Victoria Cruz, a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and unwavering advocate for survivors of violence, died on June 25 from liver cancer at age 79. Fierce, generous, and unyielding, Cruz emerged from Stonewall as a witness to history who would spend more than five decades helping to shape it. She became a fixture of New York LGBTQ+ activism and in time, one of the community’s most beloved elders and mentors.

One of 11 children, Cruz arrived with her family in Red Hook, Brooklyn, from Guánica, Puerto Rico, as a young child. She occasionally quipped that she was “never in the closet” but “in the armoire,” and knew from an early age that she was a girl at a time when there was little language to describe her experience. She studied cosmetology and hairdressing at Metropolitan Vocational High School, before attending Brooklyn College where she earned a theater degree in 1982. She supported herself through beauty work, as a stripper, sex worker, and entertainer in the New York City nightlife scene, giving her first drag performance at the Grapevine in 1973 to a Billie Holiday song.

A regular at the Stonewall Inn, Cruz often arrived in what she described as “full drag and semi-drag.” In a 2025 interview she recounted details of the gay bar on Christopher Street — the lack of plumbing, except for the bathroom, and how she would only drink beer because the ice for mixed drinks was drawn from unsanitary garbage cans where glasses were rinsed.

 “[The cops] used to come in and raid the place, and put the lights on. If you were two men together, you’d look for a lesbian to sit with or talk to.” If you had make-up on, she said, they’d make you wash it off with dirty water from the mop bucket. Officers also did what she called “the Robin Hood.” 

“They used to take the bra straps in the back and pull them, you know, they were very heavy elastic, and let it go so it’ll hurt their back.”

Harassment was routine. But the night of Friday, June 27, 1969, was different. Maybe the cops weren’t given “the little brown bag pay off” or “enough money,” she speculated.

Cruz hadn’t planned to go that night. She had work the next day at a beauty parlor but her boyfriend, Frankie, was a bouncer at Stonewall — and “a cheat.”

“I went and stalked him.” When he asked her to go home, she said, “‘No, I’m going to wait up here, because tonight you’re going home with me.'”

It was close to midnight, and the air was hot and humid, she recalled. A full moon in the sky. Judy Garland had just been buried, and the atmosphere in the Village was solemn — “like the calm before the storm.” Standing near the steps next to the Stonewall, Cruz spotted Sylvia Rivera — who would also become a prominent transgender rights figure — with her friends across the street by Sheridan Square Park.

The paddy wagons came. The bar got raided, yet again. But this time, a rebellion began to simmer.

“And then the crowd started getting a little bit rowdier outside, they started throwing pennies,” Cruz recalled. “They were calling them names, you know, ‘dirty copper.’ ” As cops started loading people into the paddy wagons, she “saw one queen got punched.” She thought it was Miss Major, who later publicly recounted taking a blow to the head and getting knocked unconscious.

Police brought a paddy wagon around and went back inside the bar. “And here comes a brick out of Sheridan Square Park, and it cracked the window, and they closed all the doors as a barricade. We were hearing noise from inside.”

Frankie came out to see whether she was still there. A Canadian in the country illegally, he wanted to leave. Cruz wanted to stay. “That’s serious when they started burning stuff — and then Frankie says, let’s get out of here.” She recalled the violence escalating. “First it was garbage pails. Then they started setting up fire on cars. And I said, no, no, no. That’s too crazy.”

After the raid, Frankie’s boss called him in “to clean out the basement and try to straighten up whatever the cops smashed up over there.” Frankie found one of three drink-price signs, and downstairs, the dog, Rusty, who guarded the liquor (“even though the liquor was watered down”). One of the owners let Frankie take him home. “I was so afraid of dogs, but I gave him food, and then he became my best friend and my protector.”

As for the sign, she kept it in her possession and shared that she hoped to return it to Stonewall along with photos of Frankie and Rusty. “They are part of our original history and they belong there.”

Those nights of chaos and violence are now widely regarded as the birth of the modern gay rights movement. One year later, Cruz joined thousands in what she called “the big first gay pride liberation march.”

“She was definitely one of our mothers in the movement,” says Shelby Chestnut, now executive director of Transgender Law Center, who worked with “Miss Vicky” at the New York City Anti-Violence Project from 2010 to 2017. Cruz first came to AVP seeking support after being sexually assaulted by members of the nursing staff while working at Cobble Hill Health Center. She later volunteered at AVP and remained with the organization for 18 years, eventually coordinating the domestic violence project and serving as a senior counselor advocate.

Shay Huffman, a school social worker and former AVP board member, credits Cruz with being her lifeline while going through intimate partner violence. “By the time I got to AVP, I was 95 pounds,” says Huffman. “I seriously doubted I would survive. I had lost my appetite, wasn’t eating, and felt like my spirit was being sucked out of me.” Huffman says it was important to her that Cruz was a woman of color. “She heard me. She met me where I was. She validated me. She gave me hope and encouragement. She made me believe, ‘Maybe I can survive this.’ It was the first step from becoming a fighter and survivor to really thriving.”

Cruz’s impact extended beyond those she counseled. For many young trans people, the presence of an elder figure like “Miss Vicky” was not something to be taken lightly, Shelby Chestnut says.

