At a time when global HIV funding is being absolutely gutted, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is at the mic 24/7, Alex Garner has little to no interest in softening the truth. As a longtime activist and leader at Mpact Global, Garner speaks with the sense of urgency that can only come from lived experience and witnessing history threaten to repeat itself in real time. For Garner, these financial cuts are not some abstract policy debate or a budget footnote. They are, with no doubt, life-and-death decisions that disproportionately endanger our queer and migrant communities and everyone living with HIV around the world.

In our conversation with this beacon of hope, Garner reflects on surviving three decades with HIV, the groundbreaking changes in queer sexual health since the early years of the epidemic, and why today’s political climate needs bold voices rather than shy whispers. As fearless as he is deeply compassionate, Garner makes the case that modern HIV advocacy is about pleasure, dignity, visibility, and refusing to let queer lives be treated as expendable. just as much as it is about medical treatment. PREACH.

Around the world, we are seeing funding for HIV and AIDS programs slashed. What is the undeniable and very real impact of these cuts, especially for communities of color?  

Funding numbers may seem like figures on a spreadsheet to some, but they represent real lives. Queer people have and will die. That’s it in the most basic terms. Around the globe, queer people are severely vulnerable and are already working hard to get resources to support the community. Migrants, people living with HIV, and gender diverse folks are going to bear the brunt of these cuts. 

What makes right now such a critical turning point for global HIV advocacy? 

The science of HIV has made incredible advancements. We have the tools to radically change this epidemic, but we are lacking the will from those in power. They simply don’t care enough about our lives to make an investment. It has been 45 years since the HIV epidemic, and Mpact and our partners are still fighting for basic resources. Each day, we must continue to demonstrate that our lives have value and meaning.  

Testing and education are often the first to go when budgets cut. Why are those two areas so essential to maintaining much needed progress? 

Education is fundamental to public health. 45 years into the epidemic, we know that when it comes to community education, unfortunately, we have to do it ourselves. Mpact has worked in collaboration with various partners and social media influencers around the globe to create health promotion materials and content because it is needed now more than ever. Working with the community to ensure that health education is understandable, relevant, and culturally appropriate is critical to effective education initiatives.  

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Mpact Global is choosing to expand at a time when many organizations are pulling back. What’s behind that decision? 

The anti-LGBT movements are growing around the world, and they expect us to pull back, but we are stepping forward. We must demonstrate that we are not afraid, that we are not going anywhere, and that the lives of our queer community matter and are worth fighting for. We also have a responsibility to step up since there are many partners around the world in places like Senegal, Ghana, or Indonesia, who are unable to do so without immense risk. We have to use our power and voice for them and the very real issues they face.  

As someone openly living with HIV, how does your own story impact the way that you approach this work? 

I have been living with HIV for 30 years. I have been HIV-positive for more years than I was HIV-negative. It impacts every aspect of my life. It’s created resilience, resistance, and a drive to keep fighting. Stigma is not going to hold us back, and we have to approach our work with a sense of fearlessness and shamelessness. We can build a community for queer people living with HIV, as it can empower people living with HIV while at the same time allow negative people to witness that a community is possible and that living with HIV is not something to be scared of.  

Since the start of the 2000s, how has the world of queer health advocacy changed and what has gone unchanged? 

In the past 26 years, the world of HIV has drastically changed. We understand that with successful treatment, people living with HIV can achieve an undetectable viral load. The primary benefit of being undetectable is that you can live a long and normal life. The secondary benefit is that it is impossible to transmit HIV. PrEP is also more than 10 years old. Both these advancements have changed the quality of life of gay men and have changed our sex lives. 

We’ve witnessed a mini-sexual revolution where more gay men are pursuing the sex they want. They have prioritized pleasure and are not living in fear and anxiety due to HIV. Our desire for pleasurable sex and for connections has not changed, but the world around us has. We have dating apps and social media, for good and for bad, and we have Doxy PEP. It’s one more thing to allow gay men to have sexuality that is centered on pleasure and sexual satisfaction and not eclipsed by fear and risk. While many gay men may not have experienced the 80s and 90s, we don’t want gay men to live in fear. 

With political hostility and legislative attacks are on the rise, how are HIV prevention and care efforts affected? 

During these hostile times, anything that is seen as promoting the sexuality of gay men is the first to get cut. We’ve had similar things happen around reproductive health and health for migrants. It’s all interconnected, and it’s from a familiar playbook. It requires resolve, creativity, and coalition building to endure these attacks. 

With Mpact Global operating in 62 countries, what are the common threads you’re seeing across regions? 

Over 60 countries still criminalize same sex sexual behavior. Meanwhile, governments seek to criminalize us because of our HIV status, gender expression, sex work, or migration status. Responding to laws, policies, and authoritarian leaders who criminalize us is a through line. We mobilize, and we strategize. And at the same time, we find and build community, and we continue to raise our voices and put forth a narrative that demonstrates our humanity and need for fundamental human rights.  

What does effective HIV advocacy look like today, as opposed to 3 decades ago? 

Education, access, and control over one’s body. That has not changed much, and those are things central to HIV, reproductive justice, and basic human rights.  

For younger generations who didn’t live through the early years of the epidemic, how do you convey the relevance and gravity of the issue?

We lived through the dark and difficult times so that the next generations don’t have to. I never want gay men to have to live in fear, shame, and guilt. I want them to be able to pursue their sexuality with abandon, passion, and desire. 

We need to show them that our lives matter, that we are continuing to fight for our health and our lives all around the world, and that they need to be a part of it. We’ve got to work together.  I want them to embrace their sexuality and never take it for granted. To not feel ashamed about their sex but to explore, and grow, and find pleasure. 

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How does intersectionality impact the future of HIV advocacy? 

Everything we do is political, and all parts of our lives intersect with a variety of issues. Recently, the Mpact the Besoton Sidoso Internacional or International HIV Kiss-In was a public activation on the border in Tijuana to demonstrate the sexuality of queer people living with HIV and to highlight the issues faced by migrants on both sides of the border in relation to health, HIV, and sexuality.  

What role has resilience and adaptability played in the work that you do with Mpact? 

Mpact’s 20 years are defined by resilience. We’ve had to continue to fight for health and human rights even amidst very challenging times. There have been successes, but it’s evident, now more than ever, that gains, like access to antiretroviral medication, must continue to be fought for as they are not guaranteed. And even things we expect to be guaranteed, such as human rights, continue to be at risk, so we must be nimble in our response and organizing.  

Where do you see HIV and sexual health advocacy in the next decade? 

We need to normalize sexual health as part of our culture. They are viruses and bacteria and nothing to be ashamed of. We need to integrate them into our overall wellness, just like we do with cold and flu season. That requires more than just traditional advocacy; it requires a cultural shift. Culture will change and policy will catch up, just like with marriage equality.  

What innovations, whether political, medical, or communal, give you a taste of hope at our current moment? 

Social media is still an underutilized resource, particularly by progressives. Seeing queer people all around the world leverage social media to speak openly, honestly, and unashamedly about who they are and what they experience can transform our world and our politics. When queer people openly express themselves amidst many risks, it’s always a source of hope and inspiration.  

If you could speak directly to global leaders and those responsible for slashing budgets, what would you want them to understand about the work that you do?

They need to understand that real lives are at risk. But sadly, I think that does not move them. People are dying and suffering all over the world, and policymakers are doing nothing. If they can’t lead, respect, and advance human rights, then they are not leaders, and they need to give up power and let others do the work.  

As Mpact Global celebrates 20 years, what legacy do you hope the next 20 years will build for the next generation? 

Community building is central to the work we do. We want to be a force for good that strengthens queer community and works in collaboration to ensure people can freely express their sexuality and gender, have control over their bodies, and continue to fight for health and human rights. Community has always been the legacy for queer folks, and we are dedicated to continuing that part of our experience.  

