This AG was not elected to any office, he was handpicked and given his job by DeathSantis. Both are Christian nationalist who feel it is great to force their religion on others even as they do not live by their own church doctrines in any way. They seem to feel forcing the public to live by their church doctrines or what ever view they think their god endorses is perfectly fine regardless if others disagree. They are the first to scream the loudest if their rituals or they think their rights to oppress others is interfered with, but they also seem unable to give others the same rights they demand for themselves. Hugs
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) is urging the Pensacola City Council to shut down a Christmas-themed drag show, which he has deemed “demonic” and “harmful” to children, despite how it is exclusively for adults over the age of 18.
The city’s Saenger Theatre plans to host “A Drag Queen Christmas” on December 23. The website says fans should “expect a fabulous remix of classic Christmas hits, dazzling themed variety performances, and interactive moments to share your Christmas cheer.”
A letter from Uthmeier claimed the show “openly mocks one of the most sacred holidays in the Christian faith” and expressed horror that some of the queens evoke “satanic imagery” in their outfits or characters. He also decried the fact that it will be playing at the same time as the city’s family-centered Winterfest.
“So, while Penscola children are taking pictures with Santa, men dressed as garish women in demonic costumes will be engaged in obscene behavior mere feet away,” he ranted, even though the drag show will take place inside a theater where the children at the festival won’t be able to see it.
The Pensacola city attorney has reportedly refused to cancel the show, saying it would violate the drag show production company’s First Amendment rights and the city’s contract with the theater’s management company.
Uthmeier, however, said the city – which owns the theater – has a legal right to supersede the management company’s decision to put on the show if it deems a performance detrimental to public health or safety. He said the drag show meets this criterion because it will be taking place near children at Winterfest, even though they won’t be able to see it.
“While the First Amendment safeguards freedom of expression, it does not require a city to platform and endorse disgusting, obscene content that denigrates its residents’ religious beliefs,” Uthmeier concluded.
He claimed it may even amount to religious discrimination and could cause legal issues for the city, especially if one of the “deranged performers” were “to expose themselves to the kids” nearby. The preposterous idea that LGBTQ+ people are inherently a danger to children has long been used by the right to fearmonger and stir anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
The letter comes after a group of churches in the city launched a campaign to pressure the Pensacola City Council to cancel the drag show. The controversy has caused an uproar in the community, the Pensacola News Journal reported, where pro- and anti-LGBTQ+ residents continue to clash over whether the drag show should be permitted to go on.
At a packed and contentious city council meeting in early October, resident Jermaine Williams called out the hypocrisy of those claiming to oppose the show on religious grounds.
“I mean, we see how y’all vote,” Williams said. “Half of these people that spoke today wouldn’t know Jesus if they stared him in the face.”
Another resident, Stephen McCollum, gushed that drag queens are “more than entertainers.”
“They’re small business owners. They’re advocates and they’re educators who use creativity to uplift others and welcome all. They welcome all, demonstrating that this art form is more than just a performance. It’s a form of connection, and it’s a form of community, and it’s a form of hope.”
Uthmeier has long used his position to vilify and terrorize LGBTQ+ people. Earlier this year, he launched a crusade against a Life Time Fitness in Palm Beach Gardens after discovering that the private business had a trans inclusive policy. State law requires people use facilities aligned with their sex assigned at birth, but that does not apply to private businesses.
Uthmeier, however, claimed otherwise in a letter sent to the gym. He falsely claimed that trans inclusion leads to “assaults, exploitation, and fear” and that he was merely doing this to protect women and girls.
Even after Life Time said it would comply with his demands, Uthmeier posted a video in which he visited the gym in person to make sure they are “not allowing trans women into women’s bathrooms, not in Florida,” and “actually following the law.”
“It appears they are,” he reported to followers, though it’s unclear how he could have confirmed this without major privacy violations of the individuals entering and exiting the locker rooms there.
This past October, Uthmeier also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a parental rights activist who dubiously claims her child’s middle school helped her child secretly transition. She has now petitioned the Supreme Court to take her case.
Uthmeier’s brief claims government officials across the United States “are fundamentally altering the upbringing of children and keeping parents in the dark” with “secret transition” policies.
These policies do not involve schools encouraging students to be trans or transition, but rather to support any students who willingly communicate that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth and to allow the student to choose when to share that private information with their parents. For some students with anti-trans parents, telling them could be dangerous.
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2025 has been filled with relentless and unprecedented attacks against the LGBTQ community in the U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ policies have spilled over to countries abroad, including heading north to some conservative Canadian provinces like Alberta.
Despite this, there have been moments of hope. Here is Uncloseted Media’s 2025 LGBTQ year in review.
Jan. 1
Liechtenstein’s Marriage Act, passed in 2024, officially takes effect, opening marriage to same-sex couples and aligning the microstate with 21 other European nations that already recognize same-sex marriage.