“Especially at the time when she got into advocacy, in an ‘official’ way, there was a real expansion of trans justice organizations in New York City, and she would come to all of the events and be this big voice of reason. Even in the face of so much terribleness in the world right now — even at almost 80 years old — she was so clear and articulate: ‘We can’t back down. We’ve been here before. We can’t give people new ground in this moment to take our power and livelihood away.’ She imparted this to a new generation of organizers and leaders in a way that not many people could.”

“She came up in a post-Stonewall reality but also was clear that so much of our conditions didn’t change just because Stonewall birthed our movement.”

Her commitment to justice came to wider public attention with the release of the 2017 documentary “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson.” The film documents her meticulous investigation into the 1992 death of her contemporary, Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman whose death was ruled a suicide despite suspicious circumstances. Cruz’s probing not only helped expose the very real possibility that Johnson was murdered, but also underscored a broader reality: Many trans women of the era were treated as throwaways, their deaths denied the attention and justice they deserved. 

Following Cruz’s death, the documentary’s director, David France, paid tribute to Cruz on Facebook: 

“Throughout her life she embodied pure joy, something she learned from Marsha P. Johnson (whom she called “The Rosa Parks of the gay movement”), and fierce resistance, which she dedicated herself to in her last conversation with Sylvia Rivera on her death bed. She promised Sylvia she would ‘keep the community together.’ And she did that and more. She died on Pride Week, her highest of holy days. There never will be another like her.”

“Victoria loved the beach,” recalls Cruz’s sister, Heyde Cruz, 73. “She called it her sanctuary and as my children and my other siblings’ children were growing, she would take them to the beach and show them how beautiful it was, picking up seashells and other beach objects on the sand and they loved it.”

Indeed, Cruz was a popular presence at the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, where she was often spotted beneath a sun tent in colorful attire and her signature headband with feathers and cowrie shells. She was considered royalty at this haven for queers near the former Neponsit Hospital — a building that fell into ruin over decades before ultimately being demolished, despite protests by a community that had laid claim to a landmark no one else seemed to want.

In a 2023 conversation, the “Queen of Riis” recounted tales of noble mischief dating back to the earliest days when she had first set foot on the sands in 1963. The facility had been running as a “Home for the Aged” and the gay folks delighted in helping elderly residents sneak out to frolic on the beach.

 “We would tell them when the guys were coming so they could run back to the premises,” she said. She loved hearing the concerts from the facility’s gazebo, where patients would be taken out for lunch. “I loved to go on Sunday mornings because of the church services,” Cruz said. “They played the most wonderful American gospel I ever heard.”

Cruz had hoped that the building might be preserved and turned into a hospice, where “the sounds of the sea, the sun, the gulls [might] make them enjoy life more, especially in their last days.” 

Last December, the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative honored Cruz with a Brick Award for Community Activism. Latina actor, model and trans activist Angelica Christina introduced Cruz, highlighting the elder’s fight for the LGBTQ+ community as “front and center,” noting she had “done so with courage, conviction and compassion.”

“From being a longtime leader at the Anti-Violence Project, to being a part of the documented history at Stonewall, Victoria has supported survivors of anti-LGBTQIA+ violence when few others would,” said Christina, herself a survivor of sexual assault and homelessness. “She fought for safety and accountability and dignity at a time when our stories — especially that of BIPOC trans women — were too often ignored… “

To a standing ovation, Cruz spoke to those who have long admired her spirit, as well as a new generation reaching for the torch amid a renewed political tempest intent on extinguishing the most marginalized:

“We resisted at Stonewall and we can resist now because they’re not going to erase us,” Cruz assured. “Today, it is better to be yourself. Life is much easier when you are you.” 

“And I thank you for this prize, because like Sylvia [Rivera] said — and I promised her — that wherever I would go, I will try to keep the community together because we do have the numbers, and with our allies, we can defeat them anytime …  

“We’re here from the beginning and we’re going to be here ’til the end.”

An activist from Puerto Rico who spoke at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus briefing last week in D.C. said anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies have left the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. commonwealth even more vulnerable.

“A human rights crisis is unfolding in Puerto Rico — one that disproportionately affects LGBT+ people, particularly transgender and nonbinary Puerto Ricans,” said True Self Foundation Executive Director Miguel Vázquez-Rivera.

The True Self Foundation and LatinoJustice PRLDEF participated in the briefing that took place on July 15.

Vázquez-Rivera during the briefing highlighted several anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies that have been implemented since Gov. Jenniffer González took office in January 2025. These include Law 63-2025, which prohibits gender-affirming healthcare for anyone under 21, and Law 26-2026, which prohibits the University of Puerto Rico and other “government facilities” from installing “mixed or gender-neutral multi-occupancy restrooms.”

“The legislation aims to strengthen public safety standards while ensuring that no individual is subjected to unlawful discrimination,” noted the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration on Feb. 25 in a press release after González signed it.

González, a Republican who is a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, was Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives before she became governor. González supports President Donald Trump.

Vázquez-Rivera during the briefing highlighted anti-LGBTQ+ measures that have been introduced in the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly. These include House Bill 164, which would prohibit transgender athletes from school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity, and House Bill 131, which would allow faith-based adoption agencies to deny services to same-sex couples.