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Just a few weeks ago, I went on a date with a total babe – a detail that matters less to this op-ed than I’d like, but more than Jeff Bezos’ contribution to charisma. As we approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we were initially greeted by a sidewalk swallowed up by white tents, the kind of scene that makes you briefly assume either a humanitarian crisis or a luxury brand activation. Thankfully, the museum was still open. While picking up tickets, the delightful woman at the counter warned us to keep an eye out for small bottles of human urine decorated with Bezos’ smooth, affectless headshot. In the most insanitary of ways, this, dare I say, performance art stunt felt like an almost too-perfect welcome for the shit show that was this year’s Bezos-adjacent Met Gala. And, in retrospect, it just may have been the most honest artistic statement the evening had to offer.

There was once a time when the Met Gala at least tried to maintain the illusion that it was about art. Yes, absurd couture has always been invited. But somewhere beneath meme-fueling lewks and masturbatory pageantry, there remained a faint institutional perfume of artistic intent. Costume as commentary, camp as critique. And now, it straight up feels less like an event of inspiring artistry and more like the world’s wealthiest tool hosting a steeply priced group project on moral dissociation. And nowhere was this contradiction more gnarly than in the enthusiastic attendance of queer-identifying celebs at the Bezos-stenched rendition of the Met Gala, a night that managed to combine the aesthetics of liberation with the spiritual energy of a Las Vegas airport lounge.

There is something uniquely bleak about watching queer public figures, many of whom built brands around marginalization and identity politics, eagerly pose beneath the glow of oligarchic patronage while much of the world appears to be freebasing social collapse. We are living through escalating global crises: genocides that many still debate and deny, gaping wealth inequality, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, labor exploitation, housing insecurity, mass displacement, and the overarching sense that humanity casually handed the nuclear codes to a child-harming child. Yet every year, cultural elites ascend the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in garments valued higher than the GDP of several municipalities while journalists whimsically gush over the trending irrelevance of it all. Read the room. Better yet, acknowledge there is a room.

What makes the spectacle particularly grating is not merely the wealth.  At some point, “queerness” in elite celebrity spaces stopped functioning as a political identity and started operating more like the glam designer threads they parade at the gala, something to easily slip into and just as easily slip out of with the tides of trends, all while remaining carefully detached from the very real politics that might inconvenience proximity to power. And that is the uncomfortable contradiction exposed by events like this.  If your politics evaporate in the presence of bigots and billionaires, they may not have been politics at all. They may simply have been a vibe with good lighting.

The irony, of course, is almost offensively rich. Queer art historically emerged from marginalization, criminalization, censorship, underground spaces, and collective resistance. Ballroom culture was not born because powerful institutions were benevolent patrons of expression. It emerged because excluded communities built beauty in spite of exclusion. Queer aesthetics have long transformed pain into invention, precarity into performance, and alienation into radical creativity. Now, many of those same aesthetics are repackaged as commodified luxuries for the damn near tasteless palette of the elite, detached from the social conditions that produced them to begin with. The result is a cringe caricature of culture where rebellion itself becomes purely decorative.

And this is where defenders of these spectacles usually offer the exhausted rebuttal: “Fashion is art.” You’re damn right it is, which is precisely why it cannot escape politics. Art is never apolitical because humans are never apolitical. Every artistic institution reflects systems of power: who funds culture, who accesses it, who is excluded from it, whose labor sustains it, whose suffering gets aestheticized, whose narratives become profitable. To insist otherwise is itself a political position, generally one most convenient for the already powerful.

Now more than ever, the Met Gala radiates not grandeur but desperation, specifically the desperation of elites attempting to aestheticize inequality into sophistication. Billionaires today possess astonishingly cheap taste despite astronomical wealth and resources. Perhaps because genuine taste requires curiosity, perhaps a touch of risk, and, dare I say, a degree of moral imagination. The contemporary ultra-rich have somehow made opulence feel spiritually discounted, which is why the Met reads as tacky rather than glamorous. And no, not tacky in the fun John Waters sense. Tacky in the most vapid of sense. 

And queer celebrity participation matters symbolically because queer communities, historically, have often framed themselves as existing in productive tension with dominant systems of power. There was once an implicit understanding that queerness carried at least some critique of hierarchy and conformity. Now, however, one suspects the dream for many public-facing queer figures is not liberation from oppressive systems but premium seating within them. Representation alone cannot substitute for ethics.

Perhaps all of this is inevitable. Capitalism metabolizes dissent all too well. It turns subculture into branding with chilling efficiency. Punk became Hot Topic. Cornrows (not really) became “box braids” (but they tried it). Queerness became the new currency for cultural relevance. But inevitability does not make the contradiction less embarrassing, especially because the world outside these galas is anything but abstract. People are struggling materially. Many queer people, in particular, remain vulnerable economically and politically. Trans healthcare is under attack. Homophobia and authoritarian nationalism are resurging around the globe. Housing insecurity disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ youth. Workers creating the very garments celebrated on red carpets are more often than not underpaid and exploited. A concept Bezos’ Amazon employees could tell you all about, if they only had the time to.

Let’s be clear, I’m not trying to make an argument that queer public figures must retreat from culture or visibility. Visibility has always and will always matter. But visibility without conviction eventually curdles into branding. And to their credit, many queer artists and celebs have demonstrated that it is entirely possible to occupy massive platforms without surrendering political clarity in the process. Some have used award stages, interviews, performances, and social media presence to speak plainly about Palestine, anti-trans legislation, labor exploitation, racism, and the increasingly vile consolidation of wealth and power. Others have refused sponsorships, challenged institutions directly, and even donated resources under the radar. We see you, J Monaé. We see you, Acra. We see you, Mitski, Hunter Schafer, Indya Moore, Lil Nas X, Troy Sivan, and Miss Petras.

Ultimately, queer culture did not survive through assimilation alone. It survived through disruption, irreverence, solidarity, and the instinctive distrust of concentrated power wearing expensive threads. The tragedy is not that queer celebrities attend the Met Gala, it is that so many attend and remain so perfectly obedient to the systems their very queer and very dear forefathers and foremothers clapped back so hard on in the fight for basic human decency. At what point did compliance start to adorn in couture? In the end, if all else fails, you can always sneak a bottle of your own piss into the Met. It makes for a hell of a scavenger hunt.

Takeaways from the CNN CA Gubernatorial debate last night. Californians are just a month shy of voting for the person who will replace Gavin Newsom as governor of this incredible, incredibly expensive, myth-producing state. But watching tonight’s debate felt a little like experiencing Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” set in some old LA bar with seven characters high on their own supply going on about their “pipe dreams” with the others listening only for openings to get their digs in. What this version of the play lacked was a sober Hickey character played by Democrat Tony Thurmond to act as the moral center, someone to speak truth to the presumed power of a passionate sound bite.

Centerless, I struggled to get engaged because in this world, right now, we need our pipe dreams to live on as we madly steam into the June 2 jungle primaries. But I was taken by no one. And that’s a problem since I just got my ballot in the mail.

So here are my thoughts and observations as I do my 6 or 7 on who to vote for.

Republican Steve Hilton was given the center TV spot on stage because he has one percentage point more than Democrat Tom Steyer in the latest poll before tonight’s debate. Hilton, who is endorsed by Trump and refuses that the Donald lost the 2020 election, blamed Democrats for everything with a British accent, snide FOX TV host façade, and simplistic rhetoric designed to make people nod. The other Republican, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, went from cartoonish to creepy, arrogant bully when he defended the Oath Keepers.

Low-polling Democrats Antonio Villaraigosa and Matt Mahan each had their sparkling moments but took the gloves off in attacking Xavier Becerra for knowing about a financial scandal involving his former chief of staff when Becerra was HHS Secretary. Becerra and Villaraigosa have often sparred publicly – but this was another level. “Character matters,” Villaraigosa said after calming down from a very real flash of anger.