Meta introduces new rules to their platforms. They remove their third-party fact-checking program and roll back hate speech restrictions, which allows anti-LGBTQ rhetoric to flourish. A report by Uncloseted Media identifies users who spew trans and homophobic language. One user wrote, “Look at this disgusting piece of fag shit here !” Another told someone to go to “the insane asylum where you belong, tranny freak.” Both of these comments are still up on the platform.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signs an executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order forces federal agencies to treat sex as a fixed male and female binary “assigned at conception,” calls for “gender” to be scrubbed from federal guidance, halts federal funding for gender-affirming care and mandates trans women in prison to be sent to male facilities. Trump also issues a stop-work order for PEPFAR, the biggest HIV/AIDS relief program in the world. This kicks off a broader pattern of cuts to HIV prevention and research.
Over the next three months, Trump continues his attacks on the LGBTQ community by signing another executive order that bans trans women and girls from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. He also directs agencies to curb gender-affirming care for anyone under 19 and to strip funding from schools that allow social transition, inclusive bathrooms or the use of affirming names and pronouns.
Jan. 23
Same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land in Thailand, making it the first country in Southeast Asia to recognize marriage equality and equal adoption rights for gay couples.
Jan. 27
The Idaho House passes a resolution urging the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to revisit and overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, signaling a renewed appetite to attack marriage equality at the federal level.
Feb. 6
Australia amends its federal Criminal Code to add sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status as protected characteristics in hate-crime law. This creates stronger penalties for perpetrators of anti-LGBTQ hate crimes across the country.
Feb. 13
Sam Nordquist, a trans man from Minnesota, is found dead in Upstate New York after a woman he met online kidnapped and tortured him for weeks in a hotel room. Seven people connected to his death have been charged with murder. Sam’s friend, Jax Seeger, spoke to Uncloseted following the tragedy:
“From my understanding, they came out and said it wasn’t a hate crime … and part of their reasoning was because one or two of the suspects self-identified within the [LGBTQ] community. … Like, you can’t say that just because they identified as LGBTQ, they’re incapable of committing a hate crime. Sammy wasn’t just physically abused. He was psychologically abused and they didn’t go into what that consisted of, but I think that’s something to keep in mind. As well as just the level of abuse you know? Trans people deserve the same respect and the same love as everyone else.”
The week after our interview with Seeger, prosecutors upgrade the charges against Nordquist’s accused killers to first-degree murder.
Feb. 14
The Stonewall National Monument. Photo by TheCatalyst31.
The National Park Service (NPS) erases mentions of transgender people from the Stonewall memorial, furthering conservative efforts to push “LGB” without the “T.” A few months later, NPS would go on to remove mentions of bisexuals as well.
Feb. 25
Mexico City Pride 2025. Photo by Wotancito.
Mexico City’s Congress approves a resolution to reform the Law for the Recognition and Attention of LGBTTTI+ Persons. This move effectively recognizes nonbinary people.
Feb. 28
Kim Reynolds in 2024. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs SF 418 into law. This move officially removes “gender identity” from the Iowa Civil Rights Act’s list of protected classes in housing, employment and public accommodations. Iowa becomes the first state to remove civil rights from a previously protected group.
March 27
Gov. Spencer Cox announces that Utah will become the first state to ban LGBTQ pride flags in government buildings and public schools, effective May 7. While the move is framed as a “neutrality” measure, it is widely seen as part of a broader effort to erase public displays of queer identity. In protest, the Utah Pride Center unveils what it calls “the world’s largest transgender flag” in front of Utah’s State Capitol building in Salt Lake City.
April 4
A conversion therapy ban in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, goes into effect. This makes it illegal for therapists and religious leaders to practice conversion therapy on gay and trans people. In a media release, the NSW attorney general writes:
“This follows ongoing work by the NSW Government to progress reforms that ensure all members of our community feel valued, respected and equal.”
“This report not only rejects health care best practices for transgender people — it goes a step further by recommending conversion therapy, though under a new, rebranded name, ‘exploratory therapy’. Despite the report’s claims, this is, in fact, the same harmful practice of conversion therapy, just using friendlier language.”
May 6
Trump’s transgender military ban goes into effect. The change requires active trans service members to self-separate from the military or risk losing some of their Veterans Affairs benefits. Alaina Kupec, a retired transgender U.S. Navy lieutenant, says the decision punishes people who are qualified and want to serve the country:
“[This is] a really dark day for our country where basically we’re allowed to discriminate against a class of people.”
May 19
A Russian court fines Apple roughly $130,000 for four offenses, including the violation of Russia’s expanded “LGBT propaganda” law. The Russian law labels the “international LGBT movement” as extremist and treats queer visibility as a threat to state security. Anything that promotes “non-traditional sexual relations” violates the law.
May 30
Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court rules that residents can request an “X” gender marker on their birth certificates. This move explicitly recognizes nonbinary people and strengthens case law around self-determined gender in the U.S. territory.
Amid relentless attacks from the federal government, WorldPride takes place in Washington D.C. Ahead of the event, the African Human Rights Coalition calls for a boycott because of Trump’s swath of anti-LGBTQ policies. While roughly 1.2 million people attend, The Washington Post reports that the turnout is less than half of what organizers expected.
June 18
In a 6–3 decision, SCOTUS upholds Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormones. The ruling signals that similar bans in other Republican-controlled states are likely to stand, sharply narrowing access to medically recommended care for trans youth nationwide. Ten days after the ruling, five trans youth speak to Uncloseted Media, with Dylan Brandt, 20, saying:
“Lawmakers don’t need to be involved in my doctor visits. They have no right. They have no knowledge. … They’ve got a lane and they should stay in it.”
