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New York Post.Based on records of in-patient and out-patient procedures obtained from two national surgery databases, around 4,550 Americans sought transition-related surgical procedures in 2016, with that number more than tripling to 13,000 by 2019, according to the study, published in JAMA Network Open.The study’s authors attribute the rise in surgical procedures to federal and state laws approved during the Obama administration requiring coverage for medically necessary care, including treatments for gender dysphoria. The study only looked at surgical procedures in the years prior to 2020, and not hormonal interventions intended to assist in a gender transition.In total, about 48,00 individuals underwent surgical procedures from 2016 to 2020, while the overall number of “health system encounters for gender identity disorder” tripled during that same time.“The rapid rise [in gender dysphoria diagnoses] suggests that there will be a greater need for clinicians knowledgeable in the care of transgender individuals and with the requisite expertise to perform [gender confirmation surgery] procedures,” the report says.Following an 11th U.S.

Sacramento Bee, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Tom Garza issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Chino Valley Unified School District from enforcing the policy, which is one of six school districts in the state to have adopted policies requiring parental notification when a student doesn’t conform to gender norms or stereotypes.The Chino Valley policy was challenged by Attorney General Rob Bonta, who argued that the policy violates the privacy rights of LGBTQ students, and endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of transgender and gender-nonconforming students.The Orange Unified School District was the most recent to adopt a policy similar to Chino Valley’s — coming after Bonta’s lawsuit was filed — with school boards in Murietta, Temecula, the Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, in the northern part of the state, and the Rocklin School District, northeast of Sacramento.The policies are increasingly being adopted in conservative enclaves throughout the state as part of a larger societal backlash against transgender visibility — which has been encouraged by conservative influencers and Republican Party leaders.A group of activists recently filed a ballot initiative — one of three targeting transgender youth visibility — that would impose similar parental notification policies on districts throughout the state.The Alaska State Board of Education recently approved a proposed regulation barring transgender girls from competing on female-designated high school sports teams for any districts that are part of the Alaska School Activities Association.

Workin’ On a World, released earlier this year. “The world I took for granted, was crashing to the ground,” she sings in the defiantly upbeat title track.

according to court documents. “You lying, disgusting, disgraceful, motherfucking f****t…. piece of shit.

A Mississippi library has banned the Heartstopper graphic novel series from its young adult section after angry parents, objecting to the depiction of same-sex relationships, claimed the books were “pornographic.”Alice Osman’s graphic novels tell the story of two teenage boys who fall in love. They do not contain explicit sexual content, but do feature same-sex kissing and hand-holding.

New York Daily News.According to police, the 22-year-old victim was waiting on the subway platform at the Broadway-Myrtle Avenue stop in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood around 1:15 p.m. when the man groped her.When both the victim and assailant boarded the train, they began arguing, leading the groper to call her a “fa***t” and repeatedly punch her in the face and body.

DC’s latest addition to superhero cinema, Blue Beetle (★★☆☆☆), seems to thread together two disparate films that the makers struggle mightily to fuse into a satisfying, cohesive whole.At its most successful, the movie, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), introduces Mexican college grad Jaime Reyes, played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, along with Jaime’s loving, but financially imperiled family. Dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), mom Rocio (Elpidio Carrillo), younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), crazy conspiracy theory-addled uncle Rudy (George Lopez), and feisty matriarch Nana (Adriana Barraza, who almost steals the show) all rally around Jaime when a mysterious sapphire-blue scarab latches onto his body and consciousness, making him an unwilling host to a “world-destroying weapon.” Time spent with Jaime and the Reyes family, steeped in authentic Latino culture, humor, and relationships, plays like the warmly comic pilot episode of a sitcom I’d gladly binge.Each episode could include a flashback to the adventures of Nana Reyes, which, based on the hints she drops, would be as thrilling and dangerous as anything Jaime encounters in his new scarab-assisted superhero form as Blue Beetle.That brings us to the other, less successful counterpart to the Meet the Reyes Family sitcom: the relatively lame-ass origin story of another DC Comics hero that’s so clearly intended as a setup for future appearances that it fails to do anything interesting with the character’s big-screen debut.

