PUBLISHED: 31 March 2026 LAST UPDATED: 31 March 2026
“Everyone is on high alert, constantly watching the sky with fright and exhaustion […] We also keep our eyes on our mobile phone connections — the moment the signal drops, we immediately take cover in underground shelters. We’ve come to understand that a loss of communication signals an impending airstrike.— Humanitarian aid worker on the internet shutdown that took place in Myanmar during air strikes near Tamu township in the Sagaing region.
The 2025 data and analysis confirm a horrific reality: internet shutdowns are increasing, not decreasing — and their impact on people’s lives is devastating. Shutdowns reached a new record high in the past year, continuing the steady increase since 2020. Our new report, Rising repression meets global resistance: Internet shutdowns in 2025, documents how democratic and autocratic governments alike deploy them to silence, collectively punish, and terrorize populations, as well as to hide human rights violations and killings. At the same time, we highlight how resistance is growing and people’s power is rising, and offer recommendations for stakeholders to push back. From Myanmar to Iran, Tanzania to Nepal, communities are challenging repression, demanding accountability, and devising new ways to reconnect during blackouts.
In 2025, Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented 313 shutdowns in 52 countries, surpassing the appalling records from 2024 (304) and 2023 (289). Seven new countries joined the offender list in 2025, meaning that people in 100 countries have now experienced a shutdown since we started tracking in 2016. As 2026 began, there were 75 shutdowns in 33 countries that persisted from 2025, a significant increase from the 54 shutdowns in 26 countries that were ongoing from 2024 into 2025. This shows that perpetrators are increasingly attempting to permanently block communications platforms or even keep entire populations cut off from the internet indefinitely.
If you can’t see the highlights below, please check your privacy-enhancing browser extensions. Open in desktop view for the best experience.
(snip-go see. The site is Access Now, it’s safe, the subject of this story (internet access) is its specialty, and my Ad Blocker even shows no blocked ads on the page! Go finish reading this, because forewarned should be forearmed, as to organizing locally.)
On March 31, the Supreme Court sided with a Christian therapist in Colorado and tossed out the state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The therapist, Kaley Chiles, challenged the state’s ban on the grounds that it violated her First Amendment rights. The Court agreed with Chiles by an 8-to-1 vote.
Conversion therapy is a practice that generally involves treatment intended to “cure” same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Every major medical study has determined that conversion therapy does not work and often leads to serious mental health problems for patients who are subjected to it. Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez knows that from personal experience.
Rodriguez is the author of Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging, which will be released on May 5. The memoir unpacks the eight years Rodriguez spent in conversion therapy, struggling to reconcile the tension between the version of Christianity he had been taught growing up and his sexual identity. For Rodriguez, the path to healing began when he accepted that there was no tension.
Rodriguez told Sojourners the Supreme Court’s decision is deeply personal and painful, and he hopes that his story will both help LGBTQ+ Christians feel a little less alone and help convince non-affirming Christians to rethink their convictions.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Tyler Huckabee, Sojourners: When critics talk about the harm that conversion therapy can cause, particularly for minors, what sort of harm are we talking about?
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez: Where to begin? There’s documented research to show that anyone who experiences conversion therapy, especially as a minor, is subject to higher rates of depression and anxiety. The suicidal ideation rate nearly doubles for LGBTQ+ youth who have experienced conversion therapy, and then the long-term effect of it tends to show up in the inability to create lasting relationships, substance abuse, all those kinds of things. It’s a very devastating practice in the sense that it attacks body, mind, and spirit. When all three of those parts of yourself have been attacked, disengaging from the harm that that causes takes a lot of time and a lot of real therapy. But a lot of folks who have experienced conversion practices are untrusting of therapeutic spaces.
What arguments did conversion therapy advocates use that convinced the Supreme Court to side with them?
They were able to successfully reduce the idea of what the role of a therapist in a therapeutic setting is: that it’s just a space for conversation, that this is a free speech zone, that this is a space where we should all be allowed to say what we believe. Really, it shifted the definition of what happens in therapists’ office from approved therapeutic practices, to saying, “Well, actually, if a therapist has a different viewpoint, they should be allowed, with their First Amendment right and religious freedom, to be able to interject their own thoughts and go against what has been the conventional therapeutic practices.”
Tell me about your experience with this practice. You call yourself a conversion therapy dropout.
Yeah, I grew up in an evangelical Christian home in Illinois and was insulated in the evangelical Christian culture of the late 1990s and 2000s. Not much was said about homosexuality, but everything around me led me to believe that to be anything but straight was a problem.
So, when I was 19-years-old, I finally admitted for the first time that I was “struggling with same sex attraction,” as I called it back then. I was working at a church in Washington state and was dismissed on the spot for even admitting that it was a struggle that I had. I was told that I was broken and that there was no place for people like me in churches.
I was 19.
No one forced me in [to conversion therapy]. I opted myself in because I thought that was the only option someone like me had to maintain my relationship with God, my family, my community, the church.
I first was involved with the organization under the umbrella of Exodus International. It was an online forum that existed for folks who didn’t have access to a local ministry in their area. I was a part of that for about a year. I did talk therapy with a therapist for eight years, and then when I moved to Chicago and had access to in-person ministries, I started going to in-person support groups. And then all throughout that, I also attended an annual conference put on by Exodus that was their flagship event. It took a lot of different forms over eight years. It was a wild journey.
