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Nikki Haley is under fire for what some are calling “outrageous and fact-free,” and “unserious, untrue, and hateful” statements during her CNN town hall Sunday night, where at least one of her more attention-getting remarks is drawing anger and upset.Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper to define the term “woke” as conservatives see it, Haley, according to Mediaite, replied: “There’s a lot of things,” which seemed to define her responses to several of the questions she was asked.“You want to start with biological boys playing in girl sports,” said the former Trump Ambassador to the United Nations, referring to transgender girls. “That’s one thing.

Cultural Currents Institute, Google searches for questions such as “Am I gay?” “Am I lesbian?” “Am I trans?” and “how to come out,” as well as searches for “nonbinary” have jumped by 1,300 percent since 2004.The analysis suggests that more politically conservative states are the “most closeted,” with Utah, Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and New Hampshire leading the list of top states where Google users have searched “Am I gay?” For “Am I lesbian?” the top states were: Utah, Connecticut, Kentucky, Washington, and Colorado.For “Am I trans?” the top states were: Utah, Kentucky, Colorado, Michigan, and Washington.For the term “how to come out,” the states with the most searches were: Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky.“The regional differences highlighted below are significant, offering a geographical landscape of self-questioning and discovery across America,” Cultural Currents’ analysis reads.“Utah, a state with traditionally conservative social values, surprisingly tops three out of five search term categories.

The Orlando Sentinel reports.Lyman High School’s 256-page yearbook includes two pages that highlight the school’s LGBTQ students and features gender identity terms such as “genderfluid” and “nonbinary.”The Seminole County Public Schools in response to the criticism is offering to issue refunds or reprint the yearbook without the LGBTQ section that the conservative Seminole County Moms for Liberty claims is offensive.“They shouldn’t have any sexual definitions in a yearbook,” the group’s chapter chair Jessica Tillmann told The Sentinel.“This is a yearbook that goes to every student as young as 14.”The school’s yearbook is stirring controversy for a second straight year after the district in 2022 considered putting stickers over photos of a student walkout protesting the so-called “don’t say gay” law, the report said.The Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher reports that “An LGBTQ+ section in this year’s yearbook includes a picture of members of the student’s Gay-Straight Alliance, definitions of key LGBTQ+ terms, a passage on the evolution of pronouns and a profile of a student who advocates for the LGBTQ+ community.”Danielle Pomeranz, the school yearbook’s faculty advisor, isn’t on board with the district’s decision to remove the LGBTQ content.“They are definitions,” Pomeranz told The Sentinel.“They are not teaching anything about sex at all. … Nobody is teaching anybody about sex acts.

Joe Scarborough and Donny Deutsch mocked conservatives for running the “woke” hysteria into the ground.Ron DeSantis and other Republicans have screeched about the so-called “woke agenda,” which they warn will undermine American values and put children at risk from all manner of threats, but the “Morning Joe” host said most voters simply don’t care about that manufactured issue.“Joe Biden, 350 pieces of bipartisan legislation signed, and Ron DeSantis and everybody else is talking ‘woke, woke, woke, woke, woke,'” Scarborough said. “Again, something that I said on this show and I heard a lot about from liberals, even, in 2021.

Turning Point USA, is being widely mocked for posting a video attacking Chick-fil-A over claims the conservative, privately-owned, faith-based fast food restaurant chain recently hired a diversity officer.“So I’m grieving,” the video, apparently by Morgonn McMichael (below), begins. “It’s lunchtime.

Governor Ron DeSantis insists his recent remarks attacking U.S. Senator Ted Cruz should not be viewed as an endorsement of the biblical call for gay people to be executed.