In defiance of a government ban on Pride events, roughly 100,000 people march the streets of Budapest, Hungary, to celebrate. The march was seen as both a showing of support for LGBTQ rights and a protest against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, signs one of the harshest anti-trans health care laws in the northern hemisphere. The law bans gender-affirming care for anyone under 21 and threatens to cut off public funding for hospitals that don’t comply. It also threatens doctors with up to 15 years in prison and loss of licensure for violations. Puerto Rico’s LGBTQ+ Federation and GLAAD release a joint statement condemning the bill:
“Banning this care and stripping the rights of parents to make the best medical decisions for their families would create unbearable burdens for the most marginalized in Puerto Rico. Lawmakers must vote to protect access to health care that saves lives, and allow families to make private health care decisions that help loved ones be themselves, be safe, and to thrive.”
July 17
The Trump administration shuts down the LGBTQ suicide hotline, a life-saving resource that had received over 1.3 million calls, chats and texts since it launched in 2022. Genna Brown, a 16-year-old queer kid in North Carolina, who had used the hotline, spoke with Uncloseted Media about the impact it had on her mental health:
“I was an extremely self-loathing, suicidal kid who was under the impression that God hated me and I was gonna burn in hell for eternity. … Connecting with someone who gets it was really helpful. … Because at home, I was so isolated and I didn’t really interact with other queer people.”
July 18
Cuba’s National Assembly passes a law allowing trans people to change their legal gender without any requirement for genital surgery. In a post on X, Minister of Justice Oscar Silvera Martínez writes that the new law “will allow the country to have a modern civil registry” provided by “the issuance of digital documents with full validity and efficiency.”
July 29
In a move hailed by human rights groups, the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia strikes down colonial-era laws criminalizing “buggery,” effectively decriminalizing consensual same-sex intimacy between adults.
Aug. 20
In the middle of the night, Florida’s Department of Transportation paints over a rainbow crosswalk made to honor the victims of the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack that left 49 people dead. Advocates respond in protest by installing rainbow-colored bike racks.
Sept. 1
Burkina Faso’s Transitional Legislative Assembly passes a law explicitly criminalizing homosexuality. The law imposes a two- to five-year prison sentence and fines on people convicted of same-sex activity, deepening the criminalization of queer people in West Africa.
Sept. 10
The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University (UVU) kicks off a wave of anti-trans vitriol, including calls to criminalize the community and designate them as terrorists. In September, Uncloseted Media interviewed five current and former LGBTQ students at UVU. Simone Goodheart, a trans woman who had recently attended the school, spoke about how students were suggesting she was the murderer and how they were harassing her on campus:
“I would say a few of them were asking me to share my school schedule, which thankfully I’m not a student right now. But like damn, if that was the case? A few of them just make awful comments about my appearance, who I am as a person. Basically they just wanted to make sense [of it], but also they wanted to get their outrage out. Because yeah, somebody they cared for died. They are going through the grieving process and like there is outrage and frustration but they were misdirected and misconnected and just utilized by awful algorithms that try to boost the most amount of outrage possible in order to encourage engagement.”
Sept. 26
Slovakia’s parliament passes a constitutional amendment that formally recognizes only two genders, restricts legal gender transition and prohibits adoption by same-sex couples nationwide.
Oct. 6
Bari Weiss hosting a CBS News Town Hall with Erika Kirk. Screenshot/CBS News.
Bari Weiss is appointed editor-in-chief of CBS News, making her the first openly gay person to lead the network. Weiss often angles herself as an independent thinker and is known for criticizing the mainstream media. She has no experience in broadcast news and has surrounded herself in controversy, accusing former colleagues at The New York Times of bullying her. She has also railed against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, writing articles with headlines such as “Bari Weiss: End DEI.”
“It is time to end DEI for good. No more standing by as people are encouraged to segregate themselves. No more forced declarations that you will prioritize identity over excellence. No more compelled speech. No more going along with little lies for the sake of being polite.”
Oct. 7
SCOTUS appears poised to rule against a Colorado law that bans the discredited practice of conversion therapy on minors. The justices repeatedly question the state over whether the law hinders free speech.
The high-stakes case could roll back the rights of LGBTQ youth across the country. Colorado is one of more than 20 states that have banned conversion practices, and a ruling in favor of removing the ban could make those laws in other states vulnerable to similar challenges.
Zohran Mamdani, one of the most outspokenly pro-trans politicians in the country, is elected mayor of New York City. Meanwhile, anti-LGBTQ Republicans are defeated in Virginia’s and New Jersey’s gubernatorial elections. On the night of his win, Mamdani reaffirms his support for those who elected him:
“In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.”
In a massive win for gay rights, SCOTUS rejects Kim Davis’ appeal and won’t revisit the landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. This signifies a major defeat for the new push to overturn the ruling, which was spearheaded by Davis and her lawyers from Liberty Counsel.