Becerra’s response was weak, saying that if Trump’s DOJ something was there, he’d be named in the indictment too – but he’s not. He didn’t answer the “Yeah, but you knew about it” part.

This is an issue because Becerra seems to have inherited Eric Swalwell voters and jettisoned up in the polls while more and more former Biden staff colleagues said Becerra was “ineffective” in his job and would have the guts to stand up to Trump.

Katie Porter let everyone know she was behaving well onstage, even as she was virtually ignored by the TV hosts. And she got some good zingers and excellent financial points in. But while she acknowledged her leaked-video “mistake” and apologized for how she reacted to an obstinate reporter by bitching at her staff, Katie Porter’s personality transplant still only barely covered the sense that she was really an old, too-stern Mother Superior with a ruler.

Tom Steyer came off at times like a bobble-head billionaire. And while he virtually oozes authenticity, he also has an air of incredulity that some people don’t get his legit passionate commitment and sincerity. Sometimes he seems genuinely surprised that not everyone knows about his past endeavors and the Great Good motives behind them. That said, I do believe Tom Styers would know how to stand up to Trump and could even possibly pull off some deals to help the environment that no one now sees coming.

Plus, I confess – I liked Styers’ answer to who should play him in a movie. Gregory Peck, he said. He didn’t care that Peck has been dead for a long time. I think he was thinking of Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird” – and he, too, was thinking “character matters.”

There’s another gubernatorial debate on Wednesday night on KNBC4. I’ll wait for that before I decide how I’m going to vote.

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

There is something deeply unsettling about a society that turns a child’s future into a public referendum. In Eswatini, there were reports that students were expelled from school over alleged same-sex relationships, and that parents were invited to vote on whether those children should remain, forcing us to confront a difficult question on when did education stop being a right and become a favor granted by collective approval? Because this is a non-neutral vote.

A vote reflects power, prejudice and personal beliefs, which are often linked to tradition, culture, politics and religion. It is shaped by fear, by stigma, by long-standing narratives about morality and belonging. To ask parents, many of whom may already hold hostile views about LGBTIQ+ people, to decide the fate of children is not consultation. It is deferring the responsibility and repercussion. It is placing the lives of young people in the hands of those most likely to deny them protection.

And where is the law in all of this?

The Kingdom of Eswatini is not operating in a vacuum. It has a constitution that guarantees the promotion and protection of fundamental rights, including equality before the law, equal protection of the laws, and the right to dignity. The constitution further goes on to protect the rights of the child, including that a child shall not be subjected to abuse, torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.  

The Children’s Protection and Welfare Act of 2012 extends the constitution and international human rights instruments, standards and protocols on the protection, welfare, care and maintenance of children in Eswatini. The Children’s Protection and Welfare Act of 2012 promotes nondiscrimination of any child in Eswatini and says that every child must have psychosocial and mental well-being and be protected from any form of harm. The acts of this very instance place the six students prone to harm and violence. The expulsion goes against one of the mandates of this act, which stipulates that access to education is fundamental to development, therefore, taking students out of school and denying them education contradicts the law.  

Eswatini is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. These are not just commitments made to make our governments look good and appeasing. They are obligations. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is clear regarding all actions concerning children. The best interests of the child MUST be a primary consideration and NOT secondary one. According to the CRC, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” It is not something to be weighed against public discomfort and popularity.

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child reinforces this, grounding rights in non-discrimination (Article 3), privacy (Article 10) and protection from all forms of torture (Article 16). Access to education (Article 11) within these frameworks is not conditional but is a foundational right. It is not something that can be taken away because a child is perceived as falling outside social norms and threatening the moral fabric of society. It is a foundational right and determines one’s ability to participate in civic actions with dignity.

So again, where is the law when children are being expelled?

It is tempting to say the law is silent but that would be too generous. The law is not silent rather, it is being ignored and bypassed in favor of systems of decision-making that make those in power comfortable. When schools and their leadership defer to parental votes rather than legal standards, they are not acting neutrally. Expelling a child from school because of allegations is not a decision to be taken lightly. It disrupts education and limits future opportunities and for children already navigating identity and social pressure, this kind of exclusion can have profound psychological effects. It isolates them. It marks them for potential harm. Imagine being a child whose future is discussed in a room where people debate your worth. That is exposure. That is harm. There is a tendency to justify these actions in the language of culture, tradition, religion and protecting social cohesion. But culture is not static and the practice of Ubuntu values is not an excuse to violate rights. If anything, the principle of Ubuntu demands the opposite of what is happening here.

Ubuntu is not about conformity. It is about recognition and is the understanding that our humanity is bound up in one another. That we are diminished when others are excluded. That care, dignity, respect and compassion are not optional extras but central to how we exist together. Where, then, is Ubuntu in a school where some children are deemed unworthy of access to education?

Why are those entrusted with protecting children are failing to do so?

There is a very loud contradiction at play. On one hand, there is a claim to shared values and to the importance of community. On the other hand, there is a willingness to isolate and exclude those who do not fit within the narrow definition of what is acceptable. You cannot have both. A community that thrives on exclusion is neither cohesive nor safe.

It is worth asking why these decisions are being made in this way. Why not follow the established legal processes? Why not ensure that any disciplinary action within schools aligns with national and international obligations? Why introduce a vote at all? The answer is uncomfortable and lies in legitimacy and accountability. A vote creates the appearance of a collective agreement. But again, I reiterate, it distributes responsibility across many hands, making it hard to hold anyone accountable. It allows the school leadership to say “lesi sincumo sebantfu”(“This is what the community decided, not me”) rather than confronting their own role in human rights violations. If the law is clear and rights, responsibilities and obligations are established, then the question is not what the community feels. The question is why those entrusted with protecting children are failing to do so.

There is also a deeper issue here about whose rights are seen as negotiable. When we talk about children, we often speak of care, of understanding, of protection and safeguarding them because they are the future. But that language becomes selective when it intersects with sexuality, particularly when it involves LGBTIQ+ identities. Suddenly, care, understanding, protection, and safeguarding give way to punishment.

Easy decisions are not always just ones.

If the kingdom is serious about its commitments under its constitution, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, then those commitments must be visible in practice, not just in policy documents. Rather, they must guide decision-making in schools and in communities. That means recognizing that a child’s right to education cannot be overridden by a show of hands. It means ensuring that schools remain spaces of inclusion rather than sites of moral policing. It means holding leaders and institutions accountable when they fail to protect those in their care.

Bradley Fortuin is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center and a human rights activist.

Beautiful San Diego, the second largest city in California, is shuddering through challenging times. Amid city deficits, federal budget cuts and emotional and fiscal consternation over the war in Iran, the LGBTQ+ community is facing, what to some, is an ego-driven tiff and, to others, is a deep dispute over transparency and trust between the San Diego LGBT Community Center and Stonewall Generation seniors who want to know what’s happening with an $18.9 million gift their late friends bequeathed the Center for senior services, programs, and housing.

While this may seem like some niche soap opera that will blow over with enough delay, the circumstances are darker and more dire than the drama reveals. On the surface, exchanges between the two camps appear politely professional. But there is a deep, widening, and hardening chasm developing between those who fought for gay liberation when homosexuality was still a criminal perversion, and the Center board and staff committed to protecting vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth who only know Trumpian cacophony in a nihilistic world.

The feud is growing so loud that it is drowning out the fiscal winds banging outside the Center door, harbingers of massive tornadoes threatening to obliterate the house. The “what ifs” are near: what if government funding is cut to the quick and donors start questioning their once-firm trust in Center management?

