1st Gay Rights Organization Founded This Date In Peace & Justice History

(I don’t know what this formatting is about. This is the 3d try, so here it is as it is.)

November 10, 1924

HENRY GERBER

INDIVIDUAL | Inducted 1992 [Posthumous]

The founder of Chicago’s Society for Human Rights in 1924, the first gay rights organization in the United States, Henry Gerber was born in Bavaria as Joseph Henry Dittmar on June 29, 1892, and arrived at Ellis Island in October, 1913. With members of his family, he moved to Chicago because of its large German population. After working briefly at Montgomery Ward, he was interned as an alien during World War I. He wrote that although this was not right, he did receive three meals a day. From 1920 to 1923 he served with the U.S. Army of Occupation of Germany and during this time, he came into contact with the German homosexual emancipation movement. He subscribed to German homophile magazines and was in contact with Magnus Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Community in Berlin. In 1924, Gerber returned to Chicago and was hired by the post office. Gerber’s return to Chicago was amidst a backdrop of urbanization and an emerging gay subculture.

Following what Gerber had seen in Germany, he felt the need to establish an organization to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. With several friends, Gerber formed an organization which was later incorporated as The Society for Human Rights, a nonprofit corporation in the State of Illinois. The organization published a newsletter, Friendship and Freedom, which was distributed to its small membership.

In July, 1925, the society came to an abrupt end. The wife of one of the co-founders reported her husband, a reputed bisexual, to her social worker who contacted the police. Following a police raid, Gerber and several others were arrested and prosecuted for their deviancy. After three costly trials the case against Gerber was dismissed. Gerber lost his entire life savings defending himself and was fired from his job at the post office for conduct unbecoming a postal worker.

After his ordeal, Gerber moved to New York City where he reenlisted in the U.S. Army and served for 17 years. During the 1930s he managed a personal correspondence club and wrote articles in gay publications under a pseudonym. The correspondence club became a national communications network for gay men. In the 1940s, Gerber exchanged a number of letters with Manuel Boyfrank of California. Boyfrank was enthusiastic about organizing to combat homosexual oppression. Gerber offered his assistance, but refused to risk his job again. He continued his assistance through personal correspondence and numerous articles.

On December 31, 1972, Gerber died at the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C., at the age of 80. He lived to see the Stonewall Rebellion and the start of a new era of activist gay and lesbian liberation organizations.

Top Democratic Officials Target Their Most Vulnerable Constituents In New Strategy Document

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/top-democratic-officials-target-their?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=994764&post_id=177659051&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2r5nx6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Top Democratic officials put out a new guide, entitled “Deciding to Win,” that encourages Democrats to be a little more like Republicans on “identity and cultural issues.”

Erin Reed

Oct 31, 2025

Left: David Axelrod // Public domain, Middle: James Carville // JD Lasica // Wikimedia Commons, Right: David Plouffe // Noam Galai // Wikimedia Commons

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This week, the self-styled centrist group WelcomePAC released a document entitled “Deciding to Win”—advised on by some of the Democratic Party’s most prominent strategists, including David Axelrod, James Carville, and David Plouffe—urging Democrats to act a little more like Republicans on so-called “identity and cultural issues.” The 58-page memo reads like a compendium of the consultant class’s worst instincts, encouraging candidates to become little more than poll-tested avatars and walking focus groups, trading conviction for triangulation. While the document rarely defines which “cultural issues” it means, the few times it does make it clear: queer and transgender people stand to lose the most if this vision of the Democratic Party takes hold.

The document begins with five key pillars for the party. Some of them make a lot of sense, such as “messaging on an economic program centered on lowering costs, growing the economy, creating jobs, and expanding the social safety net,” critiquing “the outsized political and economic influence of” the “ultra-wealthy,” and support for a $15/h minimum wage. Others, though, encourage the party to abandon platforms that have been central to its identity and mission to protect the most vulnerable in society, calling for the party to “Moderate our positions where our agenda is unpopular, including on issues like immigration, public safety, energy production, and some identity and cultural issues.”

While the document rarely defines what “identity and cultural issues” means, the examples make its targets clear. Support for the Equality Act—legislation that would codify gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes under federal law—is cited as proof the party has “moved left.” Another section lists “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans” as a priority voters supposedly don’t want Democrats to emphasize. Elsewhere, a discussion of how to mobilize voters “sitting on the couch” reveals that the most popular policy among them is “defining sex as binary and based on biology at birth across federal agencies.” Later in the document, it explicitly calls out transgender sports participation as an issue that the party should “moderate” on.

