Ten Bears made a post that points out something I think we all should be aware of. I know a lot of the people who come here also go to his site also. But incase anyone missed it this short video is a powerful reminder of what we are fighting in the second tRump dictatorship. Hugs
I can’t understand living just to hate and harm others who are not doing anything that harms you. To carry that bitterness and to work so hard to deny to others what you demand for yourself seems like poisoning one’s self. With so much to enjoy in diversity and inclusion why work so hard to create a homogeny of everyone being the same. Hugs
As the M4L annual summit kicks off this weekend, here’s how one of the group’s original chapters is sowing chaos and pushing anti-LGBTQ policies in Indian River County.
Mink Tyner says some people call her a “helicopter parent” because of how protective she is over her kids. Despite this, she wasn’t concerned about bringing her daughter, then 14, to the Indian River County, Florida, school board meeting in August 2023, where they were discussing changes to the state’s curriculum relating to race and slavery.
That’s why she was shocked when she saw community members at the podium reading excerpts of sexual content from books.
“I hate lights out now because my D has a mind of its own,” one woman read. Then a man came up and read, “When Doris had just turned 11, her current stepfather started having sex with her.” And a third person read, “He took a long long time peeling off my jeans and T-shirt, pink bra and panties, and a longer time stroking and kissing me.”
The meeting had turned into more of a stunt led by protestors affiliated with the local chapter of Moms for Liberty (M4L), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated far-right extremist group.
“I’m not gonna have my kid in here listening to these adults doing this shit,” Tyner remembers thinking.
She took her daughter out of the room and pleaded with security to intervene, but they refused. So she spoke up to disrupt the meeting herself, only for security from the Sheriff’s office—who told Uncloseted Media their deputies responded “appropriately and in accordance with established procedures”—to escort her out.
As she was leaving, conservative pastor John Amanchukwu, who had attended the meeting with M4L, confronted her while recording a video that he would later post to X calling her “demonic” and lashing out about her being pro-LGBTQ: “You’re okay with DEI. … You’re okay with Pride Month. You’re okay with the rainbow flag. You’re okay with all that junk,” he yelled. Tyner responded by calling him a “fucking weirdo” and walked out.
That video opened a floodgate of harassment that tormented Tyner and her family for years: She received insults, accusations of pedophilia, and persistent threats of violence from a Facebook account displaying the name CURTIS COUSINS who called her a “fent-using fat fucking dyke” and told her she deserved to have “a potato peeler peel her clit right off to the bone.”
“I never know if this week or 10 years from now somebody’s gonna show up [to my business] based on some kind of misinformation that Moms for Liberty started about me [or] want to harm me and my family,” Tyner, who owns a tattoo shop, told Uncloseted Media.
Indian River County is home to one of the first of M4L’s 320 chapters nationwide. The group’s annual summit is this weekend and will feature a variety of politicians with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Oklahoma’s former state superintendent Ryan Walters, who made headlines for making anti-trans comments after the death of 16-year-old trans teen Nex Benedict. Last year, conservative heavyweights spoke at the event, including President Trump, Tulsi Gabbard and Sebastian Gorka.
Over the last four years, M4L have built a reputation for chaos and controversy. Members have made the news for quoting Hitler, stripping at a school board meeting and offering bounties to report teachers who teach about “critical race theory.”
At one point in Indian River County, close allies of M4L made up a majority of the school board where they pressured the district to ban scores of books, many of which contain LGBTQ themes, and reverse a racial equity policy—all while harassing, doxing and defaming their adversaries.
Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science from the University of Massachusetts, says what’s playing out in Indian River County is a microcosm for so many other chapters across the country.
“[The media are] falling like suckers for this story that they’re a grassroots moms organization. They are not, they are connected to … the far right establishment,” he says. “And that’s become … more and more apparent. So this whole grassroots thing is hogwash.”
Beginnings
Moms for Liberty was founded in Florida in 2021 by three current and former school board members: Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, the latter of whom has since left the group after being involved in a sex scandal wherein her husband allegedly prowled local bars to solicit women for threesomes.
Shortly after M4L launched, Justice tapped Jennifer Pippin, who had made a name for herself for leading activism against COVID-19 restrictions, to lead the chapter for her home county, Indian River.
While the anti-mask circles that would later be folded into M4L always had a conservative lean, multiple county residents told Uncloseted Media that the group’s discriminatory views were not initially apparent.
Tyner, a lesbian who identifies as politically independent, actually felt welcomed by the group when she worked with them on their anti-mask mandate advocacy. However, that changed as M4L’s focus turned towards opposing LGBTQ inclusion measures in schools.
“Once they organized and got the appearance of a grassroots start … and many people in the community that were siding with them, it’s like they took the steering wheel and they just steered another direction,” she says.
When Tyner began speaking up against this rhetoric, she says she was blocked from the group’s Facebook pages. But as she continued to oppose them publicly, Justice offered to meet with her to address her concerns.
Over breakfast at a local cafe, Tyner says Justice gave her a “scripted” response in the hopes of winning back her support. She even invited Tyner to an M4L chapter meeting. However, Tyner declined as the meeting was allegedly to be hosted by a community member who had made an online post suggesting necrophilia and pedophilia are part of the LGBTQ umbrella.
“I was like, ‘Alright, this is not a good or a safe movement,” says Tyner.