Particularly painful: a source overheard some Center youth dismiss the Stonewall Generation seniors: “They’re just bitter old racist cis queens causing all the trouble.” What happens if a significant number of gay white men act on what is now just a whispered feeling: “Why should I care about the Center? They hate us!”

Who’s going to fund the Center without an engaged and unified community?

The terrible irony is that without recognition of the stakes and the need for authentic negotiation, the feud may render the Center complicit in Project 2025’s erasure of LGBTQ+ people.

Context: The Gathering Storm

San Diego was once a bastion of conservative Republicanism, but its political landscape has skewed blue over the past two decades, led in part by trailblazing out lesbian political icons Christine Kehoe and Toni Atkins, who paved the way for Todd Gloria to become the first out LGBTQ+ person and the first person of color to serve as the city’s mayor.

But with the historic honor comes grave responsibility, including Gloria’s proposed $2.2 billion budget for the new fiscal year with significant cuts to close a projected $146 million deficit. “Find the money elsewhere,” protesters at City Hall screamed at a Monday night meeting on April 20th.

In early April, Trump revealed his full discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2027 – obviously not including expected requests for the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of the incident at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. The budget would reduce nondefense discretionary spending by $73 billion, including $33.5 billion in funding cuts for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to a bipartisan policy analysis.

Despite promises not to cut safety net programs — and an added $174 million in prospective renovations to his $400 million gilded ballroom — Trump later said it’s “not possible” for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs, adding that the states should “take care” of those programs while the federal government focuses on the military. The food assistance program SNAP has already dropped 2.5 million people.

Steve Rattner, a prominent economic analyst, told MS NOW that Trump’s proposed budget is a reincarnation of Project 2025. If passed, the budget would be the most dramatic re-structuring of federal government spending “since certainly the New Deal and who knows when beyond that.”

The proposed cuts are real, deep, wide, and cultural. Preparing for America’s 250th anniversary, Trump issued Executive Order 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History and ordered a sweep of the Smithsonian Institution: “Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.” Historic narratives to be “corrected” include exhibits about slavery, the violent Manifest Destiny ruination of Indigenous people and the relatively new recognition of LGBTQ+ history.

But not all anti-LGBTQ+ cultural attacks are happening behind closed doors. Last year, San Diego woke up to the Union-Tribune headline: “Chucky Lozano’s injury, homophobic chant temper San Diego FC’s soccer celebration.” SDFC coach Mike Varas decried the one-word chant as “palabras discriminatorias” or “discriminatory language.”

The infamous homophobic soccer chant recently resurfaced in Mexico, which is co-hosting the 2026 World Cup with the US and Canada. FIFA has scheduled eight matches this summer in LA’s SoFi Stadium, including the highly coveted U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) opening match. Think security and Border Patrol will care about a little sports-related gay-bashing during Pride season?

Violence is in the air, with winds picking up speed, veering toward the vulnerable.

The Feud, in Summary

The San Diego LGBT Center is aware of the pending fiscal crisis. On July 3, 2025, the Center issued an urgent preemptive warning to its 106 employees of possible layoffs around Sept. 6 in anticipation of federal cuts. Center spokesperson Gus Hernandez told the San Diego Union-Tribune that about $4.4 million of the Center’s $15.5 million budget comes from federal grants from HUD and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“It’s very precarious right now with the federal funding,” Hernandez said. “We’re not putting on rose-colored glasses … We think it will happen to us.”

It didn’t. There were no layoffs. The Union-Tribune noted the Center’s growth from 63 employees and a budget under $5 million in 2015 to 106 on staff and more than $15 million in July 2025.

“The nonprofit’s tax filings have been audited every year since 2011, and from 2021 to 2023, the audits found repeated deficiencies in The Center’s financial reporting. The Center’s most recent audit, for the fiscal year ending June 2024, came back without any concerns,” the Union-Tribune reported. “The Center did not immediately respond to questions about why it took so long to correct the deficiencies, but Hernandez blamed the problems on rapid and unexpected growth at the Center.”

“We’ve been growing a little bit faster than we anticipated,” Hernandez said. “Every year, we’ve just been growing and growing and adding programs and adding services. And I think in that growth process … we weren’t keeping up our accounting to match that growth.”

A handful of Stonewall Generation seniors pressed the Center board for a more complete and thorough explanation of why their published Financial Statements and Annual Reports from 2021 to 2023 show changing descriptions of what the seniors assume is the $18.9 million gift from the estate of Maurice Thimot and M. Rust Rawnsley.

On Tuesday, April 21, Ted Callam, Charles “Chuck” Kaminski, and Elaine Lewis of Pride Across Generations and 120 community supporters issued a press release calling for attendance at the Center board meeting on Tuesday, April 28, 6:30 PM at the Center Auditorium. They said Note 15 in the Center’s 2025 audit “raises serious questions.”

The audit “shows that nearly $1 million was reclassified as donor-restricted — retroactively to 2023,” they reported. “In plain terms: funds previously treated as unrestricted are now being acknowledged as restricted all along. The amount closely matches the annual income associated with the Thimot–Rawnsley Fund bequest.”

And that, they said, “creates urgent questions for the community,” including “Who is advising these decisions on behalf of our community?”

“This is not about speculation. It is about transparency, accountability, and honoring donor intent. The stakes reach beyond one fund. This affects trust in the Center and confidence across San Diego’s senior LGBTQ+ community,” they said. “We are not asking for more. We are asking for clear answers — and for what was already meant for our community.”

The board responded two days later, via an April 23 email from longtime Center board member Sue Reynolds, who thanked the leaders for their letter and promised to pass it along to the board treasurer and the rest of the board. She then noted the message attached at the end of a promotion for the Dining Out for Life event held that night, which “responds to the questions/issues you posed.”

Here’s the Center’s message:

And herein lies the crux of the feud.

The Center may be transparent with the government and general public about its numbers, but these Stonewall Generation retired professionals – who are not accountants – are transparently honest and quick to fix a misconception.

“In our previous email, we pointed out Note 15 in the 2025 audit report. The Center clarified that the Note refers to another Center program and not to the Thimot Rawnsley Fund. If only the Center would respond as rapidly and as clearly with regard to the Fund questions we have asked them, we would then expect these issues raised to be resolved,” Kaminski wrote to supporters Sunday night.

The Stonewall Seniors have been asking about the donation since Center CEO Cara Dessert first announced it in the Center’s June 13, 2022, newsletter.

“This amazing couple has created a legacy for our community’s future, directing The Center to establish a fund, The Maurice J. Thimot and M. Rust Rawnsley Fund (the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund). The purpose of the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund includes investing in our LGBTQ seniors. We look forward to stewarding this fund by investing in our senior services, exploring long-term investments in capital projects, and soliciting feedback from our community,” Dessert wrote.

“Once we have a full understanding of the fund and any proceeds from the fund itself, we look forward to sharing more with our Center community and seeking input about our future!” she continued. “We are deeply grateful to Rust and Maurice for their confidence in The Center, their generosity, and their care for our San Diego LGBTQ community, especially our seniors. Stay tuned for more information about the Thimot and Rawnsley Fund at The Center!”

The Stonewall Seniors expected their input to be solicited and questions answered such as: could the $18.9 million and the interest it generates be used for something other than senior housing and programs, as the late gay couple had often publicly discussed? In the March 31, 1990 issue of Update discussing SAGE, for instance, Maurice J. Thimot specifically talked about housing.

There’s also precedent. When Dr. Delores Jacobs announced her retirement as the Center’s chief executive in June 2018, for instance, “more than 200 interviews and focus groups, [and] feedback was solicited regarding characteristics sought in the new Center chief executive, led by Board Co-Chair Joyce Rowland,” the Center announced.