When somebody like me hears about conversion therapy, we assume a lot of Jigsaw-type Saw torture traps with gay people being violently forced to recant their sexuality. But in reading your book, you describe it as a process that can be deceptively gentle and cloaked in the language of love and acceptance. You even found some community there.
The experiences that people see portrayed in movies or documentaries—just the lore of conversion therapy—those do exist. But when I encountered conversion therapy, it was much more insidious. I was in talk therapy. I thought I was talking to someone who was trying to help me process my past, but all the information that I gave my therapist was weaponized against me and used as proof as to why I was struggling with what I was struggling with.
And so, from that side, you know, I was trained to moderate myself, to police my mannerisms, to change my behaviors, to change my interests, to try to be more like a man, all those kinds of things. And then there was a spiritual component to it: Pray, seek God, do what all good Christians are supposed to do.
And there was a community component to it. I think it was probably the thing that I’m most grateful for that I got out of it, but also the most dangerous. Most of us were on our own little islands and had no one around us who knew what we were going through. And when we’d go to these groups or go to these events, we’d be around hundreds or thousands of people who were facing the same struggle. There was a camaraderie in the community that formed. Most of us didn’t realize it then, but that was the first time we were ever really, truly experiencing queer community and what it was like to be around others who are like us. Even though we were trying to do all we could to not be ourselves, there was still that underlying connection that bonded us all together. As harmful as all of it was, some of the closest friends that I have in my life today are people that I met in conversion therapy. We were in the trenches together.
But there was an underlying sense throughout all of it that I didn’t measure up, that something was wrong with me because I wasn’t experiencing the change that other people experienced. They were really good in those settings at bringing people out to share their testimonies: “Hey, I went from darkness to light, and here’s my wife and kids! God really can work miracles!” There was this whole system of shame, self-hatred, and self-doubt. But on the surface, it was hard to see that at first.
What was your breaking point with this process?
After eight years, I had done everything. I followed the rule book, and I was also working in evangelical Christian megachurches. I was becoming a rising star in that space for helping churches understand digital marketing and communication. The whole time, I never questioned the program. I was always taught to question myself. If there was something that I wasn’t experiencing, it wasn’t because the program was wrong; it was that there was something in me that wasn’t adding up.
So that was just this constant state of depression and anxiety and fear and all those things raging. I started drinking a lot. I was just a shell of a person. I threw myself into my work, and thought maybe if I just work hard enough, God will finally do the work that I wanted God to do in me.
I was at a big Christian conference—Catalyst—and there was a pastor speaking there, talking about how we needed to fight against gay marriage, that we needed real men, no more sissies, that we needed to fight the gay agenda. And I watched this whole stadium of people erupt and stand on their feet and cheer, knowing that they were talking about me. That led me to have a nervous breakdown.
It just came to a point where I thought I would rather end my life than keep going. But thankfully, I chose to end the way I had been living my life and decided to figure out how I could integrate my faith and sexuality, quit conversion therapy, and figure out what it could look like to become a gay Christian.
There were—especially during the late 2010s—not a lot of openly gay Christian blueprints to follow. Today, many parts of the church obviously remain very hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, and that feeling is often understandably reciprocated. What’s it like having a foot in both worlds?
It’s the weird experience that we carry. I understand why queer people leave the church when they come out, because they’ve been told their whole lives by this particular religious community that they’re broken, that God doesn’t love them, that there’s not a place for them. Why would you want to stay there?
Thankfully, right after I dropped out of conversion therapy, I was connected with Q Christian Fellowship—it was called the Gay Christian Network back then—but it’s one of the leading organizations that’s working with queer Christians to help them reconcile their faith and sexuality.
I went to one of those conferences in 2010, and it was such a weird experience, because it felt just like Exodus or any of the other conferences I had gone to, except it was OK for me to have a crush on other attendees and admit it [laughs].
It just exposed me to a whole new way of reading the Bible, understanding what scripture says, and just seeing other folks who were still engaged with their faith. It gave me the hope and courage that I could find affirming spaces where I could be loved and accepted just as I was as a gay man.
So, given all of that, tell me about how it feels to see this ruling come from the Supreme Court, largely on the pretext of religious freedom. I imagine this feels like the war that you experienced within yourself for so long made manifest in the legal system.
It’s disheartening, but it’s not surprising. As long as the church continues to other people and to draw lines around who is accepted, this will, sadly, be a fight we’ll have. I am grateful, though, for the churches that have made room at the table for queer people and that have courageously gone against the conventional wisdom.
But the Christian nationalism that we’re experiencing today is emboldening people to do a lot of horrible things in God’s name. I think people like me are very frustrating to them, because it would be a lot easier for their narrative if I were a person who had been in the church and left it because now I’m gay and hate the church.
But there’s a growing number of us where that’s not the case. We still love God. My relationship with God is stronger today than it ever was when I was in conversion therapy. I’m being fully honest with who I am and who God created me to be.
I hate that my story and my book are very relevant right now, but I’m grateful too. I didn’t have those mentors or those people or that guidebook to follow when I was on this journey early on. I can hopefully help others like myself—that younger version of myself—to know that you know who they are, loved just as they are.
For any queer people reading this—maybe they’re out, maybe they’re not—who are scared or alone, what would your message be?
Take care of yourselves, keep your chosen family close. There are affirming church communities out there. Church Clarity is a great resource that can help you connect with those if you feel like you need that kind of support.
But church can be complicated. Tony Campolo said at that Q Christian conference I went to that the church may be a whore, but she’s your mother. And so remember that what the church did to you is not how God feels about you, and it’s not the truth. Remember that God is love, and God loves you just as you are.