“The overwhelming scientific evidence is clear: children raised by same-sex parents do just as well as those raised by different-sex parents,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “What matters is not the gender or the sexual orientation of the parents; but the presence of love, stability, and support.”

Trump upon taking office for a second time on Jan. 20, 2025, signed his “Defending Women from Gender Identity Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order. Among its provisions is the federal government’s recognition of two genders: male and female.

Vázquez-Rivera noted “other proposals” in Puerto Rico “would recognize only ‘biological sex’ in government documents, prohibit inclusive language throughout public institutions, continue challenging recognition of nonbinary identities, and reverse protections for LGBT+ students previously adopted by the University of Puerto Rico.”

“The challenges facing LGBT+ Puerto Ricans cannot be viewed as isolated debates about healthcare, sports, bathrooms, or language,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “They are part of a much larger picture.”

“Puerto Rico is already confronting poverty, disaster recovery, healthcare shortages, and economic instability,” he added. “When discrimination is added to these realities, existing inequities become even deeper. Mental health worsens. Families are displaced. Communities become more vulnerable.”

Vázquez-Rivera further stressed “these issues are interconnected, and our response must be as well.” He also urged the LGBTQ+ rights movement to do more to support — and fund — advocacy efforts in Puerto Rico.

“Ultimately, this is not about granting special rights,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “It is about ensuring that more than three million American citizens living in Puerto Rico have the same opportunity to live healthy, safe, and dignified lives as every other American.”

The Puerto Rican government has not responded to the Los Angeles Blade’s request for comment.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki on July 17 vetoed bills that would have extended rights to same-sex couples.

Reuters reported Nawrocki rejected two measures that would have allowed same-sex couples who live together to enter into “cohabitation contracts.” Reuters noted the bills would have allowed same-sex couples to make decisions on issues that include access to medical information, property rights, and burial.

The country’s coalition government backed the bills that MPs approved. Nawrocki, a socially conservative Catholic, in a statement said they “create a new, formalized institution of family law, ​equipped with a broad catalogue of rights similar to those of marriage.”

“As the guardian of the Constitution, I cannot accept a solution that would lead to the loss of the ‌special ⁠status of marriage, defined in Article 18 of the Constitution as a union of a man and a woman under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland,” said Nawrocki, as Reuters noted.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk sharply criticized Nawrocki.

Miko Czerwiński of the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ+ advocacy group, in a statement noted nearly 80 percent of Poles “believe that the status of same-sex couples should be protected.”

“Once again, the voice of society has proven irrelevant to those in power,” said Czerwiński. “We are not willing to accept this. We will continue working towards full marriage equality.”

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. Tusk, for his part, apologized to same-sex couples for the “years of rejection and humiliation” they suffered because Poland did not recognize their relationships.

“We will continue working towards full marriage equality,” said Czerwiński in response to Nawrocki’s vetoes. “We will not allow years of work by non-governmental organizations, activists, and our entire community to be wasted.”

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 18.

By SAM DONNDELINGER | On a June night in rural North Carolina, dozens of campers sat around the fire as a counselor asked them to close their eyes.

“Picture a place where you feel completely safe,” they were told. “Think about what it looks like and how it feels, what you can hear, smell, and taste.”

When they were invited to share what they had imagined, one camper described sitting in a circle with other trans people. It was dark. Trees surrounded them. Mosquitoes buzzed.

“‘That place is here, and this is the place where I feel safe,’” Jacob Hofheimer, one of the camp’s founders, recalled the camper saying. “It got all of us.”

For many of the 8- to 17-year-olds who attend Transcending Adolescence, the weeklong summer camp offers a reprieve from the calculations they have to make in their day-to-day lives: Who knows they are trans? Who can be trusted? Which bathroom can they legally use?

At a time when 40 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 90 percent of LGBTQ+ youth reported that recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies, and debates cause them stress or anxiety, those questions never disappear. But at this camp, young people are given space to ask them openly and to a community that understands why they need to.

“It really made me smile knowing that there’s a lot of people out there like me,” Ruby, a 12-year-old camper, told Uncloseted Media. “I’m putting myself out there, I’m being myself and no one judges me.”

Origins

Transcending Adolescence was founded in 2019 by Jacob and his wife Chrissy Hofheimer. The trans married couple wanted to create a camp for queer kids in America’s South, where affirming resources can be difficult to find.

Surrounded by thick woods and the backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains, campers swim, tie-dye shirts, complete ropes courses, roast marshmallows and perform in shows. They also gather for conversations about healthy relationships, medical care, legal rights, bathroom anxiety, coming out, misgendering, depression, substance use, and self-esteem.

“A huge part of it is that every single person there is trans or gender diverse, including the staff,” says Rory Sowers, a 19-year-old junior counselor from Florida. “That’s just something that you don’t get to experience a lot, especially as a young trans person.”

Sowers first attended Transcending Adolescence as a camper during its inaugural year in 2021. He returned three times before becoming a junior counselor.

“There’s so much that trans folks have to worry about just going about their day-to-day lives, especially living in the South,” Sowers says. “I was able to come into myself a lot more when I didn’t have all of those anxieties on my back.”

A place to be ‘just Ruby’

For 12-year-old Ruby, pre-camp anxiety was intense.

When she attended camp in June of last year, it was the first time traveling to another state without her parents.

