Shipova” case that member states must allow trans people to legally change their name and gender on ID documents. The lead plaintiff in the “Shipova” case is among the four litigants in the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation case.

Two Bulgarian advocacy groups — Bilitis and Deystvie — along with TGEU – Trans Europe and Central Asia and ILGA-Europe in a joint statement they issued on Tuesday noted the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation’s July 22 decision “aligns Bulgarian practice with the Court of Justice of the EU, enabling changes to gender markers, names, and personal identification numbers.”

“The judges also concluded that EU law requires Bulgaria to establish a legal procedure for legal gender recognition, which is necessary so that Bulgarian trans citizens can travel and reside freely inside the EU,” they added.

Bulgaria has been a member of the EU since 2007.

The country borders Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey.

“We are very glad to see that the judges of the Supreme Court clearly stated that it is actually a matter of rule of law for Bulgaria to respect the universal equality and the dignity of all human beings, including trans people for whom human rights-based legal gender recognition procedures are an indispensable element,” said Denitsa Lyubenova, co-chair of Deystvie who represented the four plaintiffs in the Bulgarian courts and the lead litigant in the “Shipova” case at the EU Court of Justice. “The government needs to act swiftly now to put in place an LGR procedure that is fully in line with European human rights case law, which means without any conditions requiring proof of medical, surgical or hormonal treatment.”

The groups also urged the Bulgarian government to codify the ruling into law.

“While lower courts are expected to follow this ruling directly, a court decision is not a substitute for law,” they said. “Bulgaria still needs a fast, transparent, and accessible legal gender recognition procedure written into legislation, not left to case-by-case court precedent. TGEU – Trans Europe and Central Asia, Bilitis, Deystvie, and ILGA-Europe call on the Bulgarian government to start that legislative process now, with meaningful involvement from civil society.”

Consider the timing. Two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and two months before the midterm elections, top U.S. military leaders alert the public that Donald Trump and Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth’s bellicose incompetence is dangerously weakening national security.

On Sunday, Aug. 30, The Washington Post reported that the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America warned Hegseth directly that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief.”

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded on X, trying to discredit the reporting without disputing Hegseth’s plan to keep more than 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East through September, with some deployments possibly extended into 2027.

“Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime,” he wrote. “We are in great shape around the world. This story isn’t about readiness. It’s TDS and PDS – they hate President Trump and Secretary Hegseth more than they love America.”

On Monday, Army Sec. Dan Driscoll resigned “amid reports of heightened discord with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,” Military Times has learned, adding that “the Army is effectively leaderless. Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George in April and has yet to nominate a replacement for the Army’s top uniformed post.”

The Post notably experienced government pushback 55 years ago when the Nixon administration tried but failed to stop or criminalize publication of the Pentagon Papers, the leaked “top secret” report on U.S. policymaking in Vietnam showing that two presidents promised victory while knowingly sending thousands of soldiers to fight an unwinnable war.

In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled against President Richard Nixon’s claim of executive authority, with Justice Hugo Black writing, “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.” This Trump-loving Supreme Court, however, granted the convicted felon president broad immunity for official acts, which Trump has exploited with the complicity of a feckless Republican majority in Congress.

On Sunday, after a month’s respite in the six-month failed war against Iran, the U.S. military struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz that a U.S. Central Command spokesperson told the Associated Press were prepared to replace cleared sea mines in the international shipping routes. Iran retaliated for the “deadly attack.”

Five-time draft dodger Donald Trump may be “bored” with the war he started, but the rest of the world is scrambling. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is meeting with world finance ministers faced with aggressive tariffs on major allies. And then there’s the $40 trillion debt.

This is the “everything-all-at-once” existential crisis in which Americans must consider candidates for the Nov. 3 midterms. After the deep DOGE cuts of national and cybersecurity experts, conscientious voters should consider candidates with trustworthy, reality-based experience. Unfortunately, polls and donations are still considered the key barometers for victory.

Axios, for instance, recently reported that House Democrats are quietly helping Republican Rep. Mike Lawler’s re-election campaign against combat vet and national security expert Cait Conley by not fighting hard enough in New York’s 17th Congressional District, considered the most vulnerable House seat in the country.

The battleground seat in the Lower Hudson Valley area could decide which party controls the House next year. But it took the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee more than two weeks after Conley dusted her four opponents in the June primary, winning 51.4 percent of the vote, to include her in its “coveted” Red-to-Blue program.

The designation is “signaling that the DCCC is invested in providing Conley, a top-tier candidate, with the support needed to continue building a winning campaign as she runs for New York’s 17th Congressional District,” according to the committee.

The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and the Cook Political Report subsequently shifted the race from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-up.”

However, the “Lawler campaign has a commanding advantage in available funds and booked media,” which includes “millions” from Elon Musk, according to the Conley campaign. Trump, Cabinet secretaries, and House leaders like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) have campaigned for Lawler.

Democrats still seem soft. “If you’re going to have a Republican, it’s the kind of Republican we want in the Congress,” a Democratic source told Axios of Lawler.

“I don’t think Lawler is beatable,” a senior House Democrat told Axios.

When asked by The Hudson Independent about the money disparity, “The response by West Point graduate Conley: ‘Outspent. Not Outfought.’”

Conley says she lives by the Special Ops saying, “run to the sound of the guns.” But Lawler and his Republican friends think calling her “scaredy-cat” for “chickening out” by not meeting his challenge to debate on CNN or NBC makes him look strong.