And for folks who have experienced conversion therapy, this is a time for all of us to be emboldened to share our stories. Our lived experience is the thing that can counter all the narratives that are out there now. We can bring a human face and voice to what this decision means, and hopefully, our experience can help the next generation.
I get the sense that there are a lot of Christians who, inside, wish they could be affirming, but don’t feel like they can, maybe because of their jobs, or their community, or just because they feel that the Bible doesn’t allow them to be. That’s a place I know that you yourself were in for quite a while as well. What would you say to them?
Listen to our stories. Talk to queer Christians who have walked this path. Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian is an excellent starting point just to understand how you can start to look at scripture in a different way and examine all the things that were shoved down all our throats about how we were taught to believe.
Also, look at churches that are affirming and learn from them. See what they’re doing and how they’ve chosen to read scripture and care for and love people.
I didn’t know that affirming denominations existed. I mean, I knew that they did in the ether, but it was a foreign world to me. And I think one of the challenges, particularly for those churches now, is to really become bold in their stance and in how they are speaking about these issues. It is a life-or-death issue, and I think many mainline denominations that have historically been affirming can tend to rest on their laurels. You just start thinking: “Hey, we’ve got this. We’re good. Everyone’s welcome.” But someone like me, who’d never set foot in a church like that, doesn’t even know how to even begin to navigate that space. We see your rainbow flags. We see the “All Are Welcome” signs. But I think that we need some love and coaxing in, just because it feels like we’re crossing an enemy line going into those churches. It felt that way for me at first.
I think the article is self explaintary and clear. The hate directed against the LGBTQ+ seems irrational and immoral. Why is it immoral if it is being done by religious groups? Because they have no qualms about lying, giving false and misleading information, and forcing their church doctrines on others who don’t agree with those doctrines. Below are just a few quotes from the article. The last one from florida would make pointing out the truth about how a person is acting or speaking illegal, but doing the racist bigoted stuff would stay legal. Hugs
Anti-trans bathroom bans made a comeback, with four passed in Alabama, Idaho, Ohio and South Carolina.
Policy changes enacted barriers to gender markers and name changes for IDs/personal documents in Arkansas and Florida.
Florida introduced a bill that limited free speech, making public accusations, whether true or false, of a person being homophobic, transphobic, racist or sexist equivalent to defamation and punishable by fine. The bill did not pass.
A central theme of anti-LGBTQ+ organizing and ideology is the opposition to LGBTQ+ rights or support of homophobia, heterosexism and/or cisnormativity, often expressed through demonizing rhetoric and grounded in harmful pseudoscience that portrays LGBTQ+ people as threats to children, society and often public health.
Top Takeaways
In 2024, the number of anti-LGBTQ+ groups increased by about 13% from the previous year. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups maintained a trend in heavy mobilization across multiple strategies with increasing political and financial support from the hard right.
Anti-trans narratives were instrumental to the 2024 election at all levels of government, especially at the local level where anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-inclusive education activism continue to heavily overlap. The politicization of gender-affirming health care and LGBTQ+-inclusive school curricula contributed to what has been characterized as the “most Anti-LGBTQ election in decades.” Republicans spent almost $215 Million on TV ads to smear trans people, surpassing ads on rival issues such as economy, immigration and housing. Another wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation broke records at state and federal levels, but such bills were not as nearly as successful as last year.
Anti-LGBTQ+ groups are heavily invested in the courts and pushing policy change by judicial decision. Hard right and anti-LGBTQ+ extremists on social media continue their campaign to “make pride toxic” by targeting inclusive business and marketing practices while anti-LGBTQ+ legal groups take up administrative law and lobbying strategies to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in the public and private sectors under the guise of “viewpoint diversity” and “religious freedom” advocacy.
Key Moments
Throughout the state legislative sessions, anti-LGBTQ+ movement organizations continued their facilitation of a decades long effort to foment anti-trans moral panic in public discourse. Legislative assaults broke records for the fifth consecutive year, albeit with fewer successes.
Several factors slowed the trend, including coordinated community responses and reporting, such as the SPLC’s Project CAPTAIN, on the networks that perpetuate anti-LGBTQ+ talking points and legislation. Legislation trends of concern include:
A Florida bill promoted insurance coverage conversion therapy for detransition. The bill passed the House, but died in the Senate.
Anti-trans bathroom bans made a comeback, with four passed in Alabama, Idaho, Ohio and South Carolina.
Policy changes enacted barriers to gender markers and name changes for IDs/personal documents in Arkansas and Florida.
Florida introduced a bill that limited free speech, making public accusations, whether true or false, of a person being homophobic, transphobic, racist or sexist equivalent to defamation and punishable by fine. The bill did not pass.
In February 2024, anti-trans influencers spun a disinformation campaign to exploit the tragic shooting at Lakewood Church in Houston by alleging the shooter was trans. Hard-right social media influencers, equipped with talking points that help fuel gun purchases, used this and other mass shootings in 2024 to perpetuate anti-immigrant and anti-trans conspiracy theories. Despite claiming anti-trans activism helps “protect children,” the SPLC reported that in the wake of mass shootings, anti-trans extremists divert attention from meaningful reforms to prevent gun violence, which is the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
In response to online campaigns by hard-right social media personalities, many major brands scaled back Pride merchandise in 2024. Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) reported anti-LGBTQ+ protests at Pride events decreased in 2024; however, GLAAD documented 110 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents during June 2024. In addition, the SPLC monitored at least 74 bomb threats targeting LGBTQ people and events between January 1 and June 30, 2024.