The Stonewall Seniors say the Center has given varied explanations about the gift, the first $10 million of which came in 2022, the remainder in 2024, and they want to see the language of the Thimot-Rawnsley estate trust to find out how their bequest was to be used.

“It’s four years of interpretations, four years of shifting explanations, four years of telling this community to trust them without ever producing the one document that would actually answer the question,” said Ted Callam, who served on the Center’s senior advisory committee before it was disbanded and replaced with new members.

Center officials initially said the gift would be used for community programs and spaces with an emphasis on seniors. There was also talk of expanding the building, according to Callam, Kaminski, and Lewis. But that did not come to fruition. Then, last December, Center leaders said the gift was restricted to seniors, housing, and housing-related services and could not be used to establish a senior center.

Earlier, the Center’s board of directors had approved an annual draw of $350,000 from the bequest to fund housing navigation, rental assistance, and eviction prevention. Center officials further said interest income may be used for certain interconnected services, on the basis that seniors are part of everything the group does. But now the $350,000 draw has been paused until the Center hears from its attorneys and consultants.

In a recent newsletter, Center officials said they are “awaiting final guidance and will continue providing transparent, quarterly updates, with our next update scheduled for this summer.”

“We’ve watched the story change,” Callam said. “So senior programs and services, then senior housing, then housing and related services, and now ‘we’re awaiting guidance.’”

At the Center’s March 24 board meeting, several seniors spoke up, including Tom Kirkman, who ran San Diego’s SAGE Center from 2000 to 2009, when Thimot was on the board of that organization.

“Maurice and Rusty were very interested in the quality of life for seniors,” Kirkman told LGBTQ Freedom Fighters. He believes they would have wanted their bequest to support senior services, although he hasn’t seen whatever document governs that. “I’m looking forward to seeing that document,” he said. (San Diego’s SAGE organization, now disbanded, was independent and not affiliated with the national group of the same name.)

LGBTQ+ seniors initially offered to help the Center decide how to spend the bequest, Lewis said. “They said, ‘Yes, we want the community involved. Yes, we’re going to talk to the community,” she recalled.

Both Lewis and Callam have experience in designing surveys, and they decided to create one, only to find that the Center had sent one out already. That survey was useless because it didn’t ask if respondents were part of the LGBTQ+ community, she said.

Kaminski has filed three ethics complaints with the California attorney general’s office over the handling of the bequest. A staff member responded that the AG’s office does not have the resources to investigate every complaint filed and that it does not investigate certain types of complaints. The staffer also told Kaminski that the AG does not comment on ongoing or potential investigations, which was the same answer LGBTQ Freedom Fighters received.

As for the legalities concerning the Center’s use of the funds: If there are written restrictions on a donation’s use, the terms are legally binding. Only the donors, not the recipient, can impose such restrictions. But the terms do not have to be shared publicly, according to the National Council of Nonprofits.

“Because this was a complex, multi‑property estate, we conducted an extensive, multi‑year due diligence process with legal and accounting specialists. We are implementing a clear strategy that strengthens current services benefiting LGBTQ+ seniors while ensuring long‑term organizational stability and compliance with donor intent,” Center spokesperson Hernandez said.

“Over the last nearly four years, The Center conducted a careful, thorough review of the $18.9 million bequest, which was received in full in September 2024. This review included monitoring the progress of the sale of 21 domestic and international properties and consultations with multiple specialists, who at times had differing opinions on the scope of the bequest’s intent,” he continued.

“To ensure that this extraordinary gift is used in the way it was intended, we assembled a team of experts that includes our attorneys and auditor. It took time to organize the team and for them to align on how the full gift could be utilized to maximize the benefit to the community. As we near the end of this long process, we are awaiting final guidance to ensure our shared interpretation follows all regulations related to charitable assets. We have paused the use of gift funds until that final guidance is confirmed,” Hernandez said.

The Center gave a similar answer to Manuel Reyes, an aide to San Diego City Council member Jennifer Campbell, who represents the district where the center is located. Callam, Kaminski, and Lewis did not find the answer satisfactory.

In a letter to Reyes and Campbell, they emphasized that the Center should release the original bequest language and questioned why, if the bequest required interpretation, it had taken so long. They also wondered if the funds had been used for purposes other than the donors intended.

Lewis, Callam, and Kaminski of Pride Across Generations said the Center has disrespected seniors in other ways. There used to be a drop-in room dedicated to seniors. “It was the perfect room, because it has an outside entrance, and there were always seniors in there, and there were snacks and conversation, and if somebody needed help, they could go in and ask,” Lewis said. But it was turned into an office, and senior resources were moved into a hallway off the library, which was inaccessible because of meetings in the library, and “even to get past the front desk, you had to ask permission and have some reason to be there,” she said.

The disbanding and replacement of the senior advisory committee is another sore point with the three. Center officials said they wanted a new model, but someone with the Center did comment that the earlier committee was “too white and too cisgender.” The new committee’s members and meeting dates are not made public, according to Kaminski, Lewis, and Callam. How do you get community information to a multi-layered secret committee, and how do you find out results?

“I have served on the boards of many nonprofits over nearly 50 years and I have never seen anything like this,” says out former KNBC4 reporter Garrett Glaser, who signed the Pride Generations’ March 15 letter to the Center board and senior leadership.

That letter says, in part: “When seniors ask questions about governance, finances, and mission alignment, they are not being disruptive—they are exercising their right to understand how an organization that claims to serve them is being run. Treating those questions as something to be managed or silenced undermines trust and excludes the very community the Center exists to support.

“Trust and transparency are earned through consistent integrity, not rhetoric. Until the Center demonstrates genuine accountability, transparency, and meaningful engagement with LGBTQ+ seniors, trust remains broken.”

So, who is asking what happens if and when that fiscal tornado hits?

Pride Across Generations requests your presence and possible participation in the Center’s board meeting on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:30 PM in the Center Auditorium. The theme: “Honor the Past. Secure the Future. Moments like this define institutions. Let’s show up—for transparency, accountability, and trust.”

The meeting will also be available on Zoom.

You can reach Pride Across Generations at:  [email protected]

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

The old order is gone. Donald Trump didn’t just upset the apple cart of traditional rules and propriety – he set it on fire and laughed as his sycophants ushered his retreat into a fantasy gilded castle where he can be king for life.

Even beloved former First Lady Michelle Obama set aside her famous “we go high” approach to morally withered Republicans and, in the face of the obvious dangers to democracy Trump presented, urged Democrats to get politically practical before the 2024 elections.

“If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our faces, and do something,” Obama said.

Do something.

The grassroots chorus from “We the People” has grown louder and louder since regular, ordinary people took to the freezing, snow-covered streets of Minneapolis to protest the killing of two American citizens trying to protect their immigrant neighbors from militarized ICE agents. Recently, momentum from the massive No Kings rallies has shifted to local, regional, and state races as the critical midterm elections approach, and Democrats have been largely successful in their new “fight fire with fire” strategy.

But Trump seems obsessed with building his $400 million ballroom instead of doing something to help Republicans win elections, including sitting on an unspent $500 million war chest, while, as Alternet notes, his popularity steadily declines among once fierce loyalists.

“Even Fox News is now reporting Trump’s approval rating has plummeted to 33 percent [AP/NORC poll] over his foolish decision to send the US economy into a likely recession over his decision to fight an unnecessary and unprovoked war of aggression,” wrote David Pyne, a former America First Trump supporter and security expert who serves as a Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stick it to the media, which he describes as the “enemy of the people.” That group now includes former conservative allies like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, who he describes as “nut jobs” and “troublemakers” for criticizing him over the still-unexplained war in Iran.

Trump likes using his power to humiliate – especially women journalists of color – and retaliate against his enemies, a key tenet of the Authoritarian Playbook that organizations like Protect Democracy continue to update and explain.

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” Trump’s post on Truth Social, Sept. 2023, before winning a second term in 2024.