READ MORE: ‘Will Make a Great Trial Witness’: Experts Thrilled Jack Smith Is Investigating Trump’s Firing of Election Security ExpertWhile DeSantis is insistent that teachers are forcing very young students to pick pronouns, NCRM found no news reports supporting that claim.We did find several news reports of teachers suing for not wanting to use a child’s preferred pronoun, which are issues for the courts.We did find one report of a teacher who allegedly insisted on calling a 9-year old girl who identifies as a girl a boy, and the parents are suing.News12 on Long Island, New York in March reported, “the lawyer representing the girl’s family…says the student was bullied and had suicidal feelings.”“She says the teacher told the student to ‘try being gay.’ The teacher is also accused of calling the girl a male name. ‘The teacher had some kind of agenda to have these students have alternate sexual preferences or gender identities they may or may not have had,'” the attorney said.READ MORE: ‘It Has to Be Done’: These Are the House Republicans Open to Firing Kevin McCarthy as SpeakerIn April, Colorado’s KRDO reported, “During the last Colorado Springs School District 11’s board meeting, officials tabled a controversial pronoun policy that would prevent educators from asking students their preferred pronouns.

As the region’s major theaters rebound from the dark nights of the pandemic, it’s nothing short of miraculous that its fringe scene — under-recognized and under-funded at the best of times — has found a way to keep the curtains rising. Operating on a wing and a prayer, these tiny theater troupes may be labors of semi-volunteer love, but they are, without doubt, the crazy, tinkling bells that keep a city’s culture alive, vibrant and just a whole lot more fun to explore.

the retail giant’s offering “tuck-friendly” swimwear and LGBTQ-friendly clothing for infants.In a Thursday tweet that has so far garnered more than 5.1 million views and hundreds of comments, the Grammy Award-winning rapper imitated a concerned parent: “Can’t believe Target is supporting this nonsense, im never shopping there again, my son is not ‘too cool for school’ these shirts are ridiculous. He is going to school and he WILL learn.”Known for his queer lyrics, the gay musician is a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights.

the comic’s polarizing comments in his Grammy-winning Netflix stand-up special “The Closer.”In the 2021 special, Chappelle said he “agrees” that “gender is a fact”, as he discussed how J.K. Rowling had been branded a “TERF” (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist).When asked if her new Netflix special in which she defended the transgender community “balanced out” Chappelle’s set, Sykes told Variety, “Um, I don’t know about balancing it out, because I think what he said was so hurtful and damaging to the trans community.“So yeah, the scale is still tipped, I will say, in their favor. But I know I wanted to say something, because so much has been said on that platform.

Agence France-Presse news agency, officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs admitted to seizing “22 Swatch watches with LGBT elements” at one outlet.According to the notice, the seizure was justified by the Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984, a law that has been criticized as draconian for allowing the Home Affairs Minister to censor or restrict news or information if doing so is deemed to be “in the interest of security or public order.”A ministry official, who did not want to be named, defended the seizure to the U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian, saying the watches bore the letters “LGBT” and had six colors instead of the seven that naturally appear in a rainbow.Swatch Group Chief Executive Nick Hayek expressed concern over the raids.“We strongly contest that our collection of watches using rainbow colors and having a message of peace and love could be harmful for whomever,” Hayek said in a statement. “On the contrary, Swatch always promotes a positive message of joy in life. This is nothing political.

The Washington Post calls the investigation’s conclusion “a move that could affect how schools handle book challenges.” The Forsyth County, Georgia school district has “agreed to offer ‘supportive measures’ to students affected by the book removals and to administer a school climate survey,” according to a letter from the Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).The extensive and detailed letter notes that the district weighed multiple methods to handle parents’ complaints about several books, and took steps, albeit insufficient, to attempt fairness.

The Associated Press. Despite finding her account of the harms she suffered “credible,” an immigration judge denied her application for asylum on the grounds that she failed to provide sufficient evidence proving that she had faced persecution due to her transgender status.The judge noted, in that decision, that attitudes within Guatemala have changed over time, especially in urban or more cosmopolitan areas, and suggested she could relocate elsewhere within Guatemala, citing Santos-Zacaria’s own admission, under cross-examination, that societal mores have changed, albeit slowly, since she first fled.Santos-Zacaria appealed the judge’s decision, and the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed part of the judge’s findings, finding that she had established evidence of past persecution, but had not given enough evidence to suggest she would face future persecution in her home nation if deported back to Guatemala. Her lawyers argued that the BIA should have remanded the case back to the lower court, rather than issuing its own findings of fact. Santos-Zacaria then appealed to the 5th U.S.

dissected then disintegrated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and the Republican Party in general, for their authoritarian lunge and overall hypocrisy.For nearly eight minutes Thursday evening, Hayes explained to viewers how DeSantis peddles fake claims about freedom, while enacting some the most hypocritically “authoritarian” and “dystopian” laws in the country.Hayes says that “in Ron DeSantis’ Florida, the state will decide what books your child can or cannot leave their school library by threatening teachers and librarians with time in prison if they do not comply with vague laws about instruction on race, gender and sexuality. The state will decide what women can do with their own bodies by banning abortion at six weeks.