Screenshot of Deciding to Win Chart of “moderate” policies

Imagine a world where Democrats actually heeded this advice. The “define sex as binary” policy—already championed in Republican-led states and now embedded in everything the Trump administration does—has had devastating consequences for transgender Americans. It has stripped trans people of the ability to update their passports, creating serious barriers to travel; defunded organizations that affirm gender diversity; and fueled crackdowns on college campuses that allow trans students to use restrooms matching their gender identity. It’s a policy of bureaucratic erasure, one that threatens to undo decades of hard-won progress—yet it’s presented, almost casually, as a “moderate” position Democrats might adopt to win votes.

It’s a vision of politics that would turn Democrats into little more than Republican Lite—a “big tent” party spacious enough for those who despise us but not for those who most need protection. In that world, Democrats would lose not just the meaning of leadership but the very soul of why the party exists. And it’s a fantasy built on delusion: no amount of fine-tuned messaging or poll-tested calibration will ever transform the party into the perpetual winner these consultants imagine.

We don’t have to imagine what happens when Democrats follow this playbook — we’ve already seen it. In New Hampshire, Democrats capitulated on multiple anti-trans bills, including bans on youth sports participation and gender-affirming surgery, only to suffer one of the party’s worst defeats of the 2024 election cycle, losing 20 seats. By contrast, Democrats in Montana fought hard against similar measures and mounted some of the most visible resistance to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the country, picking up ten seats in the state House—one of the party’s strongest showings nationwide, in a state Trump carried easily. In Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear vetoed anti-trans bills, including a sports ban, and still won reelection in a Trump +31 state. And in New York, a ballot measure enshrining gender identity protections outperformed Kamala Harris’s statewide margin by a wide margin.

Despite the evidence, a faction within the Democratic Party still treats queer and trans people as expendable—convinced that by trimming the edges of equality and tolerating “a little” discrimination, they can win back power. It’s a ruinous illusion. This kind of triangulation doesn’t blunt Republican attacks; it validates them. Every state that once embraced sports bans or “compromise” restrictions has since escalated to banning medical care, censoring books, and policing bathrooms. Capitulation has never advanced LGBTQ+ rights—not in policy, not in public opinion, not once. Democrats aren’t losing because they’ve been too loud or too firm in defending equality; they’re losing because the far right invests in its own moral narrative while Democrats second-guess theirs. The only way forward is to stand unapologetically on principle—as Andy Beshear did in Kentucky, citing it as the very reason for his success—not to chase the approval of consultants who mistake cowardice for strategy and appeasement for leadership.

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ICE Barbie and ‘Lover’ Hatched Bonkers Plan to Buy Fleet of Jets

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ice-barbie-fails-to-turbocharge-deportations-in-wild-scheme/

Kristi Noem is feeling the heat from the White House—so she’s pushing to militarize ICE.

Laura Esposito

Breaking News Reporter

Updated Nov. 9 2025 3:33AM EST Published Nov. 8 2025 12:06PM EST

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her alleged lover Corey Lewandowski ordered 10 Spirit Airlines jets before realizing the planes had no engines.

Officials warned the pair that purchasing the jets—which they said would be used to increase deportations and for their own travel—was impractical, and that simply hiring additional flight contractors would be far less costly, The Wall Street Journal reported

Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem, who are both married, deny reports that they are having an affair.Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

But Noem and Lewandowski went ahead and blew through the funds allocated by Congress. Officials realized the pair’s blunder when they looked deeper into their spending spree and realized that Spirit—which has filed for bankruptcy twice—didn’t own the planes in the first place, and that the engines would have to be purchased separately, according to the Journal.

Noem and her shopping partner then purchased two Gulfstream jets for $200 million. However, shortly after, DHS notified the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee that the project to increase deportation flights had been paused.

Noem looks pensive after a press conference held to discuss the “Midway Blitz” immigration enforcement operation in Chicago.Jamie Kelter Davis/Getty Images

Lewandowski—whose alleged relationship with Noem has been described as D.C.’s “worst-kept secret”—has been referred to as Noem’s “gatekeeper,” operating as a special government employee who travels with her, weighs in on personnel, and shapes enforcement.

He has also spearheaded efforts to replace ICE leaders across the country with Border Patrol veterans to impose a more heavy-handed, military-style approach to Trump’s immigration crackdown, such as the hostile situation dubbed “Midway Blitz,” unfolding in Chicago.

Gregory Bovino has a background in chasing migrants and drug smugglers through border terrain.Chicago Tribune/Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Led by Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, the operation’s militarized enforcement tactics and aggressive approaches have sparked public outcry. Footage and testimony have shown federal officers firing pepper-ball rounds and tear gas—even near children—while clashing with protesters. ICE agents have also been spotted roaming quiet neighborhoods, questioning landscapers and decorators.

Still, the militant approach hasn’t appeased the White House or met its steep daily deportation quotas.

ICE and Border Protection agents had made 3,000 arrests in Chicago over two months as of late October—the same number the White House has demanded they make in a single day, the Journal reported.