The Colorado Republican Party posted “Burn all the #pride flags this June” and shared a video clip titled “God Hate F__s.” There was no shortage of vandalism: In Poulsbo, Washington, 14 Pride banners were slashed, and over 200 pride flags were stolen from the town center in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Throughout June, SPLC tracked dozens of protests, bomb threats and harassment campaigns directed at civil society groups like Pride committees and LGBTQ+-inclusive religious congregations. Hate groups including MassResistance, Gays Against Groomers, Protect Texas Kids, White Lives Matter, and Aryan Freedom Network were active at Pride events in June 2024.
In July and August 2024, anti-trans influencers manufactured controversy over the gender identity of Olympic athletes Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting. This anti-trans controversy exclusively targeted Taiwanese and Algerian athletes, scrutinizing the legitimacy of their womanhood. The crux of arguments made by the anti-trans actors re-animated misogynoir stereotypes to exclude women of color from being considered women based on white Eurocentric beauty standards of femininity. The series of events suggests eugenics and racism underlie transphobia and exhibited how anti-trans hysteria disproportionately impacts women of color on an international scale.
In September 2024, the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Family Research Council held its annual Pray Vote Stand conference. FRC hosted a variety of anti-immigrant commentary ranging from Katy Faust, president of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Them Before Us, urging attendees to “breed out” immigrants and trans people. At the conference, Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction Ryan Walters alleged illegal immigrants were bringing fentanyl into schools; and the summit featured population control myths espoused by both anti-abortion and anti-vax panelists. FRC devoted multiple plenary sessions to anti-trans, anti-abortion and anti-immigrant coded topics.
The election of the first trans member of congress, Sarah McBride, was immediately met with a trans bathroom ban on all restrooms on the House side of the Capitol complex. The resolution was introduced by Nancy Mace and supported by House Speaker and former Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Mike Johnson. Mace posted anti-trans slurs on X following a bathroom sit-in at the Capitol in protest of the bathroom ban. The protesters were arrested and taken to the Capitol Police station; Mace then posted a video showing her outside the stations saying, “Some tr——s got arrested protesting my ban.” She then began reading them their Miranda rights along with demeaning commentary about the protesters.
States will continue to be labs for experimenting with anti-LGBTQ+ public policy. The legislative early filing period in Texas shows 32 anti-trans bills already filed for the 2025 legislative session. This year will show a continued pressure on erasing trans people from public life. With Donald Trump’s re-election, federal civil rights enforcement litigation will likely swing against LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Authors of Project 2025 are being tapped as cabinet picks for the second Trump administration. Project 2025 is an authoritarian and theocratic road map, and anti-trans scapegoating makes up key policy recommendations.
Background
Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in the United States oppose LGBTQ+ rights but also generally support heterosexism, an ideology that assumes heterosexuality is the only “normal” sexuality, and/or cisnormativity, an ideology that assumes one’s gender identity always matches the sex one was assigned at birth. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups primarily consist of Christian Right groups but also include such organizations as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) that purport to be scientific. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups in America have employed a variety of strategies in their efforts to oppose LGBTQ+ rights or support heterosexism and/or cisnormativity, including engaging in the crudest type of name-calling.
Anti-LGBTQ+ groups on the SPLC hate list often link being LGBTQ+ inherently to criminal behavior; claim that the marriage equality and LGBTQ+ people in general are dangers to children and families; contend that being LGBTQ+ itself is dangerous and support the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people and transgender identity. These groups also believe in a false conspiracy that LGBTQ+ people seek to destroy Christianity and the whole of society. More recently, hard-line anti-LGBTQ+ groups have promoted their discriminatory laws and policies that limit the rights of LGBTQ people under the guise of religion, blurring the lines between the separation of church and state and discarding anti-discrimination civil rights policies. These same groups have promoted legislative models to push anti-trans legislation into law under a conservative religious assumption that gender can only be understood as either “male” or “female.”
Many leaders and spokespeople of SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ groups have used degrading and derogatory language to describe LGBTQ+ people. Others disseminate disparaging information about LGBTQ+ people that are simply untrue – an approach no different from how white supremacists and nativist extremists propagate lies about African American people and immigrants to make these communities seem like a danger to society. Viewing LGBTQ+ people as unbiblical or simply opposing marriage equality does not qualify an organization to be listed as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.
2024 Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Groups
* – Asterisk denotes headquarters.
Abiding Word Baptist Church, Revival Baptist Church
Orange Park, Florida
Advocates Protecting Children
Arlington, Virginia
Alliance Defending Freedom
Scottsdale, Arizona
American College of Pediatricians
Gainesville, Florida
American Family Association
Indianapolis, Indiana
Tupelo, Mississippi *
Franklin, Pennsylvania
American Vision
Powder Springs, Georgia
Americans for Truth About Homosexuality
Columbus, Ohio
ATLAH Media Network
New York, New York
California Family Council
Fresno, California
The Campus Ministry USA
Terre Haute, Indiana
Center for Christian Virtue
Columbus, Ohio
Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM)
New York, New York*
Washington, D.C.
Chalcedon Foundation
Vallecito, California
Child and Parental Rights Campaign
Johns Creek, Georgia
Church Militant/St. Michael’s Media
Ferndale, Michigan
Concerned Christian Citizens
Temple, Texas
D. James Kennedy Ministries
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Do No Harm
Glen Allen, Virginia
Faith2Action
North Royalton, Ohio
Faithful Word Baptist Church
Tempe, Arizona
Straight Paths Baptist Church
Tucson, Arizona
Family Action Council of Tennessee
Franklin, Tennessee
The Family Foundation of Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Family Policy Alliance
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Family Research Council
Washington, D.C.