Nov. 17
Across Alberta, Canada, anti-trans legislation takes effect. A trans sports ban for students also forces sports organizations and schools to collect sensitive personal information that risks outing trans and gender diverse youth. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces plans to circumvent legal opposition to the province’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors by invoking the notwithstanding clause, a constitutional provision that will stop such challenges for five years. The measure was also used in Alberta in 2000 to advance legislation opposing gay marriage.
Nov. 19
New Zealand’s health minister, Simeon Brown, announces a halt to new prescriptions of puberty blockers for minors with gender dysphoria. Brown says the ban will remain until a British clinical trial is completed. Existing patients can continue treatment.
Nov. 25
The European Union’s (EU) top court rules that member states must recognize same-sex marriages contracted in any EU country for purposes such as residence and free movement, binding more conservative governments such as Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia to acknowledge queer couples’ marital status even if they refuse to perform such marriages at home.
Dec. 2
ADF International, the global arm of U.S. anti-LGBTQ legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, publicly backs a South Australian woman threatening legal action over a Headspace Berri mental-health presentation that mentioned LGBTQ issues, incest and bestiality in a classroom context. Elenie Poulos, an expert on the intersection of religious and political discourses, describes their impact as “huge,” saying:
“They have a very longstanding and aggressive approach to the rights of LGBTIQ people. They fight it in the courts in the US, they fight it politically, locally and in communities, and their aggressive anti-gay stance is extremely harmful.”
Dec. 18
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz announcerestrictive measures designed to block minors’ access to gender-affirming care. The plan proposes federal Medicare and Medicaid cuts to all hospitals that provide this care to minors. “The multitude of efforts we are seeing from federal legislators to strip transgender and nonbinary youth of the health care they need is deeply troubling,” says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen of The Trevor Project.
Dec. 21
CBS News shelves a planned 60 Minutes segment on men deported to CECOT, an infamous prison in El Salvador. Internal sources indicate that the move to cancel the story came from the network’s editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who reportedly raised concerns about the Trump administration’s lack of response to the reporter’s outreach.
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Israeli police have released a soldier from custody after he was filmed running his vehicle over a Palestinian man who was praying outside the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
A silent video of the incident, which both Israeli and Palestinian outlets reported on Thursday, shows an Israeli settler with a rifle slung over his back driving his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) toward a 23-year-old Palestinian man as he knelt in prayer on the roadside.
After barrelling over the man, the settler shouted something in his direction and backed up, then gestured for him to move.
The settler then turned his ATV around, got off, and shouted something at a Palestinian taxi driver. The injured Palestinian man then stood up, approaching the cab. The settler again shooed him off before hopping back on the ATV and speeding away.
Majdi Abu Mokho, the father of the Palestinian man, said his son now has pain in both legs after he was struck.
Mokho toldAgence France-Presse: “The assailant is a known settler. He set up an outpost near the village, and with other settlers he comes to graze his livestock, blocks the road, and provokes the residents.”
He also said the settler blinded him with pepper spray after hitting his son, though this is not shown in the video.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) identified the driver as an Israeli reserve soldier with one of its regional defense units. These battalions have dramatically expanded in recent years with backing from Israel’s right-wing government, which contains many officials at the center of the settler movement.
Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military veterans critical of the occupation of Palestine, has referred to the regional defense units—which have been responsible for many other attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank—as “no more than settler militias in uniform.”
The IDF said the soldier’s weapon has been confiscated and that he’s been suspended due to the “severity of the incident,” which the IDF said it was investigating. The IDF has not released the soldier’s name.
An initial probe found that the same settler had opened fire in the village of Deir Jarir, north of Ramallah, earlier that same day, in an incident that resulted in a young Palestinian man being injured by gunfire.
During that altercation, which was also caught on film, a group of masked settlers was seen hurling rocks at the village’s entrance. According to Palestinian sources who spoke with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,the targets of the attack were villagers who were grazing their cattle near their homes.
In another video, a masked man—who the IDF identified as the same reservist responsible for the ATV attack—is seen firing his weapon in the direction of the camera. The IDF said that by opening fire inside the village while in civilian clothes, the soldier had committed a “serious breach of his authority.”
According to the Times of Israel, Israeli police released the settler reservist from custody on Friday. He has been placed under house arrest for five days and is banned from approaching Deir Jarir, where the incident occurred, or from contacting anyone else connected with the case.
The violent incident is the latest in a year that has seen a record number of attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinian villagers.
According to official figures, Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed at least 1,130 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, injured nearly 11,000, and detained around 21,000, since October 2023, when Israel launched its two-year genocide in Gaza following Hamas’ attack.
On the same day as the ATV attack, Israeli police announced that they had arrested five Israeli settlers over their alleged involvement in an ambush against a Palestinian home, which resulted in “moderate injuries to the face and head” of an eight-month-old Palestinian girl, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
While the IDF says it is investigating the ATV attack along with local police, attacks by Israeli settlers are often treated with leniency.
In January 2025, the Israeli watchdog group Yesh Din reported that across more than 1,700 reports of religious or politically motivated hate crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past two decades, nearly 94% of them were closed without any indictment being filed, and only 3% resulted in a conviction.
Although there has been a documented rise in killings by Israeli settlers since October 2023, not a single one of those cases has resulted in an indictment, and only about a quarter have resulted in investigations by Israeli authorities.