Both are 39 years old, so consider how their life experiences may fit today’s needs.

Conley, a fourth-generation Hudson Valley native from a working-class family, was a junior at Pine Bush High School when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. The next day, she began her application to West Point, where she graduated in the top 2% of her class. She later received advanced degrees from MIT and Harvard, accruing expertise in national security.

Conley served for more than 16 years as an active-duty Army officer, deploying six times to combat zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, where she became one of the first women to serve in Special Operations leadership. She received three Bronze Stars and a stellar reputation for exceptional leadership under pressure.

Conley subsequently served as director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council at the White House. She transferred to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, where she helped safeguard critical infrastructure and election systems – always defending the integrity of the people and American democracy.

Lawler never served in the military nor worked to protect national security. According to his campaign website, he grew up in Rockland County, graduated from Suffern High School, and was valedictorian at Manhattan College in the Bronx, where he majored in finance and accounting.

Lawler served as deputy town supervisor of Orangetown, senior advisor to the Westchester County Executive, and executive director of the New York State Republican Party, and he founded a successful government affairs and public relations firm. He was then elected to the New York State Assembly. He touts his 2022 Congressional victory over the gay chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In 2024, Lawler won a congressional district that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won. “In that race,” his website says, “he outperformed the presidential ballot by nearly 7 points, a testament to his bipartisan, pragmatic approach to governing and his broad appeal among Democrats and Independents.”

Lawler has voted five separate times to back Trump’s Iran war, about which, he told News Nation, he had privately been given information about an “imminent” nuclear threat. Six months later, he believes the war is “absolutely worth it,” though gas prices are above $4.15 per gallon.

Conley has an impressive list of endorsements – most of whom are local. So VoteVets launched a $1 million dollar ad buy for Conley, highlighting Lawler’s record of voting with Trump “100% of the time.”

The VoteVets ad, “Valley Home,” highlights Conley’s roots, her working-family background, her commitment to serve after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and her military leadership.

In an interview with Trudy Ring for LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters, Conley likened her decision to challenge Lawler to her decision to join the military.

“The reason I’m in this fight to take back New York 17, flip it from red to blue, and get Mike Lawler out of here, and is the same reason that over 20 years ago I decided to serve this country after the terror attacks of 9/11,” she said. “It is love for this country and a feeling of responsibility to our community in this country to fight for it.”

“Washington has grown increasingly corrupt, especially under this administration, which has just set a whole new bar for a willingness to exploit the federal government for personal gain, to use the federal government as a weapon against political opposition, and the level of corruption that we are seeing from the White House and [Donald] Trump himself, his family making $2 billion while he’s in office, right?” she added.

“The shamelessness—it’s straight up un-American, and it has been enabled by cowards in Congress like Mike Lawler, and so we have to stop it, and that’s what this fight’s about. No one else is going to come in and save us. This is our fight, and that’s why I’m proud to take it on,” Conley said.

Lawler touts himself as a moderate, but he “has voted 100 percent of the time with Donald Trump,” Conley said. “What does that mean? Well, it means voting eight times for reckless tariffs that have jacked up the price of goods on everything from prescriptions to groceries in the middle of an affordability crisis. It has cost an average household $4,200 for the same goods because of these tariffs.”

“There is no line Mike Lawler will not cross for Donald Trump. When Donald Trump says jump, Mike Lawler’s response is ‘how high?’ People here in the Hudson Valley deserve a hell of a lot better.”

If elected, Conley’s priorities will include lowering costs of health care and other necessities, investing in education, addressing climate change by promoting clean energy, codifying reproductive rights, reforming the immigration system and reining in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), fighting cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, championing LGBTQ+ rights, and generally combating the policies of the Trump administration.

Caring about the military is also a priority.

Pete Hegseth is incompetent and should never have been confirmed as Secretary of Defense, Conley said. He’s depriving the military of talent by kicking out transgender service members, women, people of color, and those who simply disagree with him. Trans military members, she noted, “are men and women who have more courage in their big toe than Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have combined.”

She has also decried the mistreatment of troops such as those who’ve been at sea on the USS Lincoln for nearly nine months, facing food shortages and generally horrific conditions that have led to mental health crises.

Asked about Trump’s recent decision to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea and to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Conley said, “I’m at a loss of words sometimes. … We should be standing by our allies like South Korea. We should be standing by our allies like NATO and Europe. We should be standing by our allies like Ukraine. But instead, because our president has this bizarre affinity for dictators,” he prefers countries that are our “strategic adversaries,” like North Korea and Russia.

Conley’s been called a war hero, but she doesn’t refer to herself that way.

“What I would say is I’ve proudly served,” she said, noting the personal sacrifice of serving in silence as a lesbian under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“You saw brave service members who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country but had to live in fear,” she said. “That’s not America.”

Later, as director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC), she got banned from Russia, along with such big names as former President Obama and comedian Stephen Colbert, something of which she’s proud. Since the list was alphabetical in English, as a “huge fan,” Conley said it was “one of the coolest things” seeing her name listed after Colbert’s.

Immigration reform is another priority. “It has broken my heart, as someone who loves this country, to watch, on American streets, American federal agents … literally killing the very people they’re sworn to serve and protect, and there’s no accountability. That’s not a partisan issue. That’s a straight American issue.”

Conley’s district has the second-highest number of Haitian immigrants in the U.S., and Trump recently revoked their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a status that meant they were legally cleared to work and wouldn’t be deported. Since many work in health care, deporting them would hurt the immigrants and the communities they serve. This is another example of the “cruelty and corruption” of the Trump administration, Conley said.