Family Research Institute
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Family Watch International
Gilbert, Arizona
First Works Baptist Church
Anaheim, California
Florida Family Voice
Orlando, Florida
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Frontline Policy Council
Atlanta, Georgia
Gays Against Groomers
Fountain Hills, Arizona
California
Georgia
Kansas City, Missouri
Monroe, North Carolina
Vancouver, Washington
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*
Generations
Elizabeth, Colorado
Genspect
Chicago, Illinois
Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment (H.O.M.E.)
Downers Grove, Illinois
Illinois Family Institute
Tinley Park, Illinois
Liberty Baptist Church
Rock Falls, Illinois
Liberty Counsel
Orlando, Florida
Louisiana Family Forum
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
MassResistance
Torrance, California
Pocatello, Idaho
Idaho
Waltham, Massachusetts*
New Jersey
Fort Worth, Texas
Houston, Texas
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Gilette, Wyoming
Lander, Wyoming
Massachusetts Family Institute
Wakefield, Massachusetts
Mission: America
Columbus, Ohio
Montana Family Foundation
Laurel, Montana
Pacific Justice Institute
Sacramento, California
Santa Ana, California
Miami, Florida
Mississippi
Reno, Nevada
Salem, Oregon
Seattle, Washington
Partners for Ethical Care
Chicago, Illinois
Pass the Salt Ministries
Hebron, Ohio
Pennsylvania Family Institute
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Pilgrims Covenant Church
Monroe, Wisconsin
The Pray In Jesus Name Project
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Probe Ministries
Plano, Texas
Public Advocate of the United States
Merrifield, Virginia
Revival Baptist Church
Clermont, Florida
Ruth Institute
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Save California
Sacramento, California
Scott Lively Ministries
Springfield, Massachusetts
Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine
Twin Falls, Idaho
Stedfast Baptist Church
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Cedar Hills, Texas *
Strong Hold Baptist Church
Norcross, Georgia
Sure Foundation Baptist Church
Indianapolis, Indiana
Vancouver, Washington*
Seattle, Washington
Spokane Valley, Washington
Them Before Us
Seattle, Washington
Tom Brown Ministries
El Paso, Texas
True Light Pentecost Church
Spartanburg, South Carolina
United Families International
Gilbert, Arizona
Verity Baptist Church
Sacramento, California
Warriors for Christ
Mount Juliet, Tennessee
Westboro Baptist Church
Topeka, Kansas
World Congress of Families/International Organization for the Family
Rockford, Illinois
Every litter bit helps, as was sung on TV when I was a child. Here is a thing that might be done these days, or we can share it and that will still help. Earth is our only home (no matter where our legislators tend to spend their time…)
Earth Month Ecochallenge, running from April 1st to April 30th, is a 30-day program focused on environmental and social engagement. During this month, you’re invited to select actions that resonate with your values, committing to them for 30 days to foster and reinforce positive habits. Each action you complete earns points and generates real-world impact. Your efforts, combined with those of your team, contribute to a significant collective difference.
This year’s theme, People and Planet: Resilient Together, focuses on resilience: the capacity to adapt, recover, and grow stronger through change. Resilience lives in people, in communities, and in the natural systems that sustain us. In a world shaped by uncertainty, it helps us stay grounded, connected, and capable of creating positive change. Our new actions and categories will help you explore resilience at many levels – personal, in your community, in the organizations you are part of, and in nature. (snip)
House Resolution 7661 is a potentially significant piece of book ban legislation. Here’s what you need to know about it.
On March 17, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced H.R. 7661. There is no word regarding when the bill will be voted on, but the vote is expected to occur sometime in the coming weeks. While that bill number may not sound familiar, there’s a good chance you have recently heard it referred to as the National Book Ban Bill.
Though that title is not formally associated with the proposed resolution, it does speak to the concerns many have regarding the bill’s language, intentions, and potential long-term impact. While it can understandably feel overwhelming to keep up with every potentially impactful piece of legislation in the modern United States government, the details of H. R. 7661 (including those not printed, which only exist between the lines) make it worth knowing about for anyone who opposes the growing trend of book bans and public education funding.
What is H. R. 7661, or the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act?
Formally, what is sometimes referred to as the National Book Ban Bill is being presented as H.R. 7661 or the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act.” You can read that act here. It has also been referred to as the “National Don’t Say Gay bill,” a reference to a 2022 statute that triggered significant school policy changes, including legislation that restricted public schools from introducing material in kindergarten through 3rd-grade classrooms that was deemed to be related to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity. The law also included requirements specific to students in higher grades and age ranges.
A sweeping initiative, the Don’t Say Gay bill (formally referred to as the “Parental Rights in Education” bill) established several education restrictions regarding both curricula and school policies that could be enforced via various means (including potential legal action). It required schools to inform parents if their children received any mental health services at school, it allowed parents to have greater access to formerly private documents related to their kids, and it enacted a series of moderation policies that effectively enabled legislators to have greater control over what is (and isn’t) taught to students in those age ranges via funding decisions and similar policies. Said policies included book bans, which are also at the heart of H.R. 7661’s many potential effects.
The Main Provisions of H. R. 7661
The primary purpose of H. R. 7661 is to enable the U.S. government to deny federal funding to schools that use those funds for programs and materials the bill deems to be inappropriate.