Critics found the punishment of the reservist to be similarly lackluster and the latest example of settlers’ immunity from justice.
“Israeli reserve soldier intentionally runs over Palestinian praying on the side of the road,” said Rabbi David Mivasair, an activist with the Canadian group Independent Jewish Voices. “His punishment: his weapon was taken away, and he was suspended from the reserves… nothing more.”
Breaking the Silence called the punishment “just a slap on the wrist” and “state-backed impunity for state-backed terror.”
Others noted that nearly 8,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons indefinitely without trial, including in Israel’s “administrative detention” system, which allows them to be confined based on secret evidence that they and their lawyers cannot see.
Israel has justified it as a measure to prevent terrorism. However, in January, the government banned Israeli settlers from being held under those same administrative detention orders, with Defense Minister Israel Katz saying the goal was “to convey a clear message of strengthening and encouraging the settlements.”
Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian human rights activist, said of the ATV attack: “Had the victim been Israeli and the attacker Palestinian, the sentence would be life in prison. That is why it is called apartheid.”
Following the attack, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reiterated its calls for the US Congress to stop sending military aid to the Israeli government.
“This shocking and dehumanizing act is yet another example of the unchecked violence and abuse Palestinians face daily under Israel’s illegal occupation,” the group said. “Brazenly running over a man while he prays is enabled by a system that grants near-total impunity to illegal settlers. The Trump administration must end its silence and take concrete steps to hold the Israeli government accountable for these ongoing human rights abuses.”
tRump’s illegal military war crime actions / tRump’s gift to the oil companies that paid him prior / This is a war crime and illegal / tRump trying to get other countries resources for his own profits / tRump grifts and seeking bribes
It has nothing to do with US national security and all the minerals / traffic rights to make ships pay / and the “rare earth” metals that tRump wants a piece of. It is about profit. Hugs
The paying tribute and bribes to tRump and his slush funds is so anti what the US should and used to stand for. It is the very thing the founding fathers were most against. The courts have gutted the holding of tRump to account but the emoluments cause is what this was designed to stop. Ask yourself if Biden / Obama / Clinton had been so blatant in demanding bribes would you tRump cult supporters be OK with it still? Hugs
The appeals court told her to have it completely wrapped up by the first week of January and this is not doing that. I expect more to happen fast with this. She ignored the appeals court order to please tRump.
“There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves,” the college student from Venezuela who sought U.S. asylum, said. “Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled until the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth.”
Mr. Miller’s belief that seven decades of immigration has produced millions of people who take more than they give — an assertion that has been refuted by years of economic data — is at the heart of the Trump administration’s campaign to restrict immigration and deport immigrants already in the country.
tRump trying to hold on to power illegally / Jan 6th insurrectionists / trying to change the history everyone seen live / Scamming / Using the US treasury & taxpayer funds to pay off tRump cult members.
The U.S. Air Force will provide Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt with military funeral honors, reversing a Biden-era decision that denied her family’s request, according to a legal group that has represented her family.
In June 2025, the Pentagon agreed to pay the Babbitt family a $5 million “wrongful death” settlement. Below, see the latest from Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who is himself reportedly suing the DOJ for $100 million.
This is not true. The construction industry has crashed in Florida. No workers so nothing being built. Half crews means nothing built. The work is far to hard for most people. Hugs
In his first year back in office, Mr. Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Mr. Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Richard M. Nixon, for whom the term was popularized half a century ago.
Trump is expected to announce plans to build a new, large warship that Trump is calling a “battleship” and is part of his larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet” that includes as many as 50 support ships, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized comment publicly.
Bigotry / Hate / Racism / DEI Misinformation / White Supremacy
This is just hate and bigotry. It is a group of people who hate trans people for some unknown reason and have made their life / career the harassment of trans minors who play sports. I can not see how this harms this reporter and his group in any way. To make your life about harming others is a real petty way to exist. Many conservatives use their religion to justify such hate but the Jesus of the bible never said a word against the entire LGBTQ+ community. So their hate is internally driven and they must be such miserable people. So Sad. The drive to regress the world’s most progressive countries back to an uneducated straight cis white male controlled society is really causing a lot of damage to people and freedom to express your life as you wish. It seems driven by two groups, the older people who are uncomfortable with the progression of society and younger religious people driven by wealthy religious hate groups. Hugs
Since Sept. 5, right-wing sports publication OutKick has published 19 articles about a 12th grade girls’ volleyball player at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The player caught the attention of reporter Dan Zaksheske after he obtained public documents that appear to show her requesting a legal name change from a traditionally masculine first name to a traditionally feminine one.
Over the next three months, Zaksheske would write 18 of the 19 articles OutKick would publish about this student. He and other OutKick reporters attended multiple high school girls’ volleyball games where they recorded and reported on Skyline High’s volleyball season. At the heart of each article was a focus on the girl, who Zaksheske refers to as a “trans-identifying biological male.”
Zaksheske’s reporting stoked a controversy that drew the attention of multiple right-wing publications, politicians and influencers. This coverage led Sean Lechner, whose cisgender daughter played against Skyline and allegedly shared a locker room with their team, to file a Title IX complaint.
Lechner’s daughter at a press conference about the complaint. Screenshot via Fox Business.