“I was nervous about having someone there not really understanding me … and not really accepting me,” says Ruby, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Outside camp, Ruby worries about how other people perceive her, according to her mom, Kate, whose name has also been changed. She says her daughter has to consider a litany of questions cis kids don’t have to worry about: “‘What if someone finds out? Are they looking at me? Do I look the part?’ … All these thoughts go through her head every single day.”

Before camp, Ruby had been struggling so intensely that her family had questioned whether it might feel easier for her “not to be who she was,” Kate says. Ruby had faced bullying in school, prompting her family to withdraw her and homeschool her for the remainder of fifth grade.

“I couldn’t really go anywhere without picking [at] myself because I was anxious,” Ruby says.

But when she arrived at camp, a lot of Ruby’s anxiety subsided. She didn’t have to introduce herself through the lens of being trans. She could just be herself: a funny, theatrical, outgoing 12-year-old who likes Beyoncé, improvises rap battles, and wants to be in the center of dance shows.

“She can just go there and just be [Ruby],” Kate says. “[Being trans] is only a little piece of her. There’s so much more to her, and she’s able to do that for the whole week. … It was completely life-changing for her.”

Research suggests that spaces like Transcending Adolescence can have powerful mental health effects.

Young people tend to fare better when they feel they belong and have access to peers and adults who understand them. In one small study from 2021, participants of a six-day LGBTQ+ summer camp reported increased resilience, self-esteem and quality of life. Focus groups indicated that transgender and nonbinary campers found an affirming environment that offered social opportunities they had been unable to find elsewhere.

Though this environment can be transformative, it’s intimidating at first for some. Jacob remembers asking one camper from Texas his pronouns during medical check-in, and the boy responding that he used “guy pronouns” because he “was a guy.”

Jacob recalled him being closed off and leery of the “hippie-dippy nonsense.”

But on the second-to-last night, Jacob overheard him speaking with a fellow camper.

“‘When I first came here, I thought that I was a disgusting, mutilated pig and an alien, and nobody would ever love me because I’m trans,’” Jacob recalls the camper saying. “‘And now I know that being trans doesn’t make me disgusting. It’s actually a beautiful thing.’”

He later texted Jacob to say the camp had given him confidence during the school year.

“‘Half the time, I forget that I’m trans,’” Jacob remembers him writing. “‘I’m just a guy. I’m just me.’”

“Finding places where you literally see yourself and can be seen by others for who you are is important during adolescence. It’s a human need,” Stephen Russell, professor of social and family dynamics at Arizona State University, told Uncloseted Media. “For trans youth, especially those who may not feel fully accepted at school, at home or in their faith communities, a camp where their identity isn’t something they have to navigate or defend, but is simply centered as part of who they are, can be transformative.”

Filling the gaps

The Hofheimers know that these spaces can transform the mental health of trans youth because they experienced it firsthand when they met while working as lifeguards at a summer camp for young queer people in New Hampshire.

The camp was doing important work, Jacob says, but many of its attendees came from privileged families in New England and other parts of the country where affirming programs were more accessible. Far fewer came from places such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

That’s why, for the location of the camp, they intentionally chose North Carolina, a state that has laws on the books that exclude trans girls from participating in sports, restrict the instruction of LGBTQ+ topics in schools and ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.

“Access is really, really important,” Chrissy says, adding that while the camp costs $1,975 for the week, they offer robust financial aid, including a $1,500 “no questions asked” subsidized rate for families who can’t afford it.

At the camp, the staff educates campers about anti-trans laws, coming out, and how to have conversations with their doctors about gender-affirming care.

“The kids want to talk about this stuff,” Jacob says. “That was the gap that we identified.”

For Chrissy, baking education into the camp’s programming is personal: When she was transitioning as a young adult, accessing informed medical care was difficult. During consultations, doctors either quoted prices she could not afford or refused to treat her. One told her that they did not “put boobs on men.”

Desperate to change her chest, Chrissy turned to a friend who had undergone illegal silicone injections without an apparent complication. She received what she believed were similar injections in Florida.

But the substance wasn’t silicone, she says, and it hardened and became intertwined with her breast tissue. Seventeen years later, Chrissy underwent a double mastectomy to fix the damage.

This experience became one of the driving forces behind the camp’s educational work.

“Accurate information might have changed the course of my life,” Chrissy says.

To provide information that breaks out of the TikTok and Reddit misinformation bubble many campers exist in at home, Chrissy and Jacob bring in experts and host nightly fireside chats.

Each night, campers gather around for structured conversations about the nuances of being trans. They talk about coping with misgendering, managing bathroom anxiety, identifying red and green flags in relationships, asking for help, and caring for their mental health.

Jacob, who is a certified nurse practitioner, helps answer questions about gender-affirming care. A trans attorney explains policies affecting campers in different states and separates the practical effects of those laws from incomplete information and political fearmongering.

“It made me think about the people who I tell I am trans to and what I have to do to make sure I feel comfortable telling them,” Ruby says. “It let me think about all these questions I had but didn’t really know how to ask.”

Building what comes next

Chrissy hopes the results from the camp’s program will eventually be replicated across the country.

For now, roughly 30 campers come together for one week each summer. Some arrive unhappy about being sent to camp. But by the final day, Sowers says, those same campers are often crying because they do not want to leave.