She also noted that 37,000 people in her district will lose health insurance due to Medicaid cuts and the revocation of certain tax credits for premiums on Affordable Care Act plans. She favors a public option for health insurance.

“I talk to families all across this district, and what I hear is people, regardless of political affiliation, are sick of the dysfunction and partisanship that is tearing communities and families apart, and they want to get back to doing what is right for our future and focusing on solving the very real problems,” Conley said.

If Conley is elected, it would be sweet revenge for the LGBTQ+ community; Lawler has previously beaten two gay candidates, five-term Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney and former Congressman Mondaire Jones.

“Third time’s the charm, and let me tell you, he has never had to face someone like me before,” Conley said. “Yes, absolutely a proud member of the LGBTQ community, but also a woman veteran… It’s about our future, and so folks are coming together. There’s a generation of us that are hungry to get in there and root out the corruption that I feel like has taken root in Washington, to root it out and to really deliver.”

This article is cross-posted from Karen Ocamb’s Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters.

Three people were fatally shot outside a gay bar in Tucson, Ariz., early Monday morning, about a mile from the city’s nightlife district.

Police have said the shooting, which took place in the parking lot of Venture-N bar at 1239 N. 6th Ave., was likely a hate crime and a double murder-suicide following a verbal altercation.

The suspect, Ousman Ceesay, allegedly shot Vincent Anthony Siqueiros and Cameron Davis Capara while they were outside the club around 12:30 a.m. Monday.

Reports show Capara and Siqueiros were pronounced dead at the scene. Ceesay died after being taken to a local hospital with gunshot wounds.

Police have also said that Ceesay was carrying a list of LGBTQ+ businesses at the time of the shooting.

Arizona Public Media has said police are investigating the case as a hate crime because the suspect was carrying a note containing the names of multiple LGBTQ+-associated businesses.

“I am deeply saddened that another senseless loss of life has happened in our community,” Tucson Police Chief Monica Prieto said in a statement. “Bias-based crimes are especially heinous and have no place in our community.”

According to Prieto, there is no imminent threat to the community, and the Tucson Police Department is working to provide extra protection to various LGBTQ+ businesses across town.

Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who represents the area, issued a statement condemning the act of violence, which appears to have been at least in part motivated by homophobia.

“I am disgusted and deeply saddened to learn of a targeted act of hate and the cold-blooded murder of two members of our LGBTQIA+ community, Vincent Siqueiros and Cameron Capara, at the Venture-N bar in Tucson last night. This horrific attack is a painful reminder that even in welcoming communities like Tucson, hate and violence against the LGBTQIA+ community still exist.”

“When that hate is combined with easy access to firearms, the consequences can be deadly. I am sick and tired of Congress refusing to lift a finger to protect our communities while, every day, dozens of people are shot and killed across the country. It does not have to be this way. The House of Representatives is returning to session this week, and our first action should be passing common-sense gun safety reforms that we know can save lives.”

Other federal lawmakers also condemned the shooting.

The Congressional Equality Caucus, which is made up of federal legislators advancing LGBTQ interests, issued a statement after news broke.

“Our hearts are with the friends and loved ones of the victims of this devastating attack outside a Tucson gay bar and with the Tucson LGBTQI+ community,” it said on X. “No one should fear violence because of who they are — and we’re going to continue fighting to build a world where no one does.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ organization in the country, released a statement following the shooting.

“We are heartbroken by the loss of Vincent Anthony Siqueiros and Cameron Davis Capara and our hearts are with their families, loved ones, and the entire Tucson LGBTQ+ community. Once again, we are reminded that gun violence robs people of their lives, destroys families, and devastates communities.”

A candlelight vigil honoring the victims is planned for Sept. 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Catalina Park in North Tucson.

French prosecutors say a man shouted anti-gay slurs at a prominent activist before he attacked him in Paris on Saturday.

Media reports indicate Pierre Picavet, a police officer who is the president of FLAG!, a group within the French Justice and Interior Ministries that defends LGBTQ+ rights, was attacked as he left a bar in Paris’s Marais neighborhood.

The Marais since the 1980s has been center of the French capital’s LGBTQ+ community.

France 24 reported Picavet’s assailant struck him with a bottle. The attack left Picavet hospitalized with internal bleeding, a head wound, and other injuries.

“When I get better, when my wounds have healed, I will continue the fight,” Picavet told Radio France on Monday. “I am particularly shocked, but it tells me that there is still work to do.”

Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire is among those who condemned the attack.

STOP Homophobia (STOP homophobie), a French group that fights against anti-LGBTQ+ violence, on its social media pages published a picture of Picavet in the hospital.

“As a long-standing partner of FLAG!, STOP Homophobia wishes to express its solidarity with Pierre Picavet, his loved ones, and the entire association,” said the group. “STOP Homophobia condemns this assault in the strongest possible terms and reiterates that anti-LGBT violence remains a reality — even in spaces where everyone should be able to move freely and live out their sexual orientation or gender identity without fear of attack.”

STOP Homophobia also praised a bystander who came to Picavet’s aid after the attack, and the first responders and law enforcement personnel who responded.

“STOP Homophobia extends its full support to Pierre, his family, his loved ones, and the entire FLAG! team, and wishes him a full recovery,” said the group.

Reports indicate the assailant, who was born in 2006, was scheduled to appear in a Paris court on Monday at 1:30 p.m. local time.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson on Sunday campaigned for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in New Hampshire.