While the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) does require trans athletes to get a waiver approved to compete in official state tournaments, the Democrat-majority state Senate outright rejected the idea of a trans athlete sports ban earlier this year. In addition, LGBTQ Michiganders have strong anti-discrimination protections under the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.
In the complaint, Lechner calls for a ban on “biological males from competing in female sports” and for a “full investigation into actions and communications of Ann Arbor Public Schools/Monroe High/Chet Hesson,” citing a Trump executive order that declares that trans-inclusive policies are in violation of Title IX.
Shortly after the complaint was filed, Uncloseted Media published an interview clip with Hesson, the athletic director of Monroe Public Schools, in which he simply said his “heart goes out” to the player for being under such scrutiny. Less than 24 hours later, he was put on administrative leave.
As this story spreads like wildfire, experts in journalistic ethics are raising concerns about Zaksheske’s reporting.
“OutKick’s inflammatory reporting on a Michigan high school volleyball player who may or may not be trans disregards several core principles of the Society of Professional Journalists’ [SPJ] Code of Ethics,” Dan Axelrod, chairman of the SPJ’s ethics committee, told Uncloseted Media. SPJ’s Code of Ethics, originally drafted in 1973, has been embraced and used by thousands of journalists from numerous newsrooms and schools.
“The Code cautions reporters to ‘show compassion for those who may be affected by news coverage,’ and to ‘use heightened sensitivity when dealing with juveniles,’ while ‘weigh[ing] the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information,’” Axelrod says. “[OutKick] has essentially ignored all those ethical principles, given [Zaksheske’s] relentless coverage of the player, which has led the public to easily infer who she is, and its negative framing of her story.”
The player, whose mother did not respond to an interview request, does not appear to have publicly come out as trans prior to the publication of Zaksheske’s first article.
Chad Painter, associate professor and chair of the communications department at the University of Dayton, says this “brings up a whole host of issues.” While Zaksheske wrote that he did not name the girl “because the student athlete is under 18,” Painter says that doesn’t do enough to conceal her identity.
In his reporting, Zaksheske references the existence of publicly accessible name change documents, the girl’s county of residence and the name of a local volleyball club she’d been a part of. “Someone who is reasonably well-versed in being able to Google someone can figure this out pretty easily,” Painter, who has co-authored multiple media ethics textbooks, told Uncloseted Media.
“There’s longstanding norms in newsrooms that we don’t out people, that that is a very personal decision that an individual gets to make, and unless there is a massively compelling reason to do that, it’s not our role,” he says. “The idea that he is in the clear because he didn’t specifically write this person’s name in a story, it wouldn’t hold up to journalistic scrutiny.”
And Zaksheske’s reporting appears to have outed the girl. The same day that he published his first article on the matter, an X account whose mission is “to call out these male athletes and expose the damage that they have each caused to women and girls in sports” published the girl’s full name and deadname along with multiple photos and videos of her. (Uncloseted Media has chosen not to link to these posts directly in the interest of her privacy.)
In addition to the 18 articles Zaksheske wrote, he also tweeted about the situation at least 41 times and attendedatleastfourhigh school girls’ volleyball games. While watching, he recorded videos of the girls playing and then posted them to X and OutKick’s website.
“Having 19 stories about one athlete … to me, that seems like this coverage is out of line with how we’d normally talk about, especially high school sports, which, frankly, no one outside of this little area in Michigan are going to really care about,” says Painter.
“Outside of the culture war stuff, I don’t see where this is a story.”
When Zaksheske was confronted by multiple people at the school about attending and recording one of the games, he published another article accusing them of harassment. “I was shadowed by the school principal and harassed and stalked by Skyline supporters,” he wrote.
Painter notes that while Zaksheske was within his rights as a journalist and citizen to be attending and recording such events, he understands why the school would approach him with skepticism.
“I have a feeling that if I just started showing up randomly to high school volleyball games and taking photos and videos, there would probably be questions,” Painter says. “Because, again, we are talking about minors.”
“The reporter has a right to pursue news … and that right especially exists at a public school,” says Axelrod. “However, one has to wonder at what point is the coverage just pandering to curiosity as opposed to serving a valid societal purpose in informing and facilitating larger discussions about real and valid questions regarding the participation of trans athletes in sports.”
Misinformation and Animus
Zaksheske has pushed back against similar criticism on X, accusing those who question the ethics of his reporting of being “in favor of sterilizing, mutilating and castrating children” and characterizing his reporting as “exposing their heinous acts.”
“I don’t see that as an ethical problem because it doesn’t even enter into the world of ethics,” Painter says of Zaksheske’s rhetoric. “It is wrong factually and it doesn’t really have a place in what we do in terms of the journalism field.”
Misleading rhetoric about trans health care is common throughout OutKick’s reporting. Zaksheske has written several articles about gender-affirming care, where he has claimed that puberty blockers “take healthy children and sterilize them for life.”
Puberty blockers have been FDA-approved for treating precocious puberty in cisgender children since 1993. Multiplestudies have found no evidence of them causing permanent infertility, and gynecologists and endocrinologists have said that they do not cause sterilization.
Much of Zaksheske’s coverage of trans people has been negative. Of adult trans women, he wrote that “that person might see himself as a woman, but we are under no obligation to ‘affirm’ that.” He also wrote that doctors who provide gender-affirming care “have to answer to their consciences.”