They return home to the same schools, states, and political climates where they have to decide when it is safe to disclose their identities and how to respond when someone does not understand them.

But at camp, Ruby, among the other campers, found a weeklong respite and saw trans adults who were not merely surviving but building careers, relationships, and communities.

“After the camp, I really haven’t been talking about how I feel insecure that I’m trans,” Ruby says. “I can’t wait to go back and see the people I met and [meet] new friends.”

Attorneys for gay former FBI employee David Maltinsky, who was fired from his job as a non-agent employee at the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office in October 2025 after more than 16 years of service for displaying an LGBTQ Pride flag at his workstation, filed court papers on July 15 opposing a motion by government attorneys to dismiss some but not all of the provisions in his unlawful discrimination lawsuit seeking to overturn the firing.

Maltinsky’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. on Nov. 19, 2025, states that FBI Director Kash Patel acted illegally by violating Maltinsky’s First Amendment constitutional rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 by ordering his firing on grounds that he “exercised poor judgement with an inappropriate display of political signage” by displaying the Pride flag.

The firing came at a time when Maltinsky successfully completed 16 weeks of the FBI’s 19-week training program at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Va. to become an FBI Special Agent, according to the lawsuit.

In addition to Patel, who took office as FBI director in February 2025 under the Trump administration, the lawsuit names as defendants the FBI itself, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI.

“Defendants discriminated against Maltinsky for engaging in protected speech, for his sexual orientation, and for opposing discrimination – a clear and brazen violation of federal law and the Constitution,” the lawsuit states in an amended complaint filed May 5, 2026.

The Department of Justice, which is representing the FBI in its response to the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the lawsuit and why it is seeking dismissal of some but not all of the lawsuit’s multiple allegations, including its claim that the firing violated Maltinsky’s First Amendment rights.

In its “Partial” motion filed on June 15, 2026, to dismiss some provisions in the lawsuit, the Justice Department through Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate and Associate Branch Director Christopher Hall, stated that the lawsuit fails to provide sufficient evidence that Maltinsky was fired because he is gay.    

“The Amended Complaint contains no factual allegations that Director Patel or any other decisionmaker expressed hostility toward gay employees, relied on Plaintiff’s sexual orientation in making employment decisions, even knew Plaintiff’s sexual orientation or otherwise indicated that Plaintiff’s status as a gay man played any role in the challenged actions,” the motion states.

Based on that, among other things, the motion says the lawsuit’s claim that the firing violated the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be dismissed. A 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that the 1964 law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity along with its other categories including race, religion, and gender.  

In its arguments that the decision to fire Maltinsky was illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, the lawsuit’s amended complaint points out that FBI officials at the Los Angeles Field Office where Maltinsky worked presented the Pride flag to him and gave him full permission to display it at his workstation.  

“The FBI encouraged and honored Maltinsky’s work by awarding him the 2020 Director’s Award For Excellence-Outstanding Service in Diversity and Inclusion,” the lawsuit says. “In 2022, the Attorney General for the Department of Justice awarded Maltinsky the Attorney General’s Award for Equal Employment Opportunity, DOJ’s highest award for performance in support of the Equal Employment Program,” it says.

“In special recognition of Maltinsky’s efforts to improve the FBI, in June 2021 LAFO [Los Angeles Field Office] leadership entrusted to Maltinsky two Pride flags that had been flown from the flagpole located in front of the LAFO,” the lawsuit complaint continues. “Maltinsky displayed one of those flags at his workstation.”

Although the lawsuit doesn’t say so directly, all of that happened during the administration of President Joe Biden and previous FBI Director Christopher Wray, who held the director’s position from August 2017 to January 2025, when Donald Trump took office as president.

Nathaniel Zelinsky, one of the attorneys representing Maltinsky regarding the lawsuit, told the Blade that because the Justice Department did not contest the lawsuit’s First Amendment provisions, the case will move forward to the discovery stage, in which he and fellow attorneys can seek and obtain government documents, and most likely go to trial. He said that regardless of whether the judge approves the dismissal of the lawsuit provisions the government has asked for, the other provisions and the case as a whole  will continue.

“And those First Amendment claims are extremely serious,” he said. “The government, by its admission, fired David Maltinsky because they did not like the speech he displayed when he put up the Pride flag that was gifted to him by the FBI,” Zelinsky said. “The federal government cannot discriminate against its workers based on their speech.”      

An officer-involved shooting outside of a gay dive bar, Shakey’s, in downtown Asheville, N.C., left one man dead Wednesday.

The bar released a statement the following morning regarding the incident, stating that bar staff had asked a patron to leave earlier in the night citing concerning behavior. The bar said that later the man was spotted with a gun in the parking lot.

The bar proceeded to call 911, locked the doors to the establishment, and followed dispatcher instructions on how to keep patrons of the bar safe while officers arrived. These protocols included getting patrons away from the windows and staying low to the ground.

According to Shakey’s, shots were fired outside of the business. When the Asheville Police Department officers arrived, they fired back. The individual died from their injuries, according to the police.