Conservatives have called for a boycott of Skittles after the candy promoted Pride Month on its packaging.Every June, since 2020, Skittles, manufactured by candy giant Mars, Inc., has released a limited-edition pack of the fruit-flavored candy in honor of Pride Month.The limited-edition candies are devoid of color and come in special wrappers designed by LGBTQ artists. One dollar of every sale (up to $100,000) is donated to GLAAD.

was hot to revel with the diverse crowd, from dancing twinks and pre-gaming Kiki daddies, Howard and Gallaudet queers to tourists, and, later in the night, the bedazzled Beyhive rolling in dripped in merch and full of tales to tell.Three voluminous rooms of strangers felt like one party — and that’s part of the concept of Shakers, which also will include nights for drag entertainers, cabaret, industry movie nights, and space for community meetings and family days.“I think people five, eight years ago were questioning, do we actually need gay bars anymore,” Honeycutt says. “And I feel like, where you sit today, the resounding answer is, ‘Yeah, yeah, we need LGBT, queer spaces that are community.’ It’s more than just a place where you drink.”Shakers is located at 2014 9th St.

What’s on Emily Holland’s nightstand?“I always have a few books I’m working through,” says the chair of OutWrite, The DC Center’s literary festival, held annually in August.“I’ve been on a bit of a romance kick lately and am currently reading a queer romance called Love at First Set. It’s a nice kind of bedtime read.

law has led some administrators to censor any content that is sexual in nature unless it pertains to an academic standard.The Hillsborough County School District determined that many of Shakespeare’s works deal with or allude to sexuality (not to mention those works that contain cross-dressing characters), and should therefore be edited. As a result, some of the Bard’s classics, like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet, now have been barred from the classroom, with students only reading excerpts of the plays in order to meet basic curriculum standards.The district said that teachers who violate the content restrictions for English classes could be subject to disciplinary action or have a complaint filed against them by a parent who believes the books or plays are “inappropriate” for minors to read.If a student wishes to read the censored plays in their entirety, they’ll have to pursue other ways of obtaining the texts on their own time, such as by seeking them out at a public library or privately-owned bookstore not subject to state regulation.Previously, English classes in the district required students to read at least two novels or plays during the school year.

Patterns, London teen Liam (Rufus Gleave) wishes for guidance from the poster boy on his wall, English rugby champion Ben Cohen, and, in the show’s camp comedy fashion, his wish is granted.Stepping directly out of a shirtless poster into Liam’s room, the former pro winger materializes to help the kid build up the confidence to conquer school bullies, and finally come out to his, incidentally, pretty DILF-y dad, Preston (Matthew Simpson).The role came as a natural fit for Cohen, who has long put combating bullying and homophobia at the center of his activism, founding the Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation in 2011. Few world-class professional athletes, who are straight, have worn their LGBTQ allyship as prominently or as proudly as Cohen, who goes so far in Patterns as to dance a dream ballet in a crop tee and cutoff shorts, all for the sake of supporting Liam, and kids like him.“This was a great opportunity to be a role model and to help support [Patterns director-producer] Rex [Glensy] through something that I’ve probably always been curious of, with acting,” Cohen says over a video call from his home in the English countryside.Though Cohen has made several non-sports-related TV appearances, most famously as a contestant on season 13 of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, he had “never really acted before, in front of the camera.”He credits Gleave, the episode’s young lead, with supporting him.

What makes a good gay bar? Does it depend on the DJ or dance floor? Is it the strong drinks or the decor? Or maybe it depends on what cute people come in (or who you go home with at the end of the night)? In reality, it’s not one thing. The ability to be considered a “good,” if not the best, gay bar requires an ambiance composed of many things. And in Washington, D.C., there is no shortage of options.

Barbenheimer. In other words, I’m nonbinary.And then Hollywood released Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day, pitting not just the two films, but Man and Woman, against each other. It’s giving internal conflict!I’ve not yet seen Oppenheimer, but I did see Barbie.