The bill is effectively an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The act was designed to provide expanded federal funding to public schools to ensure that their students (more specifically, public school students in lower-income areas) didn’t continue to fall far behind students at schools with access to more resources. It was a milestone piece of legislation that remains one of the cornerstones for federal public school funding in the United States to this day.
While H. R. 7661 would not eliminate that act, it would, in the bill’s own language, “prohibit the use of funds provided under such Act to develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material, and for other purposes.”
The broad nature of that language is one of the more controversial aspects of the bill. For instance, it would deny schools the ability to use federal funding for programs, literature, and related texts that include “sexually oriented material” and “material that exposes such children to nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing.” H. R. 7661 also includes exemptions for scientific texts, works related to major religions, as well as “classic works of literature” and “classic works of art” (more on those in a bit) that may naturally include references to the content it intends to restrict. Furthermore, the authors of the bill note that “sexually oriented material” includes “any depiction, description, or simulation of sexually explicit conduct (as defined in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of section 2256(2) of title 18, United States Code).” You can read those United States Code subparagraphs here. They largely reference material such as “bestiality” and “sadistic or masochistic abuse” but also include the far more general idea of “sexual intercourse… whether between persons of the same or opposite sex” as sexually explicit content. It is a rather large collection of topics which could potentially fall under that umbrella definition.
However, H. R. 7661 would expand the definition of “sexually oriented material” to include material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” Along with suggesting that matters of identity should be considered a sexually obscene topic, the inclusion of that language has significant legal implications. That choice of wording makes it clear that this bill will most directly and immediately affect transgender students, transgender-related materials, and it could be argued, gender non-conformity topics in general, which may include discussions of specifically prohibited subjects in affected schools.
What’s important to remember is that the bill specifies works that will be excluded, but it is more vague regarding what, exactly, could be impacted. It could, for instance, be determined that a variety of LGBTQIA+ books that make passing reference (or even perceived passing references) to such materials could also be effectively banned from federally funded schools. The policies for such determinations and review procedures are not set. It should also be noted that the use of “sexually oriented material” and similar pieces of broad language have often been contested as the basis for similar pieces of legislation (more on those below).
There are undoubtedly concerns regarding the direct targeting of students and materials that would be most obviously impacted by the “gender dysphoria or transgenderism” language. The reason that this is being referred to as a “National Book Ban Bill,” though, is due to both the bill’s relationship with current federal funding policies (and thus its potential reach) and the ways that its language could be used to legally justify a variety of bans or create a precedent for similarly sweeping bills.
It’s a familiar question in time travel narratives: If you could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler, would you? Sometimes, of course, there are time travel rules in place that prevent such interference; for instance, in About Time (2013) time travelers can only go back to moments in their own pasts. But there are plenty of other stories where the opportunity does present itself (although not everyone is able to follow through with it, including antihero Deadpool).
While the basic premise—removing Hitler from existence in some way (often as a baby, or before he can be born)—is sometimes only briefly touched on in time travel narratives, there are a number of stories that explore the problems and ramifications of such an action in a bit more depth. Here are five short stories (well, four stories and one comic, which is arguably a short story with art) that do just that.
Just a few years into World War II—before America had even joined the fight—Ralph Milne Farley wrote the earliest known story about using time travel to kill Hitler. The unnamed main character is one of the Nazi leader’s distant cousins but he lives half a world away in Massachusetts. He’s deeply unhappy about Hitler’s warmongering—partly because the genocidal leader’s actions are unequivocally wrong, but also partly (and honestly… largely) because being drafted into the war is going to interfere with our narrator’s painting career.
After complaining to a friend about all the Allies who haven’t taken the chance to assassinate Hitler during their face-to-face meetings, our protagonist gets the chance to go back in time and murder the Führer while he’s still a young boy. Although the outcome is now a fairly basic rendition of the theme, this story remains notable for being the first take on the idea.
Set in a world where being a killer-for-hire is a legitimate profession, this comic book sees our protagonist, an anthropomorphic dog who is once again unnamed, take on an unusual job: killing Hitler. The time machine that sends him back only has enough energy for one round trip every 50 years, so it’s crucial that he doesn’t mess it up—which, of course, he does. Not only does he fail to kill Hitler, but the Führer uses the time machine’s one ride back to the present and then promptly blends in with modern society.
Our hitman still needs to finish the job, though, and now he’s tasked with tracking down the Nazi leader, in spite of the fact that he’s much older once he’s caught up to his target (because, after being stranded in the past, he had to live through the years to get back to the present). He decides to enlist the help of his (now much younger) ex-girlfriend and the journey they go on together is filled with both dry humor and unexpectedly tender moments. Sure, their goal might be murder, but there’s still room for touching character growth along the way…
Written in the second person, this short story sees you sampling a technology called Multiversity™, which is essentially Google Search for the multiverse. You enter “THE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER”—one of the most popular searches—and are shown eight sample realities based on the various ways that Hitler has died in alternate histories. This story is short and sweet, with only a few sentences outlining each scenario (although you’re informed that you can get a more detailed breakdown for the low, low price of $59.95!).
The hilarious scenarios become increasingly unhinged (and one does explicitly feature time travel!), but because there are only eight I don’t want to spoil any of them by going into too much detail, here. What I will say is that I would absolutely pay to find out more about the squids in Scenario #8…
This short story served as the basis for the “Alternate Histories” episode in the first season of Love, Death & Robots—so if this concept seems familiar to you, that might be why.