“Because of everyone’s quick actions, cooperation, and concern for one another, every customer and every employee inside Shakey’s made it home safely. We are incredibly thankful,” Shakey’s said on their Instagram page. They thanked Asheville police, emergency dispatchers, EMS, and all first responders who were on scene.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Chad Flowers, stated that the suspect involved in the shooting was Arturo Castillo Palomar.

The Los Angeles Blade reached out to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for a comment regarding the possibility of the event being considered a hate crime. They said the issue is currently under investigation and that the findings would be turned over to the district attorney for review.

When you think of ruckus on the Sunset Strip at 5 am, maybe it’s some unruly band having a late night after playing at the Viper Room or the Whisky a Go Go. Instead, local residents were met with a cacophony of helicopters around 5 and 6 am this morning. The reason: a water main burst at the crowded intersection of Sunset Blvd and Holloway Drive. 

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), after addressing the flood damage, has located the rupture of a 36-inch LADWP steel main. There are traffic closures on Sunset Blvd. between Larabee Street and LaCienega Blvd, as well as nearby streets for public safety because the pavement is literally shattered under the water pressure. 

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LADWP has confirmed that no water service interruptions are anticipated for residents or businesses, and water in the City of West Hollywood is clean and safe to drink. It’s likely traffic may be a recurring issue as the city works to repair a major intersection in the heart of the West Hollywood/Sunset Strip area. 

West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman says, “We are grateful that no injuries have been reported as a result of this significant water main break. We are working closely with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and our regional partners to respond to this incident as quickly and safely as possible.” 

West Hollywood is making quick work of it and offering periodic updates at: 

https://www.weho.org/Home/Components/News/News/12208/23

Heilman continues, “I want to thank our Public Works, Community Safety, and Parking teams, along with all first responders, for their swift and coordinated efforts. We know these road closures and traffic impacts are disruptive, and we appreciate everyone’s patience as crews work to stabilize the area, assess the damage, and begin repairs.”

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Traffic remains heavy; be sure to plan accordingly if navigating through West Hollywood. 

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Uncloseted Media published this article on July 16.

By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | On Sunday, the office of Lindsey Graham reported that the Republican senator and Trump ally from South Carolina died “from a brief and sudden illness.” The office said that the preliminary cause of death was a rupture of his aorta due to a hardening of his arteries.

Since then, many folks in the LGBTQ+ community, including a large number of Uncloseted followers, have — for better or worse — celebrated the senator’s death. When we posted the news on our Instagram page on Sunday, our followers commented:

• “Maybe he rest in hell”—this one got 194 likes.
• “She made sure to wait until Pride was over.”
• “And just like that the world is a better place.”

These responses are fueled by allegations that the senator lived as a closeted gay man while supporting policies that would roll back LGBTQ+ rights. In 2006, he voted in support of a constitutional amendment that would have restricted marriage to only being between one man and one woman. After gay marriage became legal across the U.S. in 2015, he said “I am a proud defender of traditional marriage.” And in 2022, he told CNN he would oppose the Respect for Marriage Act and later reiterated that states should decide the issue of marriage.

Outside the Washington rumor mill, there wasn’t much evidence that Graham could be gay until 2020, when adult video performer Sean Harding wrote on Twitter that “There is a homophobic republican senator who is no better than Trump who keeps passing legislation that is damaging to the lgbt and minority communities. Every sex worker I know has been hired by this man. Wondering if enough of us spoke out if that could get him out of office?”

Harding followed up with another post, writing “If you’d be willing to stand with me against LG please let me know,” and, “So far I have two individuals who would be willing to go public and support my claims. Anyone else?”

A few days later, another anonymous sex worker came forward and made similar allegations.

But after that, there was silence, with some believing these sex workers were slapped with non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). And while at least one lawyer took to Twitter saying that he’d “be more than happy to read the NDAs and look for loopholes. For free!” nobody else came forward.

That is until earlier this week, when author Jesse James Rose posted to her Instagram that Graham had paid her for sex work prior to her gender transition. Rose wrote that “Most of you know him as the homophobic senator from South Carolina but to me he will always be the man who paid a twinky pre-transition college student a fat stack of cash to do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie.”

This dynamic has created a complicated question for LGBTQ+ people: Is it appropriate to posthumously celebrate the death of a man who railed against our community and used his position of power to make our lives less equitable and less safe? Is it even more fair to criticize him if he was living a secret queer life?

Or should we go high and give his track record on LGBTQ+ issues a positive spin now that he’s no longer with us?

In a time where social media feels like a breeding ground for angertainment, I’ll admit that the immediacy of the response to his death at first felt intense.

At the same time, I knew I didn’t want to send thoughts or prayers to a man who tried to rip my rights away.

If the alleged NDAs that Graham handed his sex workers were legitimate, they likely evaporated after his death. So now really may be the first time people can speak their truth and offer an accurate window into the absurd hypocrisy between Graham’s public and private life.

For that, I think it’s fair game to speak candidly about the story he may have worked hard to muzzle while he was here.

The U.S. military will begin testing and treating service members with hormone therapy despite banning similar medical care for transgender service members.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that troops ages 30 and older will be subject to annual testosterone screenings, while younger service members will have the option to voluntarily opt in. Some troops may then be recommended for hormone therapy, he explained in a video posted to social media.

“Under the supervision of our world-class medical professionals, warfighters age 30 and older are going to be tested annually as part of their periodic health assessment,” Hegseth said in a video posted to X, captioned “The High-T Department of War.”