Robinson traveled to Manchester, the state’s largest city, nine days before the Sept. 8 primary that will determine who will vie for retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)’s seat.

We’re hitting the pavement across New Hampshire to fight for a freer, fairer future for everyone.

Glad to have Human Rights Campaign President @KelleyJRobinson join us for a canvass launch in Manchester today. pic.twitter.com/XWCEaQxy4o

— Chris Pappas (@ChrisPappasNH) August 30, 2026

Former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate from 2003-2009, will face off against former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 2010-2013, in the Republican primary.

Karishma Manzur is among the Democrats challenging Pappas.

A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 shows Sununu is ahead of Brown. The same survey shows Pappas ahead of Manzur and his other Democratic challengers.

The UNH Survey Center poll shows Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.

Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.

Poland has begun to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed outside the country.

TVP World, the country’s public broadcaster, reported civil registry offices began to “transcribe same-sex marriages legally” conducted outside of Poland on Aug. 22.

The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg last November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage. Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court in March reaffirmed the decision.

The couple, who lives in Poland, brought their case to Polish courts in 2019. The Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.

The Polish government in May announced it will recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries. Polish President Karol Nawrocki on July 17 vetoed bills that would have extended rights to same-sex couples.

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal a few days later rejected the recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries. The Love Does Not Exclude Association, a Polish marriage equality advocacy group, in an Aug. 26 press release notes the ruling “does not prevent implementation of these new regulations” because the Constitutional Tribunal is “largely discredited” and the government considers it “to be improperly constituted.”

“This is an important milestone, but it should not be the final destination,” said Maja Heban of the Love Does Not Exclude Association. “No couple should have to cross a border to marry. Our goal is allowing loving, committed couples to marry in Poland in the first place. The law now increasingly recognizes these marriages once couples return to Poland in areas such as healthcare and social security, but significant gaps remain, mainly lack of recognition of same-sex parents which directly impacts security of their children.”

Germany, Belgium, France, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal are among the EU countries in which same-sex couples can legally marry. Andorra, whose prime minister, Xaviet Espot Zamora, is openly gay, and Switzerland are among the other European nations that have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The Netherlands in 2001 became the first country in the world to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Activists who participated in this year’s World Pride that took place in Amsterdam earlier this summer marked this milestone.

From the Desk of Equality California:

As we hurdle toward the November midterm elections, Equality California is busy as ever preparing for our fall events season, continuing to endorse pro-equality candidates up and down the ballot, and working to move our priority legislation through final votes and to the governor’s desk.

We’re also accepting applications for our final Leadership Academy of the year. This special Gender Equity Edition will help prepare lesbian, bisexual and queer women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people, to run for office and serve their communities.If you’re interested in applying or know someone who’d be a great fit, learn more!

To read more stories, join our mailing list, and sign up for the weekly Equality Brief, visit eqca.org/equalitybrief.

• Trump Administration Denies Trevor Project Proposal to Run ‘Press 3’ Crisis Line:
  As the Department of Health and Human Services prepares to reinstate specialized crisis services for LGBTQ+ youth at the national 988 Crisis Line, they have formally denied a proposal from the Trevor Project — who helped initially create and launch the service — to help with administration. The toll-free 988 Lifeline’s “press 3” hotline, which provides confidential assistance by trained counselors, originally launched in 2022.
  
• Survey: 12% of Adult U.S. Population Identifies as LGBTQ+:
  A recent analysis of data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Plus Survey between 2021-24 shows that 12%, or nearly 26.5 million adults, identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. This was the last effort by the federal government to collect information on sexual orientation and gender identity before the Trump administration removed such questions on hundreds of federal surveys. The majority of the respondents — 53% — fall between ages 18-34.
  
• Trump Administration Finalizes Discriminatory Rule Targeting Transgender Healthcare:
  The Trump administration finalized a cruel and discriminatory rule blocking federal Medicaid and CHIP payments to providers for medically necessary healthcare for transgender young people, putting access to care at risk — particularly for young people from low-income families. The rule is scheduled to take effect October 13, but it does not make transgender healthcare illegal in California or prevent the state from using its own funding to cover care. Equality California and our partners secured a historic $26 million investment in the state budget to protect access to care and stabilize California’s transgender healthcare provider network.
  
• Pentagon Uses Secretive Separation Boards to Expel Transgender Servicemembers:
  A New York Times investigation revealed how the Pentagon is using closed-door separation boards to remove transgender servicemembers from the military, often regardless of their records of exemplary service. The proceedings have no cameras or public transcripts, and some servicemembers have been barred from their own hearings after refusing to cut their hair or wear uniforms corresponding with their sex assigned at birth. One attorney who has represented dozens of transgender troops reported losing 27 of 28 cases before the boards.
• Trump Justice Department Violates Federal Order; Judge Considering Sanctions:
  In just the latest flouting of a legal ruling, the Trump Justice Department violated U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s order preventing transgender women in federal custody from being moved into segregated housing. Issued in May, Lamberth’s order arose from a case challenging the constitutionality of a Trump executive order requiring federal inmates be housed on the basis of their sex at birth. The legal challenge is still active, with Lamberth ruling earlier this year the case could proceed as a class-action lawsuit. When questioned by Judge Lamberth, Justice Department attorneys claimed they were in compliance while plaintiffs’ attorneys argue the spirit of the order was clearly violated. Lamberth is now considering potential sanctions, as well as how best to ensure enforcement of his order.
  