Spoiler alert: Winner announced aheadThe 32-year-old “Crush” singer, who performed as Macaw on the Fox singing series, placed second to British entertainer Bishop Briggs, 30 — who embodied Medusa. Archuleta sang two songs before his identity was revealed, shedding some light on his vocal cord woes.

content creator Dylan Mulvaney.Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has been slammed with criticism after Mulvaney, 26, was gifted a personalized pack of beer with her face splashed across the cans for a March Madness campaign with the brand. The partnership came as the trans activist reached the milestone of her 365th day of transitioning.But as Bud Light customers trash their brews and the company’s sales plunge, celebrities, including Adzima, are championing the partnership.“The frenzy caused by such a simple act of marketing is disheartening and upsetting, to say the least,” Adzima told The Post.

the second-ever transgender model to do so.The publication is facing backlash from conservatives suggesting to boycott the publication for featuring a trans woman, though many people clapped right back at anti-transgender remarks.The artist was one of four women to appear alongside Megan Fox, Brooks Nader and Martha Stewart in the 2023 edition, and she opened up about the “pressure” she feels from being an icon in the LGBTQ+ community.“It’s definitely a scary time to be transgender in America, but there’s also so much more representation than there’s ever been, and there’s so many things on the bright side,” Petras, 30, told SI in her cover interview amid an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation popping up across the country.“I do feel a pressure sometimes to represent the trans community with everything I do,” the Grammy winner admitted. “Because I feel very blessed that I am at this point where I have all these amazing opportunities that I’ve worked really hard for, and feel so happy when I hear from trans people in general that they’re inspired by me.”Despite marking a win for the LGBTQ community, it sparked outrage against diverse representation from conservatives who were quick to compare the trans-inclusive cover to the widespread backlash Bud Light received after teaming up with transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney.“Except Kim Petras is not there because of her popularity with SI readership, but because SI editorial despises its readership, just as Bud Light management despises its customer base,” one Twitter user wrote in response to SI’s tweet about Petras’ cover.

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has been linked to neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, an incel, white supremacist and white Christian nationalist who promotes antisemitism, Holocaust denialism, racism, and misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ extremist beliefs.

if they had engaged in sex in the past three months. That change — necessitated by the need for plasma, especially from individuals who had been infected with but overcame COVID-19, as a treatment for infected individuals — replaced a longer 12-month deferral period for men who have sex with men, which was imposed in 2015, supplanting a lifetime ban on gay or bisexual male donors.In place of a categorical deferral, the FDA will instead institute a risk-based questionnaire asking the same questions of all donors, regardless of sexual orientation, biological sex, or gender identity.

Hayley Kiyoko has claimed that an “undercover cop” arrived at her Nashville tour stop to warn her about legal consequences that could arise if she were to have drag queens join her onstage. Kiyoko, 32, who identifies as lesbian, performed Monday at Marathon Music Works in Music City as part of “The Panorama Tour.”In an Instagram post on Tuesday, the “Girls Like Girls” singerclaimed she invited local drag queens LiberTea and Ivy St James to perform with her — but “local law enforcement” advised the performer not to, due to Tennessee’s proposed legislation that would ban drag performers in the presence of minors.

spread former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and participated in his illegitimate effort to stay in power after he lost to President Joe Biden. The group promotes false Christian nationalist history.FRC is intensely opposed to legal abortion and legal equality for LGBTQ people and portrays LGBTQ equality as a dire threat to religious liberty.At its 2021 Pray Vote Stand conference, George Barna told religious-right activists that it is parents’ responsibility to shape their children’s worldview.