OutKick also generally misgenders trans women and girls, referring to them as “males,” “biological males” or “trans-identifying males,” additionally using masculine pronouns to refer to them.
Painter notes that this goes against the “Associated Press Stylebook,” which he says “any newsroom worth its salt is going to follow.”
“The journalist and the news outlet squander their credibility covering these types of societal questions when they use language … that fails to recognize and respect the underlying humanity of an entire group of people,” he says.
In an email, Brian Karpas, OutKick’s director of media relations, told Uncloseted Media that the publication “stands by the thorough and responsible reporting of Dan Zaksheske and will continue to protect women from competing against biological males.”
Beyond Michigan
OutKick’s extensive reporting of the Michigan volleyball player is reflective of the publication’s increasingly conservative bent since it launched in 2011. In 2021, it was acquired by Fox Corporation. Since then, it has partnered with Fox News and has become home to numerous right-wing personalities known for anti-trans rhetoric. These include founder Clay Travis, who has said World Aquatics is “encouraging …super young kids to be transitioned”; Tomi Lahren, who said that liberals “don’t know what a woman is”; and Riley Gaines, who referred to an eighth-grade trans girl as a “mediocre man.”
This story in Michigan is not the first time OutKick and Zaksheske have hyperfocused on one trans girl. They were one of the first national publications to report on California-based track and field athlete AB Hernandez, who later became the center of a feud between the Trump administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Since March, OutKick has published at least 24 articles about Hernandez, 10 of which were written by Zaksheske. They sent reporters to at least twogames to photograph Hernandez and other teenage players. Additionally, OutKick published 15 articles and attended at least four games covering the story of a trans softball player in Minnesota, whose presence on the team became a key point of a lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom.
This massive amount of coverage is common for U.S. conservative media: A report published this year from Media Matters for America found that Fox News ran over 400 weekday segments mentioning trans athletes from Feb. 5 to June 6.
All of this has had an impact. While the Title IX investigation is still pending, Hesson, who was named in the complaint, told Uncloseted Media that he had been targeted with harassment and vitriol online.
Uncloseted Media on Instagram: “Last Friday, Uncloseted Media p…
In the comments of the Instagram post, Hesson was attacked by numerous users: squaredbeach9 wrote, “Stop normalizing these freaks. You don’t give a bulimic chick a bucket and some gum.”
And others chimed in, saying:
“Guaranteed he has child pron on an electronic device.”
“Fuck off, poor tranny hates attention, give me a fn break.”
“So a male playing in women’s sports. And this cuck is defending it.”
All of this has come even though Hesson is not directly affiliated with Skyline High School, which is part of a different district. As such, he was not involved in the decision to allow the girl to play, and he was also not privy to whether she had a waiver.
In addition, numerous right-wing lawmakers and candidates have endorsed Lechner’s complaint. Republican state Rep. James DeSana posted a statement to Facebook “calling for Chet Hesson to be removed immediately.”
“The public cannot have good discourse, debate, or dialogue without good information,” Painter says. “Supplying that information is the fundamental duty of the news media. When journalists are distracted by inconsequential stories, then we’re not spending the time to cover interesting and important news that our readers really need.”
Both Painter and Axelrod took note of the small number of known trans athletes in the U.S. Last year, the NCAA’s president told a Senate panel that fewer than 10 of the 510,000 college athletes affiliated with the organization were transgender.
“This controversy is part of a much larger national narrative about transgender athletes and the LGBTQ+ community as a whole,” Painter says. “The entire national conversation is based on virtually nothing, so this particular set of stories are based on an inconsequential premise.”
Going Forward
If the Department of Education does find that Title IX was violated, the school district could risk losing federal funding if it continues to allow trans athletes to compete.
Zaksheske has been pressuring the MHSAA to confirm whether a waiver was approved for the volleyball player to compete, citing a statement from early September in which the association said it had not yet approved any waivers for the semester. On Dec. 9, MHSAA confirmed that one waiver was granted in the fall season, though no details were given in the interest of the student’s privacy.
While research into the relative athletic capabilities of trans and cis women is ongoing, numerous experts and athletes say that politicized vitriol, misleading information and outsized media attention about trans athletes makes girls’ sports less safe for all athletes.
“There are real, valid, and necessary societal discussions to be had about trans athletes participating against competitors who don’t match their birth gender, and ethical journalism can have a place in informing those discussions,” Axelrod says. “At the end of the day, this woman is still a human, and a child at that, not a canvas for OutKick to paint a distorted picture of one individual who’s a tiny part of a much bigger societal dialogue about trans athletes.”
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
Commentary: The masking of ICE agents is indefensible
Amy Dru Stanley and Craig Becker, Chicago Tribune on Published in Op Eds
Last month, a federal judge observed that masked figures were creating terror on American streets — not criminals but agents of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. “Law enforcement in the United States has usually been performed in the open,” wrote Judge William G. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.
“Images of plain-clothed, masked federal agents — faceless agents of the federal government — snatching a non-violent person off the streets” have created “fear in citizens and non-citizens alike.”