• House Passes 2027 NDAA With Anti-LGBTQ+ Amendments, Anti-Trans Military Effort Defeated:
  By a vote of 216-212, the House passed the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual Defense Department appropriations bill, with two anti-LGBTQ+ provisions attached. The first provision prohibits funding for transition-related healthcare for active-duty troops, while the second targets healthcare for transgender servicemembers and their dependent children under TRICARE, the military’s primary health provider system. One particularly ugly amendment offered by anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) sought to codify a Trump executive order — currently undergoing a legal challenge — barring transgender people from enlisting in the military and discharging active-duty transgeneder servicemembers, but was defeated. The bill now moves to the Senate, where passage is not guaranteed.
  
• Federal Employees and Their Families Sue Trump Administration Over Transgender Healthcare Exclusion:
  Federal employees and their families have joined a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to exclude medically necessary transgender healthcare from federal employee health plans. The lawsuit argues that the blanket exclusion, which applies to people of all ages, violates federal protections against sex discrimination. According to the Williams Institute, at least 39,400 people enrolled in federal health plans are affected by the policy.

STATE LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Equality California’s priority sponsored legislation continues to move through the legislative process. A handful of our bills have been transmitted to the governor’s desk, while others await final action in the legislature. To view our entire 2026 state legislative package, visit eqca.org/legislation

2026 SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE SCHOOLS REPORT CARD

Earlier this month, Equality California Institute released the fourth iteration of the Safe and Supportive Schools Report Card. The survey measures how well California’s Unified School Districts adhere to state education law around inclusive curriculum and anti-bullying policies, as well as their overall support for LGBTQ+ students. While there were some highlights, overall the data presented more challenges and opportunities as opposed to outright successes. Read the full Report Card on our Schools hub.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Our premier event of the year, the Los Angeles Equality Awards, is happening on Saturday, October 17, 2026 from 6:00-10:00 PM at the gorgeous Fairmont Century Plaza. And this year, we’re making Monét moves — Drag Race All-Stars winner, comedian, actor, and presenter Monét X Change will serve as emcee! We’ll also honor Asm. Rick Chavez Zbur with the Equality Leadership Award. More details will be announced soon, but tickets are on sale now! Don’t miss out!

Editor’s note: The Department of Homeland Security on Saturday said Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported to the U.K.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday arrested far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

A DHS spokesperson in a statement sent to the Los Angeles Blade said ICE arrested Yiannopoulos, who they described as “an illegal alien from the United Kingdom,” at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

The DHS spokesperson said Yiannopoulos “legally entered the country” in New York on May 14, 2019.

“He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws,” said the spokesperson.

The DHS spokesperson said an immigration judge on July 22 “issued a final order of removal” for Yiannopoulos “after failing to show up for his immigration hearing.” The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans on Friday reported Yiannopoulos is being held at an ICE detention center in Alexandria, La., which is about 200 miles northwest of the Crescent City.

“He will remain in ICE custody pending removal,” said the DHS spokesperson.

Yiannopoulos has, among other things, repeatedly targeted transgender people and Muslims.

The American Conservative Union, which organizes the annual Conversative Political Action Conference, in 2017 disinvited Yiannopoulos from speaking at that year’s CPAC after a video in which he appeared to condone sex between adults and underage boys emerged. Yiannopoulos subsequently resigned from Breitbart News, a far-right news website, where he had been a senior editor.

Yiannopoulos later that year married his boyfriend in Hawaii. The far-right provocateur in 2021 claimed he was an “ex-gay.”

The Australian government in 2019 banned Yiannopoulos from entering the country “on character grounds.” Yiannopoulos was also banned from Facebook, Twitter (now X), and other social media platforms.

The Times-Picayune reported Yiannopoulos “most recently worked for” Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

The controversial rapper is scheduled to perform in New Orleans on Friday.

Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who is close to President Donald Trump, has called for Yiannopoulos’s deportation. Loomer on Friday wrote on X that she “reported him to ICE and the FBI” after he “called for me to be assassinated.”

LGBTQ people have a variety of housing options when they’re lucky enough to be able to afford property. In San Francisco – long considered a safe haven for the queer community – individual needs have to be weighed both against the city’s chronic housing shortage and a competitive but often lucrative job market.

After a lull of several years, the city’s real estate market has heated up in recent months, driven by the city’s economic recovery post-COVID lockdowns and the artificial intelligence boom.

For Rick Page, 68, and Anthony Farace, 57, both gay men, the job market was a top reason to move back to the city after they’d left the Bay Area five years ago.

Page said the couple had left behind a “huge home in a town called Oakhurst, on the way to Yosemite.” When moving back to San Francisco they wanted to balance suburban and downtown vibes, Farace said, leading them to settle in Diamond Heights, a tiny neighborhood built atop three hills above Noe Valley, that has suburban sensibilities but isn’t too far from downtown.

“In the summer it’s a little foggy but it’s nicer up here the rest of the time, and where it felt like you aren’t downtown where it’s just concrete and buildings,” Farace said. 

Added Page, “It sounds goofy, but if there’s a tsunami, it won’t get all the way up here.”

Page said that in the spring the couple initially bought a relatively small studio in Diamond Heights. But they found that it didn’t meet their needs and purchased a second studio unit nearby that did. They closed on the larger condo unit in October.

“It just didn’t have any kind of patio or outdoor thing for the dog,” Page said of their first studio, “so we saw something upgraded with a kitchen redone, nice hardwood floors, a fireplace, a sunny patio, so it was much nicer. We bought that one, now we have to figure out what to do with the first one.”