Noem’s methods—and the mounting pressure from the White House—have sparked infighting among DHS officials as they grapple with Lewandowski’s informal authority.

Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino visit the ICE facility in Chicago in October.DHS photo by Tia Dufour

Border czar Tom Homan and ICE Director Todd Lyons favor an old-school, less hostile approach, including using police research to develop target lists and focusing on those with criminal histories, sources told the Journal. But while Homan is influential in the White House, Noem has the final say.

Trump, however, is on the side of aggression, saying in a 60 Minutes interview last week that ICE officials “haven’t gone far enough” in Chicago.

The Daily Beast has reached out to DHS and ICE for comment. A spokesperson for DHS denied there were divisions in the department in a statement to the Journal, adding that Trump’s administration is on pace to “shatter records and deport 600,000 people by the end of Trump’s first year.”

Noem’s shake-up comes even as a federal judge on Thursday accused Bovino, 55, of lying to her in court as she imposed sweeping limits on a hardline anti-migrant crackdown in Illinois.

Bovino previously claimed he was hit in the head with a rock before he lobbed gas at anti-ICE protesters in Chicago—a claim he later admitted was false after DHS could not produce evidence to support it.

In an oral ruling, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said, “I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible,” after weeks of tear-gassings, pepper-ball strikes, and hard takedowns against journalists, clergy, and residents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” with excessive violence that, she said, “shocks the conscience.”

Laura Esposito

Breaking News Reporter

laura.esposito@thedailybeast.com

Music For Peace On Sunday

A great song from Bee today, with interesting facts about the artist, Wiyaala. I hope you all enjoy the song as much as I do!

Peace Song November – Peace

I decided on a little Curtis Mayfield for our Sunday Peace Song.

A Couple Of Pieces From “Them”

A Man Got His Jaw Broken Defending a Trans Woman. The Community Paid for His Surgery

Jarod Adkison had been left with a concussion by three men.

By Abby Monteil

After the story of a cisgender man who was severely beaten over the summer while defending a trans woman went viral, strangers have helped him cover his reconstruction surgery.

33-year-old Jarod Adkison told Austin American-Statesman that he began chatting with three women while visiting Barton Springs Pool near Austin, Texas on July 26. While they were sitting by the pool, Adkison noticed three men who appeared drunk coming up and making fun of one of the women, who is trans.

“It all stemmed from the men seeing the trans lady and making a lewd gesture,” he said. (snip-MORE-click on the title to finish)

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Our First Lady Cole Escola to Play Gender Nonconforming Role in Netflix’s One Piece

The performer will play the role of Bon Clay.

By James Factora

Cole Escola has been cast in the third season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece as a fan favorite character.

The news of the actor’s casting was announced on Monday. They will be playing Bon Clay, who is described as “a master of performance and precision who is as dangerous as they are dazzling, a theatrical assassin who turns combat into art.” The character in the original manga is described as an okama, a Japanese umbrella term that can refer to gender nonconforming men, trans women, and crossdressers. So basically, Escola is perfect for the role. (snip-MORE-click through on the title)

What about the bible saying, “Lazy people shouldn’t eat!”?

Sometimes we all need help, knowing how to help the best ways is also important as wanting to help.

Ali offered two comments to add additional information. I am going to repost this to get that information to more people. Thank you Ali for the volunteering work you have done. Hugs

If you’re giving to humans directly (like a little food pantry or a local drive where people don’t have to sign in to a bank,) as well as to a food bank, canned meats are good with the skillet helpers. It does help to check with your food bank before bringing fresh items in; some don’t have storage available to keep fresh food safe. Which could be a fundraising idea for those inclined to help in such a fashion! 🙂

Also, the top thing that will help a food bank is money. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, either. The food bank in Wichita charges only .20 per pound to food banks, but a bag of food is going to cost, well, what a bag of food costs. We need our food banks, because it’s another example (like SNAP) that bigger entities can do more. But sometimes people who use or cannot use a food bank need a little in between food bank visits and the little food pantries help there. So many ways to help at little cost and trouble-thanks, Scottie!

That’s probably confusing, about money and the .20 per pound. Frequently, there is a large food bank that collects foods, etc., then distributes it to local food banks. The example above is our local food bank (yeah, I volunteered there for 4 years before going to work as a para). We received food donations, and money, but what really helped our bank (which keeps records on families served, allergies, etc.) was the money, because they could take the truck up to Wichita, and for 10.00, get 50.00 worth of food to bring back for our bank. It’s a simple thing, and I mucked it up with lots of words, as is my wont. 🙂

That said, I bring up other points for getting food to people because in some places, the food bank is only open one or two days per week, for a few hours. Depending upon volunteers, many of whom are retired, those hours are going to be during working hours, so people can’t always get to a food bank. So those little pantries make a big difference, too!