This push to test testosterone levels, as the hormone is commonly referred to as “T,” runs counter to current medical guidelines. Physicians are generally advised to discuss testosterone therapy only with men who have symptoms consistent with low testosterone and documented low hormone levels on two separate blood tests.

Testosterone is a vital sex hormone that all humans naturally produce. It helps regulate muscle mass, bone density, and sex drive. In men, it is primarily produced in the testicles, while in women it is produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands.

Natural testosterone levels in men decline with age and have long been associated with issues such as erectile dysfunction, low libido, mood changes, and weight gain. However, experts continue to debate whether these conditions should routinely be treated with testosterone therapy.

Hegseth’s announcement aligns with other actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration — including efforts by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — to make testosterone therapy more accessible for men, particularly those assigned male at birth.

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration proposed easing prescribing restrictions on testosterone gels, pills, patches, and injections following a December advisory panel that recommended reducing regulatory hurdles to expand access to testosterone therapy.

Currently, FDA labeling specifies that these medications are approved only for men with hypogonadism, a medical condition that causes abnormally low testosterone levels.

The announcement came as a shock to many LGBTQ+ advocates because Hegseth and the Defense Department have cited the use of hormone therapy by trans service members as justification for their dismissal under President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness.“

The Pentagon continues to pursue implementation of the trans military ban as litigation proceeds. As a result, many trans service members have had their gender-affirming medical care halted, even as similar hormone therapy is now being expanded for cisgender service members. Under the executive order, the military currently disqualifies individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria and has begun formal administrative separation proceedings for trans personnel.

SPARTA Pride, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization made up of trans service members, veterans, and their allies, issued a statement to the Los Angeles Blade following Hegseth’s announcement.

“If hormone therapy helps warfighters perform at their best, then it cannot simultaneously be used as evidence that transgender service members are unfit to serve,” said Kara Corcoran, executive director of SPARTA Pride. “The same class of evidence-based medical treatment cannot be characterized as readiness-enhancing for one group and readiness-destroying for another.”

The legal fight over trans military service remains ongoing.

On June 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that trans service members already serving in the military could continue to do so, while allowing the armed services to continue refusing to enlist new trans recruits.

The Blade reached out to the Pentagon to ask why cisgender service members could receive hormone therapy while trans service members could not, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

India’s Supreme Court is expected to issue a closely watched constitutional ruling that could shape the future of LGBTQ+ rights litigation. 

The decision will determine whether courts can continue to rely on the doctrine of constitutional morality, a principle that has underpinned several landmark rights decisions. During hearings in April, the Indian government urged the Supreme Court to reject the doctrine, arguing that it has no basis in the Constitution and should not guide judicial decision-making.

For years, the Supreme Court has relied on the constitutional morality doctrine to treat the Constitution as a living document: one whose enduring promises of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity must be applied to the realities of a changing society rather than remain frozen in the era in which it was written.

The Indian government in April asked the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutional reasoning behind two landmark judgments: one that struck down the country’s adultery law and another that decriminalized consensual same-sex relations, arguing that both relied on a subjective invocation of constitutional morality and should no longer be treated as good law.

Arguing before a 9-judge bench considering constitutional questions referred from the Supreme Court’s 2018 Sabarimala temple case, which allowed women of menstruating age to enter one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines after a centuries-old ban, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, India’s second-highest law officer, argued that “constitutional morality” has no textual basis in the Constitution and is instead a judicially evolved concept that is vague and indeterminate.

Mehta said the government did not oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Section 497 of the Indian penal code, which criminalized adultery, if it was based on Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. Instead, he argued that the court should not have relied on what he described as the “vague and subjective” doctrine of constitutional morality to reach its conclusion.

Mehta told the Supreme Court that its 2018 Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India ruling that decriminalized consensual same-sex relations wrongly equated “morality” with majoritarian or mob morality while relying on constitutional morality as the basis for its reasoning.

To support his argument against relying on constitutional morality, Mehta quoted extensively from then-Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas. 

Scalia argued that courts should not import foreign legal trends or allow evolving social values to drive constitutional interpretation, contending that judges must remain neutral arbiters rather than participants in broader cultural debates.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in Navtej Singh Johar and Joseph Shine, Mehta questioned whether the judgments reflected the constitutional vision of India’s founding generation. 

“If these judgments, Navtej Johar, Joseph Shine, etc., were to be read by Dr. Ambedkar or Kanhaiyalal Munshi or Alladi Krishnaswamy Iyer, I do not know whether they would be surprised, shocked or they would say that this is what we wanted. I believe, they did not want this to happen,” he told the bench.

“A new trend starts, which is Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi,” Mehta said. “This is the judgment of Delhi High Court which was ultimately affirmed in Navtej Johar, sodomy … ‘In our scheme of things, constitutional morality must outweigh the argument of public morality, even if it be the majoritarian view.’ In case of a country governed by democratic principles, the view which is always majoritarian will prevail. When it is question of testing a law, it is always the majority which passes the law. How can you define morality based on this?”