The Corps follows the story of a gay teenager who has been bullied and decides to enlist in the U.S. Marines.The setting is 1990, a period when being gay in the military was a criminal offense, as underlined by “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”His straight best friend also signs on to serve in the Marines, and the two navigate through the challenges of basic training camp and their sexual identities in an era when things were not as good as they are now for many in the LGBTQ community.At present, Netlifx describes The Corps, which is a working title, as a dramedy, meaning it expects viewers to become emotionally invested and laugh.

pushing schools to adopt junk science painting transgender youth as carriers of a pathological disorder,” and files detailing methods to indoctrinate pre-teens into a culture of “sexual purity” and opposing same-sex relationships.The august-sounding American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The American Academy of Pediatrics is the highly-respected and largest group of pediatricians in America.

Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday declined to answer a question about his support for mainstream human rights when a reporter asked him about Republicans embracing “extreme” anti-gay politics.“There seems to be a wave of extreme conservatism recently that is totally anti-gay, as evident in social media and even in government with people like Congresswoman [Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene],” the reporter told the Florida governor.“Can you say here today you support more mainstream human rights, like gay marriage and sexual orientation of adults? Yes or no?” the reporter asked.“So there’s a lot in that I don’t know where you’re necessarily going,” DeSantis, seemingly thrown by the reporter’s very basic question, replied. “Like, look, what we’ve done with the schools is, is say, you know, it’s inappropriate to be having these students exposed to curriculum about things like transgender ideology, it’s wrong for teachers to probe their sexuality, but that’s just saying what’s appropriate for, uh, for education and we want to focus on the basics.

The Ultimatum: Queer Love, which takes the format and introduces some very important representation.In a refreshing departure from traditional cisgendered dating reality tropes, this forthcoming season is set to feature five couples from the LGBTQ community. Each couple will navigate the ups and downs of relationships, with brutal honesty, while hitting significant crossroads along the way.In the show, one partner in each couple will be ready for marriage, while the other may have doubts.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says that women who are stepmothers are not real mothers, because they are not a child’s “biological” parent.The Georgia Republican delivered that claim during a congressional hearing on Wednesday to a woman who happens to be the head of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, and who also happens to be a lesbian: Randi Weingarten.“Miss Weingarten,” Rep.

< 1 min read Flying in the face of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his “Don’t Say Gay” law, Disneyland Anaheim has announced that it will host its first-ever official Pride Nite. The after-hours ticketed event follows Disney’s public opposition to DeSantis and his anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Governor Ron DeSantis, though his Department of Education and its chair, Manny Diaz, has officially expanded his “Don’t Say Gay” law to include all public school grades, from kindergarten through 12th. DeSantis had promoted the highly-controversial and possibly unconstitutional law originally as applying only to children through third grade.“DeSantis has not commented on the proposal.

first state in the nation that effectively all but bans that medically-necessary and widely-approved care for both minors and adults.“Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced plans to restrict health care for transgender people weeks ago,” the Associated Press reported last week, “when protesters rallied at the Capitol to urge lawmakers to pass a law banning puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries for children. But the discussion was focused on minors, not adults.”The Attorney General’s spokeswoman, Madeline Sieren, “clarified in a statement later in the day that adults also would be covered” by his order.The New York Times this week cites Bailey’s “temporary order severely restricting gender-affirming care,” and observes: “this means gender-affirming medical care has been restricted by law or other means in 13 states, with another two under judicial review.”Bailey has been very vocal – and very partisan – about his targeting of one of the smallest and most vulnerable populations in his state.“There’s a woke left-wing ideology that’s masquerading as medicine,” Bailey told Fox News in March (video below), when he announced his emergency order putting in place heavy restrictions on gender-affirming care that all but ban treatment.

the Sunday Times. She was discussing her long career and the upcoming adaptation of her book, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,” starring Rachel McAdams. Reporter Hadley Freeman also asked Blume about fellow popular children’s book author J.K. Rowling, 57, who has become a controversial figure for her views on the transgender community, for which Rowling has received death threats.