We’ve all seen the arrests in our neighborhoods and felt that fear. We’ve watched the raids unfold on the news: on the streets, on college campuses, in workplaces, in homes, outside courtrooms, in Home Depot parking lots. ICE agents wearing masks, violently detaining people, holding them captive, disappearing the suspects.
And we’ve heard the explanation that masking protects the ICE agents. “If you expose them,” President Donald Trump has said, “you put them in great danger, tremendous danger.”
But that rationale is indefensible, as it would apply to every public official and employee involved in the criminal justice system, all of whom face the threat of retaliatory violence. Moreover, severe penalties exist for attacking or intimidating law enforcement officers. Surely a judge who sentences convicted criminals to prison is as much at risk as ICE agents, yet the notion is absurd that judges should be anonymous or allowed to mask their faces in the courtroom.
Anti-masking bills have been introduced in Congress — including the “No Secret Police Act” and “No Anonymity in Immigration Enforcement Act”— but the measures have no chance of enactment under GOP control. Recently, Chicago and California banned masked arrests, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has stated: “We will NOT comply.”
What is needed is for the courts to act — to declare masked arrests unconstitutional, as unreasonable seizures barred by the Fourth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that “reasonableness depends on not only when a seizure is made, but also how it is carried out.” Guarantees exist against seizures without probable cause or warrants, and the court has found that law enforcement agents violate the Fourth Amendment if they seize someone with unreasonable force or execute a warrant to search someone’s home without first knocking and announcing their presence. Such protections, essential in a democracy, should be extended to bar the carrying out of masked arrests. That ban is necessary to identify bad actors, and reduce the risk of harm and thereby uphold constitutional guarantees against unreasonable seizures and interference with freedom of expression.
ICE use of masks has spread more than fear. It has led to criminal impersonation: men pretending to be ICE agents carrying out kidnappings and sexual assaults. But threats to liberty and security lie in masked ICE policing itself — that faceless agents will use excessive force on immigrants or retaliate against witnesses who protest their raids by exercising free speech rights, and that no redress for the wrongs can be sought because the ICE agents can’t be identified. That masked men can act with impunity, as in authoritarian regimes.
Aggressive recruitment of new ICE agents, who are deployed with little training, heightens the risks of the masked raids. As the crackdown spreads — with the White House demanding 3,000 arrests by ICE a day— so, too, is protest against the masking. “More raids means more unidentified federal law enforcement intimidating and in some cases terrorizing our communities,” states the American Civil Liberties Union, noting the difficulty of distinguishing ICE arrests from kidnappings.
Masking also presents dangers for the ICE agents, who may be mistaken for imposters. Obscuring identity has long been a tactic used in certain undercover operations. But as former ICE official Scott Shuchart warned about the masked arrests, there is now “a kind of vigilante problem where people either don’t know, or at least aren’t sure, that these officers who are dressed up like bank robbers are actually law enforcement officers.” In such circumstances, violent self-defense might result.
Judicial prohibition of masked arrests is supported by trends toward greater transparency in policing nationwide. “In evaluating the reasonableness of police procedures under the Fourth Amendment,” the Supreme Court has, by its own account, “looked to prevailing rules in individual jurisdictions.” ICE agents’ masking is sharply discordant with rules requiring local police to wear badges and nameplates and barring them from preventing the public from reading the information. The increasing use of body-worn cameras similarly serves police accountability.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, assaults on ICE agents are up by more than 1,000% this year and masking has been informally tolerated to prevent doxxing, harassment and violence. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department has begun to prosecute people who follow agents or publicize their addresses. Yet ICE has issued no policy requiring mask use to protect agents — nor any official guidelines on masking at all. Appearing on Fox News in July, the acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, equivocated. “I’m not a fan of the masks,” he said. “I think we could do better, but we need to protect our agents and officers.”
The unreasonableness of masked arrests is highlighted by state legislation outlawing the wearing of disguises by private individuals on public property. It reflects the understanding that masking promotes lawlessness — and as the Supreme Court has recognized, “Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.”
Currently, some 22 states have anti-masking rules on the books, as do many local governments, rules now being enforced to suppress peaceful dissent rather than criminal activity. In extreme instances, felony charges have been threatened against masked students protesting the war in Gaza. No doubt the repressive use of the restrictions will broaden. Last June, Trump posted on social media: “From now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???”
Anti-masking rules governing private conduct are almost a century old, with most originating in efforts to quell the terrors of the Ku Klux Klan. With much to hide, the Klan has attacked anti-masking laws in the very terms now used by ICE to defend masked arrests: “Members wear their masks to protect their anonymity,” the Klan has argued, “because of the harassment, threats of violence, violence.”
The depth of community protest against ICE agents’ masking may well be rooted in historical memory of faceless Klansmen riding through the night, seizing their captives. As Judge Young warned recently, “Masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.”
We should not do so now.
____
Amy Dru Stanley is a history professor at the University of Chicago. Craig Becker is a lawyer with Democracy Defenders Fund.
Molly Sprayregen (She/Her)November 10, 2025, 11:00 am ESTFlorida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks about the arrest of 28 members of the Mongols motorcycle gang during a press conference at the Stephen Saboda Training Center near Daytona Beach, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. | © Nigel Cook/News-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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