The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 explains: “A hallmark of any democracy is the freedom to criticize the government without fear of censorship or reprisal. Trump has promised — and has developed plans — to use the regulatory and administrative powers of government to force political loyalty; sow disinformation; and quash speech by journalists and media outlets, businesses, and other private citizens. These plans follow the measures used by Viktor Orbán in Hungary and other 21st-century autocrats to transform government power to serve the parochial interests of the ruler, not the broader public.”

Despite Trump’s support, Orban recently lost re-election, ending 16 years of “electoral autocracy.”

Trump and his administration also expanded attacks on the First Amendment, with the FBI investigating a New York Times reporter who wrote about the director Kash Patel using taxpayer-funded bureau personnel and resources to provide security for his girlfriend. The investigation included searching databases for information on reporter Elizabeth Williamson to see if she broke any federal stalking laws.

“The F.B.I.’s attempt to criminalize routine reporting is a blatant violation of Elizabeth’s First Amendment rights and another attempt by this administration to prevent journalists from scrutinizing its actions,” said Joseph Kahn, the executive editor of The Times. “It’s alarming. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.”

Interestingly, news of the Justice Department’s apparent retaliatory action leaked days before the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday night, April 28. Trump’s acknowledgement of the WHCA invitation is like an obnoxious little boy sticking his tongue out.

“The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge. In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these “Correspondents” now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER! Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree. However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he posted March 2 on Truth Social.

Some enraged journalists called for the fundraising dinner to be cancelled. Veteran ABC News journalists Ian Cameron and Lisa Stark had another idea: get colleagues to sign a public letter to WHCA urging them to do something to protest Trump’s authoritarian tactics.

“We first began thinking about this in late March, as it became clear the President would attend the dinner. We just felt we had to speak out about this,” former ABC News correspondent Lisa Stark told LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters. “The WHCA dinner is held to celebrate the First Amendment and freedom of the press, and yet the guest of honor is the man who, along with his administration, has done everything possible to undermine freedom of the press and destroy trust in the press.”

The response has been overwhelming. After several days of outreach, the ad hoc group collected 414 signatures (including mine as a former journalist for CBS News/LGBTQ press), as well as six press/First Amendment organizations.

“It’s gratifying that so many former journalists see a threat to press freedom and want to speak out,” says Stark. “We know current journalists, those in the media trenches now, aren’t in a position to raise their voices. We feel an obligation to do so on their behalf. We can’t treat this as business as usual – these are not normal times.”

The petition cites 22 instances of Trump’s attacks on the press and First Amendment, not including the most recent involving the NY Times and updates on the Associated Press lawsuit.

“The collective weight of the administration’s actions — retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press — represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president,” the petition reads, in part.

“We understand that some journalists plan to wear pocket handkerchiefs or lapel pins with the words of the First Amendment,” the petition says. “And continuing in that spirit, we believe the White House Correspondents Association should take stronger action by issuing – from the podium – a forceful defense of freedom of the press and condemnation of those who threaten that freedom, followed by a standing toast to the First Amendment and a pledge to continue upholding such a critical cornerstone of our democracy. Speak forcefully, in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country’s long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press.”

The petition concludes: “We also urge the WHCA to reaffirm, without equivocation, that freedom of the press is not a partisan issue and that the Association will not normalize this behavior but instead fight back against any officeholder who has waged systematic war against the journalists whose work the dinner celebrates.”

What now? The Daily Beast reports that “Donald Trump will launch a ‘revenge’ attack on the White House media when he confronts them in person at a Washington dinner on Saturday night—then flee before there can be revenge.”

Might the WHCA DJ play him off stage with Roy Orbison’s “Running Scared?”

But Trump will have cronies in the room who will turn his antics into memes about “crushing” the “lamestream media.” It’s an obvious ploy to excite Trump’s base.

In a scathing column, longtime journalist Margaret Sullivan notes that some media companies and bosses have gone from courtesy to courting, “inviting blatantly anti-press officials, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to be guests at their tables, or (in the case of David Ellison, CEO of CBS News’s parent company) even holding a separate dinner to “honor” Trump. Paramount, the parent of CBS News, is said to have invited Brendan Carr to their table; he is the FCC chair who has made a mockery of what should be his independent and non-partisan role; appointed by Trump, he has come down clearly on the side of the president’s allies in consequential decisions – including those involving Paramount’s mergers with other media corporations.”

“It’s akin to a fire department inviting arsonists to a gathering aimed at celebrating firefighting,” Sullivan quotes Oliver Darcy as writing in his media newsletter, Status.

So, gala attendees, as the petition asks, Please Do Something!

This is all particularly jarring for LGBTQ+ journalists. Eric Schultz was the first out gay deputy White House press secretary to give briefings during the Obama administration. Then came the first Black lesbian, Karine Jean-Pierre, during the Biden administration, and the independent WHCA assigned a seat (shared with the Boston Globe) and rotating pool responsibilities to the LGBTQ+ Washington Blade, which still retains the privilege.

But for those of us who remember President Reagan’s Press Secretary Larry Speakes laughing and ridiculing White House reporters when he was asked about Reagan’s position on AIDS, being officially seated was a big deal. When CSPAN started broadcasting the dinner in 1993, we scanned every TV inch to see who might be wearing Red Ribbons to the “Nerd Prom,” who might be gay, and who we knew to be closeted – spinning President Clinton’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy to favor anti-gay Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn.

And then there was the “Golden Age,” as the Washington Post described the gala in 2023. “There was the time Ellen DeGeneres, just days out of the closet, canoodled with new girlfriend Anne Heche right in front of Bill Clinton. The time George W. Bush goofed around with a George W. Bush impersonator. The time Barack Obama dunked on reality TV star Donald Trump to the rapturous shrieks of the media elite. What a time to be alive, and in attendance, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner!”

Last year, post-COVID, WHCA was headed by married Black gay Eugene Daniels, MSNBC’s Senior Washington Correspondent. The stars were the parade of journalists of color, mostly women, who served as co-hosts, presenters, honorees, and award winners.

Daniels addressed the missing orange man in the room. “We don’t only extend invites to the presidents who say they love journalists or who say they’re defenders of the First Amendment and a free press. We invite them to remind them that they should be,” Daniels said.

“When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786 that, ‘Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost,’ he and the other framers of the United States understood the danger unchecked power poses to the ideals and people of this nation,” he continued.

“We journalists are a lot of things,” Eugene Daniels said last year to a ballroom of 2,600 attendees. “What we are not is the enemy of the people, and what we are not is the enemy of the state….Every single day, journalists in this country face threats of intimidation, lawsuits, and violence. Those attacks are meant to do one thing: stop us from sharing the truth with the people…

“I want to leave you with the words of a trailblazing journalist, Ida B. Wells, ‘The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.’ Despite everything, I’m still optimistic about the power of what we do and more assured than ever of the importance of defending it. Everyone in this room can and should stand in the breach. Everyone can and should push for what we know is right. Everyone can and should stand up against government interference in a free press. And a promise I make to you is that the White House Correspondents Association, this board, will always defend your right to do your jobs.”

We’ll be watching CSPAN. Show us you mean it. Do something!

Read the full petition with signatories here.

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

A right does not need to be banned to be restricted. Sometimes it only needs to be made uncertain.

That is what emerges from a closer examination of adoption access for same-sex couples across different countries. There is no broad legal rollback. What appears instead is a more subtle pattern: rights that remain on paper but become fragile, conditional, and uneven in practice.

Italy provides a clear example.

Since 2023, under the government of Giorgia Meloni, administrative decisions have limited the automatic recognition of both mothers in female same-sex couples, particularly in cases involving assisted reproduction abroad. In practice, many families have been forced into additional legal proceedings to validate relationships already established.