The first unit was $450,000 and the second $520,000, they stated.

The couple also mentioned a lack of some of the downtown, South of Market, and Mission District street disorder that garnered negative headlines in the past several years. The couple also noted that Diamond Heights is more affordable than traditionally high-priced Russian Hill, which is closer to downtown. 

Nevertheless, “The employment, the social life is better” in San Francisco, Page added. 

Federal data shows many LGBTQ people want to own a home.

Fannie Mae, the government sponsored enterprise that buys home loans, does have some LGBT data, according to research from 2023 that was published in 2024. The data is the result of sexual orientation and gender identity identifiers in the National Housing Survey. It did not ask about queer representation.

According to the report, 8.6% of respondents identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender – similar to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. The survey included responses from a weighted total of 12,363 people 18 years and older, with a weighted total of 1,059 identifying as LGBT.

The research found the LGBT homeownership rate to be 46%, which is much lower than the overall U.S. homeownership rate of 65%.

The latest available data from The Urban Institute reveals that the homeownership rate for individuals identifying as LGBTQ+ stands at 51%, in contrast to 71% for those who identify as both straight and cisgender. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, at least 1.3 million same-sex couples reside in the U.S., meaning a significant number of LGBTQ people in this country do not own their own homes.

In San Francisco, the Diamond Heights neighborhood is just a half-hour walk from the Castro, and even shorter on the bus. 

Charlie Mader is a gay man who has been a Realtor in San Francisco for “just under 25 years,” with a particular emphasis on Diamond Heights, the Castro, and Noe Valley. He said that while many LGBTQ people want to live relatively close to a queer neighborhood, such as the Castro, “It’s not like it used to be.”

Even in spite of a recent backlash to LGBTQ equality in the mid-2020s, leading to a number of federal policies largely targeting transgender and gender-nonconforming people, Mader said that since marriage equality, “You hear ‘There’s no need for us to live together in a gay ghetto,’ and we’re interspersed throughout the community and the country.”

Marriage equality became legal in California in June 2013, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex unions legal nationwide in 2015.

Mader said marriage equality helped incentivize more LGBTQ home-buying due to an old Clinton administration tax law that gave married couples favorable tax incentives versus single homebuyers. 

But even within the City-by-the-Bay, the distinction between neighborhoods is not as stark.

“I hear the Mission is just as gay as the Castro is, and the food is better,” Mader said. “I can’t argue with that.”

Angel Carney, a lesbian Realtor, has also been in the Castro area for decades. She said the threshold of home ownership there has risen dramatically. 

“When I first started,” which was in 2002, she said, “I had teachers, I had nurses, I had a doctor … It was diverse in terms of who was buying. Everybody had a way to get into the market.”

Now, “with tech, they blew out everybody,” she added, saying first-time homebuyers are sometimes competing with tech employees making six-figure salaries from their early 20s due to their economic opportunities.

Carney said that even so, “It’s mostly a two-income household who’s buying in the Castro,” largely people in their 30s.

“LGBTQ is more of a rarity,” she added. “I’ve seen more non-LGBTQ, I would say, couples buying in the Castro.”

One reason is because while it is such an iconic epicenter of the LGBTQ community, it is “definitely a transit hub, and it’s geographically central, so if you work on the Peninsula, you go over Diamond Street and you’re on [Highway] 280. You can get to BART, to the airport, it definitely is transit centric for work, for traveling, if you’re a tech worker.”

Understanding that unhoused people are often part of San Francisco neighborhoods such as the Castro is also a factor, Mader said. 

“Because gays are so tolerant, it draws a magnet for people who you know are distressed and so you see more antisocial behavior, begging on the street, people just getting high because they know they can get away with it,” he said. That can impact people’s desire to buy a forever home in one neighborhood or another.

Indeed, the Castro has experienced fewer open-air drug scenes than other parts of the city, such as Sixth Street or the Civic Center Plaza, which are both near the downtown core. Such activity has, however, remained a persistent complaint of Castro merchants. In early December, Sophie Marie, a legislative aide to gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who represents the neighborhood as District 8 supervisor, noted that “a lot” of unhoused people have recently moved into the Castro as they leave South of Market and Civic Center amid an increase in law enforcement activity and attention from city government there.

The Castro is among those neighborhoods seeing building height limits increased as a result of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s family zoning plan that, after much rancor, passed the Board of Supervisors for the final time on December 9. The plan is intended to increase the city’s housing stock to meet state housing goals.

San Francisco’s median home sale price rose nearly 6% to $1.85 million, its highest amount since 2022, earlier this year, as the San Francisco Standard reported.  

Mader said that nonetheless, “There are empty condos everywhere for sale,” and that market is down 20% from its peak.

“Right now I’m selling for $625,000 – I’ve sold for $100,000 more than that,” Mader noted.

Carney agreed that condos are very available right now.

“If you’re thinking about entering the market, think about condos,” she advised. “When interest rates go down, prices will go up, so get in now on a condo. People say they’re waiting for the market to drop – well, the market dropped on condos. Those are a great buy right now.”

The Fannie Mae data showed that homeownership aspirations are high among LGBT consumers, with 83% saying they “would like to buy at some point” or “continue to own,” the report stated. This share is comparable to non-LGBT consumers, the report stated. LGBT consumers also believe there are more obstacles to owning a home than their non-LGBT peers.