“Wikihistory” is written entirely as a series of online forum posts from members of the International Association of Time Travelers. The first post in the story comes from FreedomFighter69, a new member of the IATT who is celebrating their first excursion: going to the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games to kill Hitler. SilverFox316 is none too impressed with this move and a few minutes later posts to say that they’ve successfully gone back and stopped FreedomFighter69. Much to the frustration of SilverFox316, new members continue making this same mistake (which could be avoided if they’d simply read Bulletin 1147 as they’ve been repeatedly asked to do!).
The forum format is inventive, the time travel plot is chaotically fun, and the bickering dynamic between the posters feels hilariously true to life.
This is another short story written in the second person; this time you’re a member of a small group of anti-fascists intent on using a time travel rig to kill baby Hitler. Umeko volunteers for the gruesome mission and when she returns, she’s confident that she got the job done. But then she learns that history hasn’t changed, which makes no sense because she’s certain that she beheaded baby Hitler.
While the group squabble over this unexpected result, you as the protagonist take the opportunity to slip into the rig and go back to 1890 to figure out what went wrong with the original mission. You get your answer, but unfortunately both time travel and group projects are a very messy business, so combining the two isn’t exactly a recipe for success.
Although using time travel to put an end to Hitler and his rise to power is a fairly well-trodden trope at this point, hopefully this list has proven that there are still plenty of creative ways to tell this kind of story. I’d love to hear if you have any particularly intriguing, thoughtful, and/or original stories that riff on this theme, regardless of format!
Last April, the president unleashed a tidal wave of tariffs on ‘liberation day’. Analysts say the policy has failed, even by the Trump administration’s own terms
Before Donald Trump declared “liberation day” on 2 April 2025 and shocked the world by raising import tariffs on nearly every country the US did business with, he had spent almost three months causing chaos in Washington.
The wholesale slashing of government jobs under Doge (the “department of government efficiency”) and the defunding of US aid agencies had shown White House watchers that the US president was in a hurry to upset institutions he considered profligate or useless.
Investors quickly understood that chaos was an essential tool in Trump’s armoury. Almost as soon as he was inaugurated, there was a steady decline in the value of the dollar against other currencies. Investors sold assets denominated in dollars and bought assets elsewhere: Europe, Asia, South America.
“If you think that discouraging investors from buying assets in the US is a victory, then you don’t believe in a growing economy,” said Dario Perkins, the head of global research at the consultancy TS Lombard. “If it was possible for Trump to have spent the last 14 months on the golf course, we would be in a better place.”
Russ Mould, the investment director of the British stockbroker AJ Bell, said: “America is still home to the world’s largest economy and its reserve currency, as well as the globe’s largest equity and bond markets, but investors continue to reassess their exposure one year on from liberation day.”
The economy has either gone sideways or declined, depending on the preferred measure. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that US companies, which were supposed to be the victors in Trump’s new tariff war, stopped hiring almost as soon as liberation day was announced.
Significant revisions in February to data covering 2025 pushed down payroll employment by 403,000 jobs, resulting in the addition of 181,000 jobs last year. This small boost is set against the 163 million people who are employed in the US.
Figures from the Conference Board, a US thinktank, show consumer confidence sliding after Trump took office. A brief recovery appears to coincide with a huge climbdown on 12 May – the day the US and China agreed to defuse their post-liberation day tariff escalation.
Lots of awareness items for this month! Of course, one designation I’m fully aware of is for Autism, another for Earth Day/Month. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed thinking of blogging these things, which are pertinent to our interests, then thought, well, I don’t want to omit anything. So, I did a search, and holy cow. There are a lot! Below see some; click through to see them all. I ain’t bloggin’ everything, but I love NATIONAL MONTH OF HOPE – April Founded in 2018 by National Day Calendar® and Mothers In Crisis, Inc., so I’ll try to include it this month.
I am unable to figure out if the Florida Real ID driver’s license that the state forced everyone to get a bunch of years ago. I remember having to go to the driver’s license place with a folder of information including utility bills in my name and with my birth certificate and my marriage license. It was touted as the “Real Id” that was the only one we would need. It was OK even for flying. When I told Ron about this he was adamant that after his surgery we get me a passport no matter the cost. I explained that we both should have them in case our same sex marriage gets invalidated. We have one out that I am sure my abusive adoptive parents did not plan to give me. They were Canadian citizens here on green cards and my birth certificate shows me as their kid, something I have always hated. Current Canadian laws let me apply to Canada for asylum or simply to immigrate with my spouse. But it clearly shows this is an attempt to restrict those who have the right to vote to do so. Hugs
The law’s requirements for proof of citizenship to register to vote and stricter voter ID rules won’t take effect until next year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that is akin to President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act at the national level.Matias J. Ocner / Miami Herald via Getty Images file
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Wednesday that will require proof of citizenship to vote and impose stricter voter ID restrictions on Floridians.
The new law, most of which won’t take effect until after the midterm elections, is Florida’s version of the federal SAVE America Act, a bill President Donald Trump has championed. That measure is currently stalled in the U.S. Senate, where it lacks the 60 votes needed to advance under current rules.
“This bill protects and expands integrity in our voter registration process,” DeSantis said. “Our Constitution in the state of Florida says only American citizens are allowed to vote in our elections, so we need to make sure that is the law.”
Democrats and voting rights advocates warn Florida’s law will disenfranchise eligible voters who lack ready access to the documents that are needed to vote.