At the same time, Italy has intensified its opposition to surrogacy, extending penalties even to those who pursue it outside the country. Human rights organizations have warned that these measures disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ families, particularly male couples.

The judiciary, however, has pushed back.

In 2025, the Constitutional Court ruled that a non-biological mother cannot be excluded from legal recognition when there is a shared parental project. It also removed a long-standing restriction that prevented single individuals from accessing international adoption.

Italy has not eliminated these rights. But it has made them unstable.

When a right depends on litigation, judicial timelines, or shifting interpretations, it is no longer fully guaranteed.

In the United States, the structure differs, but the outcome converges.

At the federal level, same-sex couples can adopt. Yet the system varies widely across states.

Data from the Movement Advancement Project show that while some states explicitly prohibit discrimination in adoption, others provide no clear protections. In several states, licensed agencies can refuse to work with same-sex couples based on religious objections.

Access, therefore, is shaped not only by law, but by geography, institutions, and applied standards.

Research from the Williams Institute further complicates the narrative. Same-sex couples adopt and foster children at higher rates than different-sex couples.

The contradiction is clear.

Child welfare is invoked, yet the pool of available families is reduced. Faith is cited, yet it is used as a filter within publicly funded systems.

The consequences are tangible
children remain longer in care
processes become more complex
families face unequal scrutiny

What is happening in Italy and the United States is not isolated. Across parts of Europe, conservative governments have advanced legal frameworks that reinforce traditional definitions of family while limiting recognition of diverse ones.

Adoption is not always addressed directly. But the impact accumulates.

Options are restricted while the language of protection is used to justify it.

There is no need to soften it.

This is not only a debate about family models. It is a decision about who is recognized as family and who must continue asking for permission.

That is not neutral.

It is political.

And when a right depends on where you live, who evaluates you, or how hard you are willing to fight for it, that right is already being weakened.

Last year on 4/20, I stood outside Pleasure Med in West Hollywood, surrounded by community, advocates, and organizers, hosting a cannabis justice event where Last Prisoner Project (LPP) was honored by the City of West Hollywood for helping clear more than 200,000 cannabis records across California.

This year, on 4/20, I’m running for West Hollywood City Council.

West Hollywood has always been more than just a city to me. It’s a symbol of what’s possible when people fight for dignity, visibility, and justice. As a queer person, I know firsthand how powerful it is to live in a place where you can hold your partner’s hand without fear, where your identity is not just accepted, but celebrated. But we can’t take that progress for granted, especially today with increasing attacks on our LGBTQ+ community. WeHo can’t wait for the next generation of bold ideas.

This evolution from advocate to candidate is an example of how I have been translating queer joy into queer power.

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Last year, I helped coordinate the Loud & Proud campaign in partnership with Culture Machine and LPP, which was rooted in a simple but urgent truth: the LGBTQ+ rights movement and cannabis justice movement are deeply intertwined. Both were born out of resistance. Both have been criminalized. And both are still fighting for full equity and inclusion.

My work with the Last Prisoner Project has taken me across the country organizing, advocating, and building coalitions to free those still incarcerated for cannabis offenses. I’ve sat with families who have lost decades with their loved ones. I’ve worked alongside directly impacted individuals who turned their pain into purpose. And I’ve seen what can happen when policy finally catches up with people: healing, restoration, and hope.

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But advocacy alone isn’t enough. We need leaders inside government who understand these issues not as abstract policies, but as lived realities.

That’s where this campaign comes in.

West Hollywood is at a crossroads. We are a city that has led on LGBTQ+ rights, on tenant protections, and on cannabis legalization, but leadership means continuing to evolve. It means asking hard questions: How do we ensure our cannabis industry remains equitable and locally beneficial? How do we protect renters in a city where housing costs continue to rise? How do we preserve the cultural vibrancy that makes West Hollywood the creative city?

I believe the answers start with community.

We need to strengthen our local cannabis economy while advocating for state and federal reforms that allow our businesses to thrive. We need to protect and expand rent stabilization tools so that longtime residents aren’t priced out of the community they helped build. And we need to think bigger about what West Hollywood can be. From creating a world-class, large-scale cannabis festival that rivals our iconic Pride celebrations, to investing in small businesses, nightlife, and the creative economy that defines our city.

This is the energy I bring, but this campaign is also about experience.

I’ve spent years organizing at the intersection of policy and people. Whether it’s working with local leaders, engaging state officials, or building national coalitions, I know how to move ideas into action. I know how to bring people to the table. And I know that real change requires both urgency and persistence.

Running for office, especially as a young, queer advocate, comes with its own set of challenges. But West Hollywood has never been a city that backs down from a challenge. We are a community built by people who refused to be silent, who refused to be invisible, who refused to accept the status quo. I am fighting for a West Hollywood where we honor this history, while shepherding a future that works for everybody. 

I’m Stephen Post, and I am running loud and proud to be your next West Hollywood City Council member. Join me by visiting post4weho.com or supporting with a donation here.

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On March 31, 2026, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14399 entitled: “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” Who could oppose election integrity?

That is precisely why Americans should read beyond the title.

Beneath the falsely reassuring rhetoric, EO 14399 is an unprecedented attempt to place new federal barriers between millions of Americans and the ballot box. It doesn’t just tinker at the margins. It tries to rewire the entire machinery of mail-in voting — fast, through agencies that were never built for this job, on a timeline that virtually guarantees error.

What the Order Actually Does

The order does three major things. First, it directs the Department of Homeland Security — working through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration — to build state-by-state “State Citizenship Lists” from federal databases, and transmit those lists to state election officials at least 60 days before every federal election. DHS must stand up this entire infrastructure within 90 days.

Second — and this is the part that should alarm every voter — it directs the U.S. Postal Service to issue rules within 120 days that would make USPS a gatekeeper for ballot delivery. Under the order, USPS “shall not transmit” mail-in or absentee ballots unless a voter is enrolled on a federally mandated state-specific participation list. Miss the list, miss your ballot.

Third, it escalates enforcement pressure by directing the Department of Justice to prioritize prosecutions of officials involved in distributing ballots to anyone deemed “ineligible,” and threatens to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

Supporters say this is simply about ensuring only citizens vote. But noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal — and federal criminal statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 611 (voting by aliens) and 52 U.S.C. § 20511 (criminal penalties under the National Voter Registration Act), already exist to prosecute it. If the goal were simply to enforce existing law, there would be no need to rebuild the entire mail-in voting infrastructure from scratch.

The Brookings Institution has analyzed mail-in voting fraud and found it exceedingly rare, while documenting the significant access advantages mail-in voting provides — especially for working people, seniors, and disabled voters. You don’t respond to a low-incidence problem by building a nationalized gate that creates a far higher-incidence exclusion problem.

The Database Problem Is Real

Here is what gets lost in the political noise: federal databases are deeply imperfect. They contain gaps, mismatches, and outdated information — especially for people who have moved, changed names, naturalized, or had records created in different eras.

A joint investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that SAVE — the federal immigration-status verification system at the heart of this order — has repeatedly produced false flags, including widespread misidentification of citizens born outside the United States. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has likewise flagged SAVE’s accuracy problems and the urgent need for meaningful error-correction mechanisms. Those safeguards don’t exist yet. This order would tie voting access to that flawed system anyway.

A misspelled surname. A missing hyphen. A record that didn’t update when someone naturalized. In most settings, those are fixable administrative errors. In elections — where deadlines are real, and the burden falls on the voter — they become functional disenfranchisement.

Why LGBTQ+ Voters Are Especially at Risk

These barriers don’t fall evenly. They fall hardest on people whose lives are more likely to be out of sync with “official” records. And for LGBTQ+ Americans, that is not a hypothetical concern.