The Naz Foundation case marked the beginning of a landmark constitutional challenge to Section 377 of the Indian penal code, a colonial-era provision that criminalized consensual same-sex relations between adults as “against the order of nature.” The public interest litigation, filed in 2001 by the Naz Foundation, an NGO working on HIV/AIDS and sexual health, argued that the law violated fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. 

In 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled in the organization’s favor, holding that Section 377 violated the rights to equality under Article 14, protection against discrimination under Article 15, and life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The Delhi High Court’s ruling was short-lived. 

In 2013, the Supreme Court, in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation overturned the decision, recriminalizing homosexuality under Section 377. 

The court held that the law affected only a “minuscule fraction” of the population and said it was for Parliament — not the judiciary — to decide whether the provision should remain on the statute books. Five years later, the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Bench in Navtej Singh Johar, unanimously overruled its 2013 judgment, holding that Section 377 was unconstitutional. The decision marked the culmination of the Naz Foundation’s long legal challenge to the colonial-era provision.

Anish Gawande, the first openly gay person to serve as a national spokesperson for a major political party in India, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), told the Los Angeles Blade that the doctrine of constitutional morality, which he said underpinned not only Navtej Singh Johar but also forms one of the foundational principles of India’s constitutional jurisprudence, is “an incredibly important concept.”

“It provides a moral backbone to the document in a way that prevents any amendments to the Constitution from being out into place that would violate the very ethos upon which the Constitution was framed,” Gawande said. “Constitutional morality is an incredibly important antidote to societal morality. It’s been what has allowed us to clamp down on things like dowry. It’s been something that has allowed us to bar even regressive religious practices that might go against human dignity. It’s also been an incredibly important framework that has allowed for the advancement of LGBTQ rights in opposition to arguments made by practitioners and leaders of various religious denominations about the societal immorality of queerness.” 

“The most critical part of constitutional morality, which is a doctrine that has been put in place by the courts, is that it is a very effective bulwark against majoritarianism and the unilateral diktat of the executive over the judiciary and, in some ways, also the legislature,” he added.

Gawande said those factors make constitutional morality “an incredibly important concept” in Indian constitutional jurisprudence. 

If the Supreme Court were ultimately to narrow or reject the doctrine, he said, judgments that have relied on constitutional morality, including the landmark Navtej Singh Johar ruling could come under renewed scrutiny. He added, however, that he did not believe the Supreme Court would take that step because it would run contrary to its own institutional interests.

Gawande said the government has advanced several reasons for challenging the doctrine of constitutional morality. One of them, he said, is that the solicitor general has opposed the doctrine in cases involving religious issues, arguing that courts should not rely on it in constitutional adjudication. 

“The downward repercussions of this, however, could extend to LGBTQ rights and to the rights of all sorts of persecuted minorities in the future,” he said.

“The second thing is that, in principle, the section 377 judgment, of course, rests upon constitutional morality, but it is also resting upon so many other fundamental rights, including the right to privacy that Puttuswamy upheld before the Navtej Singh Johar verdict,” Gawande added. “In Navtej, the right to privacy was also cited as an incredibly important condition upon which the decriminalization of ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ could be permitted. In many ways, the fact that Section 377 does not exist on the statute books at all in the present updated penal codes, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, provides some respite. The entry of Section 377, at least immediately after a reading down of constitutional morality, is not imminent yet. However, it opens the door for a new Section 377 to be introduced and the judicial mechanism available to counter that new section 377, if it were to be introduced, to be reduced significantly.”

Ankit Bhupatani, an LGBTQ+ activist, said he does not believe the Supreme Court’s reconsideration of constitutional morality would lead to the recriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations. 

He argued the 2018 Navtej Singh Johar decision rests on multiple constitutional principles beyond constitutional morality, but warned that weakening the doctrine could make it more difficult to secure future LGBTQ+ rights through the courts.

“If we have to take an informed guess on why the government does not like the concept of constitutional morality, it is because it wants a narrower field of judicial review and an elected legislature restored as the primary author of social policy,” Bhupatani said. “But we have already seen parliament’s ability to make laws related to LGBT rights, and it does not give optimism.” 

“The only practical way forward for LGBT rights in India is the judiciary,” he added. “But if the government’s argument is accepted by the Supreme Court, it means the next gay Indian who walks into a court for marriage, for adoption, for inheritance, or for a job they were fired from, finds it more difficult to secure these rights from the only institution from which we could hope for a positive outcome.”

Bhupatani said the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations would probably survive because the Navtej Singh Johar judgment also rests on the constitutional principles of privacy and equality. However, he warned that weakening the doctrine of constitutional morality could stall broader progress for LGBTQ+ rights. 

“The community keeps the floor and loses the staircase,” he said. “Nobody is criminalized, but nobody moves up.”

“The clever thing about this is that it lets the government have it both ways. To its so-called base, who think that making the law, especially on social issues, is the work of elected parliamentarians and not judges,” said Bhupatani. “It signals that the 2018 verdict was a judicial overreach that ought never to have happened. To everyone else, truthfully, that it never asked to recriminalize anyone. Both messages, one filing.”

Bhupatani said the implications of the government’s position extend beyond LGBTQ+ rights, arguing that asking the Supreme Court to treat the reasoning in Navtej Singh Johar as “not good law” raises broader questions about India’s commitment to constitutional rights. He said such a move could also affect how India’s constitutional democracy is perceived internationally.