Already, the League of Women Voters of Florida and a coalition of advocacy groups, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, have filed a federal lawsuit to block the law.
“We are most concerned about impact as it relates to the most vulnerable Florida voters,” said Jonathan Topaz, attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This could mean older Black voters who grew up in Jim Crow South who don’t have access to birth certificates, this could be naturalized citizens — we know naturalized citizens are flagged as noncitizens all the time.”
Voters who were born in Puerto Rico, have changed their name or have lost documents may struggle to meet the requirements of the new law, he said.
Supporters of the legislation note that millions of Floridians have already shown government officials their passports or birth certificates when obtaining a REAL ID. They also argue the law is necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite little evidence of it occurring.
More than 9% of American citizens of voting age do not have proof of citizenship documents readily available, according to a study commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice. Based on that metric, advocates fear that more than 1 million Floridians could struggle to cast a ballot starting next year, when the law will be fully implemented.
Other states have tried to impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements in the past, but courts have ruled they violate federal law. To comply with one such ruling, Arizona now has a bifurcated election system that allows those who haven’t proved their citizenship to only vote in federal elections.
The system offers a window into the kinds of people who do not have access to the documents required by proof of citizenship laws. In Arizona, they are disproportionately voters of color and younger voters, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center. Votebeat reported that Arizonans who are only eligible to vote in federal elections often live around college campuses, suggesting they are students without their citizenship documents on hand.
Florida’s law has different requirements than Arizona’s, however. It asks election officials to verify voters’ citizenship after registration. For Floridians who have shown their passport or birth certificate to government officials when getting a driver’s license, their citizenship will be affirmed and their registration approved.
Those without this information on file will be asked to prove their citizenship within a month or they could be removed from the voter rolls.
Wendy Sartory Link, the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, said implementing this law will be a major challenge for election officials, particularly those in larger, more diverse counties.
Link said her office will need to roll out new rules and forms — all of which do not yet exist and will need to be written by the state — and rush to begin preparing for the proof of citizenship requirements that go into effect in January.
She said that computer systems will need to be updated — the voter file doesn’t currently include a space for citizenship proof — and that new systems will need to be created among agencies to share data. Link also said she will need to hire new staffers to handle the increased workload, though the bill didn’t give her any additional funding to pay for it. Once voters are asked for proof, she said, she’s worried long lines will form with voters bringing proof of citizenship.
She also said she has many unanswered questions: Can she accept proof of citizenship over email even if she can’t touch the raised seal to be sure it’s an original document? Does she need to ask voters to prove their citizenship every time they update their voter registration? Does she need new trainings to evaluate the proof that voters may bring her?
“If somebody brings a birth certificate and it’s an Idaho birth certificate, I don’t know what that looks like. Am I supposed to know whether or not that’s a fraudulent birth certificate, or do I just accept it because it says Idaho birth certificate?” Link said.
Florida’s new law also restricts the kind of photo IDs that voters can use to prove their identities at the poll, eliminating the use of retirement community and student IDs.
At polling sites near college campuses and retirement communities, Link said, this change could trigger long lines as more students fill out provisional ballots and need to later affirm their identities.
Out-of-state students may struggle to obtain the required ID unless they plan months ahead, too. In her community, she said, it also takes time to get an appointment for a Florida driver’s license.
Lawmakers in a dozen states have advanced legislation this year that would require residents to prove their U.S. citizenship to register to vote or bring photo ID to the polls, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan group that tracks election legislation. Utah and South Dakota have also sent bills imposing a proof of citizenship requirement on to their governors.
On this day in 1863 more than 100 women armed with knives, axes, and pistols marched to Richmond, Virginia’s capitol to demand a meeting with the governor. When questioned by passersby, some held up their emaciated arms in explanation: They were starving.
Nine inches of snow had just fallen, the 20th storm that winter. Routes into the city had become rivers of mud, making food transport nearly impossible. Farming was suffering because of labor shortages (with farmers enlisted in the Civil War) and fields damaged by battles. Inflation had sent food prices to 10 times the prewar cost.
For many of the city’s working-class residents, that was what they were already doing.
As the Confederate capital, Richmond’s population had swelled to 100,000, crowded with troops and government workers. Because it was such an important spot, the Union had set up a blockade of its ports. What little food made it through was requisitioned to feed troops.
On April 1 a group of women—wives and mothers of soldiers—met at Belvidere Hill Baptist Church. Led by Mary Jackson and Minerva Meredith, they agreed to confront the governor the next day.
Some sources say the governor’s feeble answers failed to appease the women; other sources say he declined to meet. Either way, the crowd marched on—toward government food supplies, mercantile facilities, and private businesses. By now they had a rallying cry: “Bread or blood!” Their ranks swelled to hundreds or even thousands. They seized flour, ham, bacon, clothing, and shoes. The public guard was summoned but quickly overrun.
Fun Fact
May Walker, a “toothless old woman,” took an axe to the warehouse door and made off with 500 pounds of bacon.
It only ended when Davis ordered the guard to open fire—in five minutes. He waited, holding his watch. The crowd still debated defiance but dispersed at the last possible moment.
In the aftermath, more than 60 men and women were arrested. The city council met that day and dismissed the riot as “uncalled for”—then stationed cannons near the food supplies.
Two days later, however, another meeting was held to discuss how to feed the “meritorious poor,” which did not include the women who’d rioted; they were villainized in the press.
But two weeks later an additional $20,000 was allocated to keep Richmond’s citizens fed.
April 2
Scottie's Playtime 