Those obstacles include that over 70% of LGBT respondents said it was difficult to get a home mortgage today, compared to only 55% of non-LGBT respondents, according to the research. LGBT consumers were more concerned about closing costs, credit score or history, current debt, and insufficient income for monthly payments.

The Federal Reserve on December 10 lowered interest rates for the third time this year. The recent reduction was by a quarter of a percentage point, as the New York Times reported. The new range is between 3.25% to 3.75%. But CNBC noted that mortgage rates may remain higher because they are less impacted by the Fed. The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is currently about 6.35%, the network reported December 10.

Nationally, the real estate market is dealing with the same uncertainty as the rest of the economy, now almost one year into President Donald Trump’s second term.

“Everyone is afraid of another Trump recession,” Mader said. “People are not buying houses especially in places like Florida, where they’re having all kinds of issues with insurance.”
Florida is the nation’s most expensive state for home insurance due to natural disasters like hurricanes. 

California is also experiencing insurance issues, particularly in areas prone to wildfires, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Most of the Bay Area is not as affected as other parts of the state, though insurance premiums are rising for home insurance.

Not everyone wants to live in a big city. 

Mark Kliem, who’s part of the LGBTQ Real Estate Alliance, focuses on the North Bay, encompassing Solano, Napa, and Sonoma counties. 

“Consumers can contact the alliance no matter where they live and connect with the nearest LGBTQ agent close to their area whether they are buyers or sellers,” Kliem, who is gay, said.
Kliem lives in the Solano County city of Vallejo, where the real estate market took a dive during the Great Recession.

“A lot of investors swooped in and bought up as many of those places as they could, so there was a lot of investing in property through that, and a lot of flippers,” he said, referring to people who buy a property, fix it up, and then sell it for a profit.

Now, the area is one of the country’s hottest real estate markets, he said, because it’s near San Francisco, has warmer weather and is more affordable long-term.

“It’s a good place location wise – we’re on a bay, we have a ferry service to downtown San Francisco. We don’t have BART, so it’s a little problematic to get to the nearest BART, but our weather gets even warmer, less fog, than Oakland. Throughout the year, it’s a five-degree difference from San Francisco.”

Ultimately, the Golden State and the Bay Area in particular are poised to remain competitive for buyers of all sexual orientations and gender identity – despite the fact that that leads to so many barriers to entry. Gay Realtor Anthony Waite, 30, explained why.

“A lot of people who moved to Austin, Texas [during the COVID pandemic lockdowns] said there’s not a lot to do,” Waite said. “In San Francisco, you could find something to do every single corner every hour, day and night. Texas doesn’t offer that.”

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published by the Bay Area Reporter and is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories at economicopportunitylab.com .)

Economic mobility usually assumes a starting line: a bedroom to return to, a parent to call, a place to regroup after things go wrong. For many LGBTQ young adults in South Florida, that starting line never existed. 

That’s why Our Fund Foundation, SunServe, and Sunshine Cathedral partnered to build Sunshine Pride House, a 12-bed transitional home helping LGBTQ young adults stabilize, find work, and prepare for independence.

For the residents who live there, that support shows up in small, ordinary ways.

In the evenings, the house settles into a rhythm: dinner prep, shared chores, quiet conversations at the kitchen counter. As house mother, Martha Acevedo anchors the day-to-day life of Sunshine Pride House, creating a sense of consistency many residents have never known. A few nights a week, she cooks home-prepared meals, often inviting residents to join her in the kitchen — chopping, stirring, learning by doing.

For some, the meal itself is the moment that lands hardest.

“Some of them tell me they haven’t had a cooked meal in such a long time,” Acevedo said. “When I serve the food and they say ‘thank you,’ you can see it. They’re kids. They just needed a home.”

Acevedo says the reactions still catch her off guard. What feels routine to her — cooking, setting plates, sitting down together — can feel extraordinary to young people who have spent months or years without a consistent place to eat.

“When I cook, I do it proudly,” she said. “I give a lot of love.”

According to research from The Trevor Project, 28% of LGBTQ youth have experienced homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives. Data from True Colors United underscores the scale of the disparity — LGBTQ youth are 2.2 times more likely to experience homelessness than non-LGBTQ youth.

“So these kids are coming to the house because they’ve either aged out of foster care or they’ve been kicked out of their homes because they’re LGBTQ,” said Tony Lima, CEO of SunServe. “You kind of have to start from zero. That’s the common theme of all of these youth.”

Those experiences carry lasting consequences: LGBTQ youth who have been unhoused report significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges than their housed peers. 

“In order to have proper mental health, that’s conducive to living a full life, you need to have a home,” Lima said. “You need to have a place to be able to rest your head.”

That reality isn’t unique to LGBTQ youth, though queer young people are far more likely to experience it — and far less likely to have family support to fall back on.

Elijah Manley’s experience with homelessness began during the 2008 financial crisis, when he was about 9 years old. After his single mother lost her job, his family was evicted and spent years cycling through instability — living in their car, rotating between friends’ homes, staying in an overcrowded apartment with relatives, and at one point sleeping in a storage unit in Lauderhill. Each morning, Manley and his siblings woke before dawn to shower at beach facilities before heading to school, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy without a permanent home.

Manley, who is now 27, was not yet out as queer during this period, and his homelessness was driven by economic collapse rather than family rejection. Still, he says the experience shows how early housing instability — regardless of cause — can derail childhood, education, and long-term opportunity. His family’s situation improved only gradually, and he credits a mix of early work, community connections, and “a little luck” for eventually finding stability — a path he notes many others never get.