Consider transgender voters. The Williams Institute estimates that in 2024, more than 200,000 voting-eligible transgender people lacked ID documents fully reflecting their correct name and gender. EO 14399 is not a voter-ID-at-the-polls order — it is a record-matching order. And record-matching systems are precisely where mismatches become denials. A transgender voter may have updated their driver’s license but not their Social Security record. A former name in an older federal database could be enough to leave them off the list entirely.

And consider housing instability. The Williams Institute also reports higher rates of recent homelessness among transgender adults than among cisgender peers — and housing instability is one of the most common ways people fall out of sync with official records. When ballot delivery is driven by centralized lists and rigid deadlines, people who have moved, rebuilt, or stabilized after disruption are most likely to be missed.

The same risk extends to anyone whose life doesn’t fit neatly into a database: the college student who just moved apartments, the senior citizen who votes by mail because standing in line for hours is physically difficult, the veteran stationed overseas, the lesbian couple who recently changed their last names, the working parent who cannot take half a day off to vote in person.

What This Means for California

California has built one of the most accessible voting systems in the country. Every active registered voter receives a ballot by mail. Californians can vote from home, return ballots through drop boxes, or vote early in person. That system has meaningfully expanded participation — especially among young people, working people, disabled people, and communities historically excluded from politics.

EO 14399 strikes directly at that model. If implemented, it would allow Washington politicians and federal agencies to decide whether Californians are “eligible enough” to receive the ballot they have long been entitled to.

Why the Courts Are Already Pushing Back

The order is already in court. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued in federal court in Boston to block it, arguing it violates the Constitution and interferes with state election systems. The ACLU and partner organizations filed a separate challenge. Legal scholars across the political spectrum have concluded the order is likely unconstitutional.

The reason is structural. Under the Constitution’s Elections Clause, states — not the President — administer the times, places, and manner of elections, subject to congressional override. The President cannot unilaterally redesign election administration and mail services through executive order. Congress built USPS as an independent establishment (39 U.S.C. § 201) precisely to keep universal mail service from becoming a political lever. Its basic statutory function is to “bind the Nation together” — not to police ballot eligibility.

But Americans should not take comfort in assuming the courts will save us. Even if this order is ultimately struck down, it serves another purpose: creating confusion, fear, and uncertainty around voting. That confusion alone can suppress turnout. If voters begin to wonder whether they are still registered, whether they will receive a ballot, or whether some technical mistake will disqualify them, many will simply give up. That is the point.

What We Should Do

The LGBTQ+ community knows better than most how rights are eroded: rarely all at once, more often piece by piece, under the guise of procedure, bureaucracy, or “integrity.”

Treat EO 14399 for what it is: a power play falsely packaged as integrity. Demand that courts enforce the constitutional boundary lines. Demand that Congress do its job in the open — if election rules are going to change, they should change through legislation, not executive improvisation. Demand transparency from agencies about data quality, error rates, and correction processes before a single election system is forced onto the public. And support the organizations litigating this.

And if you are registered to vote: check your registration, confirm your mailing address, and make sure your records are current. Because the most powerful answer to efforts to make voting harder is to vote anyway.

Real election integrity means making sure every eligible American can cast a ballot and have it counted. What EO 14399 builds is something else: a system designed to treat eligible voters as suspects, and to make participation conditional on perfect paperwork. If we normalize that, IT WON’T STOP HERE.

Edward Campbell is a Los Angeles-based attorney, LGBTQ advocate, and civil rights activist with extensive experience in affordable housing finance and preservation. He has worked on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels and is a longtime advocate for racial equity and democratic institutions. 

Let’s face it, whether you were raised Christian, Muslim, or Mormon, there is a fundamental friction between religion and queer identity. This is one of the pillars of homophobia, pitting religion against queer people. But does this rob us of healthy spiritual lives? 

We are living in crazy times where we are witnessing true evils in the world. Whether it’s war, genocide, famine, or TLC’s MAGA ties (RIP Chilli). The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, citing religious freedoms. Is the answer for us as queer people to be free to believe?

It’s starting to feel like we’re in a spiritual war. So how do we arm ourselves? How can we heal the sense of alienation from spirituality we got from hateful sermons, homophobic religious zealots in our family, or just plain ignorance? That way, these issues with religion don’t rob us of healthy spiritual lives. After all, if you don’t believe in anything, you’ll fall for anything.

It’s understandable we might reject our religions of origin, growing up being confronted with rejection by our families, communities, or a religion that preaches issues with something we cannot change. To quote The Book of Gaga, we were born this way. 

And yet, without thriving spiritual lives, we can end up susceptible to issues like addiction, depression, or questionable moral quandaries. It begs the question: Is this religious trauma something we can heal? 

Whether it’s a queer-friendly church, the wonders of witchcraft, or a thriving meditation practice, honoring this area of our lives can be so transformative. I define a spiritual life as anything that encompasses all of the mental, emotional, physical, and holistic concepts that govern our lives. Or anything that doesn’t quite fit into it, like what happens when we die? Does our attitude influence the world around us? Aliens?

Spirituality is half of what we fundamentally know to be true, i.e., our values, morals, our intuition, and making peace with what we’ll never understand and control. 

If you think about it, it makes sense. We need to be able to give our ego a rest to deal with the myriad of things that are outside of our control. Our questioning of religion is not that off base, considering how many people live with religions that preach peace and love but allow war, that argue against queer sex but ignore the sex crimes of religious and political leaders. They argue for the lives of theoretical children and ignore starving and abused children. That being said, the issue is with them and not their faith.  

I grew up going to Catholic school for 14 years. It wasn’t until I found myself spiritually questioning that I went out and explored other religions, spiritual practices, and fundamentally learned firsthand the definition of all the stuff that was preached at me growing up: joy, grace, charity, and even prayer. 

I’d argue that half the people out there say all these prayers and don’t even know what they mean. But what are we queer people to do? Atheism isn’t the clapback people think it is. If we don’t fundamentally heal the trauma of rejection, persecution, and bullying we face from our religious pasts, it stays with us. That unhealed trauma still exists even if you say there’s nothing out there. If we don’t heal the wound, we are just as faulty as the people who persecute us. 

Instead, I think it’s incumbent on us as queer people to figure out what we do believe, value, and how we define love to be more whole and live fuller lives. 

Whether you find value in Buddhist traditions, meditate by chanting or breathwork, or even if you just worship at the altar of the Law of Attraction, we need something larger than ourselves to capture all the unknowns and heal what we can’t heal ourselves. 

I’ve always struggled reconciling the religion that supported colonialism and slavery. So I explored some of the African and indigenous traditions that still survived in my culture. 

At the end of the day, all of the religious traditions out there have something right. If not, they wouldn’t be able to get practitioners. The fundamental issue is the people, not the religion. 

My hot take is this. If we find something that we believe in that makes us better people, helps us separate from our ego and our primal fears to make more embodied choices, I think that that’s something of value. 

As queer people, no matter how resilient, powerful, and fabulous we are, we deserve peace of mind, freedom of spirit, and the belief in something that has our back. By finding a way to heal what religion has taken away from us: community, morality, and a spiritual life, that’s how we really heal the religious trauma, rather than just acting like none of it is worth retaining.

After all, at the end of the day, if you strip away the unhealed egos and toxic hatred of many religions, they are simply a couple of ideal rules to live by and a couple of spiritual tips and tricks for how to navigate the world. 

Ironically, we are in a position to choose what works for us, and given our existence in the fringes and the middle space, we can see what’s bullshit and what’s fundamentally true for us. There’s a certain magic we can experience as queer people, and we shouldn’t let our pasts rob us of that. 

Christian Cintron is a jack-of-all-trades and master of fun. He’s a writer, comedian, actor, and spiritualist. He created Stand Up 4 Your Power, a program that teaches self-empowerment through stand-up comedy.