Talk to Me (★★★☆☆) — not unlike co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou, twins from Adelaide, Australia, whose YouTube channel, RackaRacka, has cracked over a billion views with its brand of special effects-assisted comedy videos.Working from a script co-written by Danny Philippou and RackaRacka collaborator Bill Hinzman, the filmmakers invest their feature debut with ample compassion for the movie’s circle of camera-clutching Australian high schoolers, who barely distinguish between danger and content.Led by troubled Mia (played with intensity by Sophie Wilde, also making her feature debut), these friends charge full-speed into the maws of death, but none are treated by the film as expendable, nor as merely grist for grisly humor.In fact, Talk to Me doesn’t rack up a high-volume body count as it weaves grave drama into its taut supernatural tale following Mia, her bestie Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and their friends down a dark rabbit hole of convening with the dead.Mia, grief-stricken over the death of her mother, and probably now a bit too attached to Jade’s family, and definitely feeling some kind of way about Jade dating her ex, Daniel (Otis Dhanji), is already teetering on the edge. So when the group, including Jade’s younger teen brother Riley (Joe Bird), gets introduced to a party game that involves contacting the dead — by grasping a cursed, embalmed hand, and inviting the spirits to “Talk to me” — Mia plunges in eagerly, desperately hoping to make contact.Of course, Mia and friends make contact in ways they hadn’t imagined, summoning spirits who enter gladly but then won’t leave.

Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s epic yet introspective, all-star cast biopic Oppenheimer spawned the summer’s most unlikely double feature.The teams behind both films were smart enough to catch on to the public’s pitting the world’s most famous doll against the man who birthed the Bomb.And the team behind this dual review, having completed the double feature in Barbie–Oppenheimer order, can report that both films are smart enough to recognize, respectively, the stereotypical girlishness that Barbie represents, and the inarguably patriarchal society that J. Robert Oppenheimer both represented and at times resisted.Barbie, co-written by Ladybird and Little Women Oscar nominee Gerwig and her Oscar-nominated husband Noah Baumbach, actually turns examining the toy’s impact on generations of girls and women into its whole raison d’être.

desires like these had to be sublimatedNo Barbies for me! GI Joes. Which I hatedBut used when the neighborhood boys would warBut sometimes I’d swipe Barbies from the girl next doorAnd I’d throw the doll back. Didn’t need her, oh noI just needed the dress that I’d tug onto my Joe(In narrative terms, this is known as “foreshadowing”But I didn’t know that.

Instagram post after being crowned by her predecessor, Ona Moody, at the AFAS Theater in Leusden. “Yes I’m trans and I want to share my story but I’m also Rikkie and that’s what matters to me.

letter — a rambling, unfocused missive that allows the attorneys to vent their spleen at Target for embracing and celebrating LGBTQ consumers — accuses Target of violating laws meant to “protect children from harmful content meant to sexualize them and prohibit gender transitions of children.”“As Attorneys General committed to enforcing our States’ child-protection and parental-rights laws and our States’ economic interests as Target shareholders, we are concerned by recent events involving the company’s ‘Pride’ campaign,” the attorneys general wrote in the letter.“Our concerns entail the company’s promotion and sale of potentially harmful products to minors, related potential interference with parental authority in matters of sex and gender identity, and possible violation of fiduciary duties by the company’s directors and officers,” the letter continues.The letter further alleges that putting up Pride displays in stores may violate child protection laws penalizing the “sale or distribution” of “obscene matter.”The letter accuses LGBTQ activists of using Target to advance their own agenda of “exposing Target’s valuable customer base, which include families with young children across the country, to ‘LGBTQIA+’ concepts and values.”The letter lists a litany of offending merchandise that social conservatives were outraged by, such as Pride- or rainbow-themed T-shirts and clothing for children, a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit sold in adult sizes, and an adult-sized T-shirt with the drag queen Katya on it.Even though the latter two items were not marketed toward children nor sold in children’s sizes, the letter deliberately misstates facts and alleges that such products will encourage kids to become transgender.The attorneys then

law, which was approved by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Lee earlier this year.A federal judge subsequently issued an injunction blocking the state from taking any adverse action against doctors who recommend non-surgical gender-affirming treatments, on the grounds that the plaintiffs in the case were likely to succeed in proving their claim that the law is unconstitutional and should be overturned.The plaintiffs have argued that the Tennessee law runs counter to federal laws prohibiting discrimination in health care and violates both the rights of trans minors and the rights of their parents to make whatever medical decisions they believe to be in their children’s best interests.But in a July 8 decision, the 6th U.S.

The Bear‘s second season places us in a frigid Chicago winter, where our beloved, stressed chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his crew are hard at work turning their now-shuttered sandwich joint “The Beef” into “The Bear,” an upscale dining destination.The second season of Hulu’s surprise hit from Christopher Storer (Eighth Grade, Ramy) proves that without change, even the most timeless meals can go off.

Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate, reveals a more complex portrait of queer Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.Cantu, German-Hungarian and raised in Berlin, where he’s currently based, professes that before researching Eldorado, he also held fast to legends of Weimar Berlin’s wild parties and sexual liberation.“But when we dig deeper into it,” he says, “it is much more nuanced and much more controversial, especially because the time in the Weimar era in Germany was politically very, very turbulent, and there was a lot of conflicts within society, but also, on a small scale, for people on the streets. So the tension was quite strong.”The danger was real, for the queer and Jewish artists, performers, and impresarios who were the life of the party at cabarets like the film’s namesake, the Eldorado.As depicted through engrossing archival footage and lush dramatizations (separately directed by Matt Lambert), queer regulars at the Eldorado risked harassment and blackmail, as well as being beaten in the streets by the Brownshirts of the Nazi SA, or jailed in police raids.

The Guardian. “We have decided to make a message towards the U.S. government,” the group posted on the social network Telegram, boasting of the Fort Worth breach.

restrict members of Congress and their staffers from using insider information related to the stock market to boost their personal financial standing. A lawyer by trade, the 36-year-old has served as a CNN commentator since leaving Congress. He is likely to face a contested Democratic field.

homoerotic ad indirectly criticizing the former president’s past statements claiming to support LGBTQ rights.Much of the ad, shared by the “DeSantis War Room” account on Twitter, highlights moments from the 2016 presidential campaign when Trump was either trying to distinguish himself from other Republican candidates or trying to peel away some LGBTQ support from Hillary Clinton after clinching his party’s nomination. Whether DeSantis’s campaign made the ad or simply shared it online is unclear.The ad shows a snippet of Trump’s speech from the 2016 Republican Convention vowing to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens,” a reference to Trump’s willingness to defend LGBTQ people from terrorism in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were killed.The gunman, who was killed in the shooting, had pledged allegiance to ISIS, reawakening concerns about national security and the threat of Islamic radicals carrying out attacks against Americans.It also shows Trump’s campaign selling LGBTQ-themed merchandise, photos of Trump with Caitlyn Jenner, a clip of Trump affirming that Jenner could use whatever gendered restroom she wanted if she came to visit him at Trump Tower, and a clip of Trump, at the time the owner of the Miss Universe pageant, telling the late Barbara Walters that transgender contestants would be able to compete in Miss Universe.The ad splices those video clips with screenshots of tweets and headlines showing Trump supporting — or at least purporting to support — LGBTQ rights, often while pandering to LGBTQ conservatives.

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, the latest in-depth documentary portrait by Sid & Judy director Stephen Kijak.Kijak’s films, both narrative and nonfiction, have delved into cultural icons from Judy Garland to Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Backstreet Boys. For this entertaining bio, he worked closely with author Mark Griffin — whose 2018 All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson is considered definitive — “to look at all the facets and angles, and the reflections and double meanings and mirror selves” presented by the bright, ex-Navy seaman from Winnetka, Illinois, who became Rock Hudson.“He was in some of the more indelible films of those classic eras,” Kijak says, ticking off Hudson’s famous Douglas Sirk-directed romances Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows.

LOVE, will grace the event’s Meadow Stage on Saturday afternoon.Rogers joins a lineup of queer artists and allies that also includes the band Lucius, Brandy Clark, Yola, Celisse, local faves Oh He Dead, and one of Rogers’ early artistic heroes, Rufus Wainwright.“Rufus is someone I found in college,” Rogers recalls. “That kind of blew my whole world up as far as this incredibly prolific singer-songwriter, writing these songs as an openly gay person in the late ’90s, early 2000s. That is so important and so inspiring to me.”Rogers, who learned piano while still a kid in Ozark, Missouri, had taken to writing his own songs as a necessary means of self-expression and preservation.

Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)There is something of another queer American in these lines. His name is Ari Shapiro.

Nutcracker break, or in the summer, when all of the companies shut down and there’s this whole industry’s worth of ballet-trained, high-performing dancers who are just out of work. And everybody has to scatter to the winds to find projects.”Palkens has been dancing with Chamber Dance Project for the past few years.

The Flash (★★★☆☆), look no further than IMDb, which has listed every single (uncredited) appearance on the movie’s full cast list. Some cameos are clever, while others are slightly creepy –- yet another example of CGI eerily resurrecting the dead.