Today, Manley points to LGBTQ nonprofits like SunServe as essential lifelines — especially for young people who face both economic instability and identity-based rejection.

“They’re very vital and lifesaving. Without them, a lot of people would be in a much worse situation,” he said. “They keep our communities housed and fed and connected to the social services and healthcare they need. They’re filling a void the government hasn’t filled.”

Manley, who has run for public office several times and is currently running for Congress to represent Florida’s 20th district in West Broward, argues that relying on private charity to fill that void leaves too many people behind.

“These are services the government should be providing or supporting,” he said. “Charity should not be public policy. It should be provided to everybody, regardless of their income, and not dependent on somebody else’s charity.”

Housing is Just The Starting Point

For now, Sunshine Pride House exists largely because private donors stepped in where public dollars did not. While public agencies can and do fund programs that reach LGBTQ people, government funding is often constrained by nondiscrimination and open-access requirements that make it difficult to support services explicitly limited to a single identity group. 

The home is owned by Sunshine Cathedral, while SunServe runs the day-to-day programming and services inside. With no state or federal grants tied to the house itself, its roughly $250,000 annual operating budget is raised through individual donors and philanthropic partners, coordinated in large part through Our Fund Foundation. 

“There’s no way to do this work without being clear about the population we’re serving — and that cuts off a lot of funding possibilities,” said David Jobin, CEO of Our Fund.  

The funding covers housing, staffing, life coaching, and wraparound support — allowing the program to exist in a policy environment where targeting services to LGBTQ youth often disqualifies programs from public dollars altogether.

The idea for Sunshine Pride House began not as a programmatic expansion, but as a personal intervention. More than five years ago, philanthropist Michael Kalb approached Our Fund Foundation with a simple question: what would it take to create a safe, stable home for LGBTQ young people who had nowhere else to go? 

Kalb had been deeply affected after witnessing unhoused youth being mocked in public spaces, and he believed housing could change the entire trajectory of a young person’s life. Working closely with Jobin, that initial conversation grew into a multi-year effort to design a model tailored specifically to South Florida’s LGBTQ youth.

“People hear ‘housing’ and think that’s the solution, but housing is just the starting point,” Jobin said. 

Kalb ultimately invested more than $600,000 into the project, joined by fellow donor Terry Merlin, while Our Fund helped assemble the partnerships needed to make it work. Sunshine Cathedral agreed to purchase and own the property, drawing on its decades of experience managing community housing, while SunServe took on day-to-day operations and services inside the home. What opened first as a pilot in a rented house evolved into the current 12-bed facility — now fully owned, privately funded, and operating as one of the only LGBTQ-specific transitional housing programs in the region. 

“If we want to continue to bring these services to life, that requires funding — and we’re really going to need help to do that,” said John Marler, Communications Director of SunServe. “Government funding has been harder and harder to come by, and foundation funding and corporate sponsorships are becoming more competitive.”

Kalb, who died unexpectedly in December, often said a safe place allows young people to “finally exhale,” and Sunshine Pride House stands as a direct reflection of that belief.

The structure of Sunshine Pride House reflects that focus on stability first, mobility second. The home is designed as short-term transitional housing rather than a permanent shelter. 

They Have Nowhere Elsewhere to Go 

For Mario DePedro, who helps oversee the program, the work often means stepping into roles most parents fill by default.

“We have youth who are just leaving home for the first time and their parents don’t support them. They have nowhere else to go. Now it’s up to us to take the place of what the parent should be,” he said.

Inside the house, residents share bedrooms and follow a structured daily routine. They are required to work or attend school, participate in therapy, and meet regularly with life coaches who help them set goals.

“We call it a future plan. We’re helping them with the goals they want to reach, so they can be successful in their life,” he said.

That plan can include finishing high school, enrolling in college, securing steady employment, learning financial literacy, or preparing for independent housing.

Many residents arrive carrying layers of trauma that extend far beyond the moment they lost housing.

“They’re coming from a lot of trauma,” DePedro said. “Being kicked out at 18 usually isn’t the first trauma — there’s often a cycle of abuse that leads up to that moment.” 

For residents who began adulthood without savings, family support, or stable housing, that planning process can be the difference between cycling back into crisis and building a path toward long-term economic stability.

“They need jobs. They need mental health care. And they need community — they want to feel like they’re not alone in it,” he said.

The needs are immediate and interconnected. That’s why the house is built around flexibility rather than rigid benchmarks.

“This is absolutely not one-size-fits-all. Everything we do is client-centered and client-led,” DePedro said. “The reality is that we’re saving kids’ lives in this house. These are people who have nowhere else to go.”

Because of safety concerns, the location of Sunshine Pride House is not publicly disclosed, and residents are not identified.

“We’re really putting young people on a path for success that they might not otherwise achieve in their life without this lift,” said Jobin. “You hear the words ‘Pride House’ and you think it’s just a roof. But it’s the wraparound services that put young people on trajectories for successful lives.”

Instead of starting a new nonprofit, Jobin said the foundation focused on partnering with organizations already doing the work — bringing together SunServe, Sunshine Cathedral, and others to build a model that could move quickly and last.

Sunshine Pride House doesn’t promise transformation or guarantee success. What it offers is something far more basic — time, safety, and a place to rest their head. For young people who started adulthood with nothing, that pause can be enough to change what comes next.

(Editor’s note: This article is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories at economicopportunitylab.com.)