Justice did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Pippin told Uncloseted Media that M4L have “members and members children that are LGB in [their] chapter and across the country.”
Another local parent, who requested anonymity due to concerns about his job security, says while he’d initially been on board with M4L’s parental rights advocacy, he ran into conflict with the group when they started opposing the school district’s racial equity policies and tried to ban books with antiracist themes, including Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby”and “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” Like Tyner, he says he was approached by Justice and Pippin to win him over again but was ultimately unconvinced.
After he split from M4L, he began publicly criticizing the group’s book bans. In retaliation, some M4L members accused him of supporting pedophiles.
When he reached out to Pippin to ask for the people making such accusations against him to be held accountable, he says she waved him off—all while blocking him on social media and accusing him of “bullying.” He also says that she doxed him after another dispute—a major factor in his decision to remain anonymous.
“Her response to me basically was ‘free speech,’ ‘we don’t control what our members say.’ And I’m like, ‘But Jennifer, you know me, and you know I’m not a pedophile, and this is unacceptable,’” he told Uncloseted Media.
Building Political Power
The Indian River County School District’s J.A. Thompson Administrative Center. Photo by Kiran891.
Efforts to ban LGBTQ and racial justice-related books in schools are part of M4L’s national ammo that helped them quickly explode in popularity.
Cunningham says M4L were boosted by high-profile connections on the right. Ziegler and Descovich both served as presidents of the Florida Coalition of School Board Members, a group billed as a conservative alternative to the Florida School Board Association. Ziegler’s husband, Christian, was vice chairman of Florida’s Republican Party at the time and worked as a media surrogate for the Trump campaign in 2016.
Since their launch, M4L have had their conferences and events sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute; were directly advised by Leadership Institute founder Morton Blackwell; and were a part of Project 2025’s advisory board. And this summer, Justice was hired as executive vice president of Heritage Action.
In 2022, the Indian River County chapter leveraged this influence to carve out power in local government: They got two close allies, Jacqueline Rosario and Dr. Gene Posca, elected to the school board, and they developed closerelationships with the Ron DeSantis-backed county sheriff Eric Flowers. Pippin was even appointed by Florida’s Department of Education to a statewide workgroup to develop compliance training for Florida’s classroom censorship policies, including the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law.
As M4L became notorious for pushing exclusionary measures in schools, some officials—including school board member Peggy Jones—criticized the group. In retaliation, Jones reportedly received so many death threats that the district had to increase security detail at all school events where she was present.
In the midst of increasing chaos surrounding M4L, the group mounted a campaign of hundreds of requests to ban books containing “sexual content.”
While some librarians continued to hold the majority of books where bans were unsuccessful, M4L convinced Flowers to investigate one school library, alleging that keeping the books on the shelf could constitute a sex crime. While the investigation found that no crime had been committed, Flowers concluded that “we do not feel that this content is appropriate for young children,” putting even further pressure on local librarians.
Pippin at the school board meeting in August 2023. Photo via YouTube.
This kind of direct action proved very effective. Even the reading protest where Tyner was escorted out won them 34 additional book bans from a unanimous board vote.
“You can’t deny that the kind of tactics that they have have been useful,” Cunningham says. “Some of the places they’ve taken over, [including] Sarasota County, where Bridget Ziegler was on the board, became much more conservative over the past few years.”
Silencing Opposition
In addition to school board meetings, the group has a track record of trolling progressive events. Tyner and the anonymous parent remember an incident where a group of M4L members showed up to a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting that had been organized to discuss plans for opposition against new state regulations that required classes to portray slavery in a more positive light.Tyner says white M4L members attempted to shout down NAACP speakers, with one member allegedly using the n-word. Thomas Kenny, a M4L member who was at the event, said this “did not happen” and that one of their members using the n-word is “an absolute lie.”
Cunningham says these disruptions are part of M4L’s playbook. He pointed to the example of Jennifer Jenkins, the liberal school board member who unseated Tina Descovich in neighboring Brevard County, who says protestors spurred by M4L have turned up outside her home calling her a pedophile and burning “FU” in her lawn.
“They [use the] same kind of tactics … over and over again,” says Cunningham.
Pippin
Chapter leader Jennifer Pippin has mastered those tactics, becoming widely known as one of the most influential book banners in the country. She’s also made headlines for filing a complaint against the Kilted Mermaid, a Vero Beach wine bar, alleging that they had hosted an all-ages drag event with sexual content, which the bar owner denies. M4L rallied against the bar online, spamming the posts of one of the bar’s drag performers, telling the queen to “stay away from children.” This stunt caught the attention of Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier, who launched an investigation and issued subpoenas for video recordings of the bar on the day of the event as well as identifying documents for employees and performers.
Pippin has also claimed to be a nurse, despite no public records showing that she has a license, and appeared on the antisemitic and homophobic far-right news website TruNews, where she claimed, without evidence, that anti-M4L activists have been killing pets and livestock owned by the group’s members.
Fear
Tyner and the other anonymous parent both say that they’ve had to take a step back from the school board and local activism because of the toxic environment M4L have created.
“It’s been turned into such a circus,” Tyner says.
In the meantime, things have gotten worse for the LGBTQ community in Indian River County, and in Florida overall, between the “Don’t Say Gay” law and anti-LGBTQ legislation that requires teachers to deadname trans students unless they have signed parental permission slips. The anonymous parent says he’s watched many of the LGBTQ people in his life, including one of his own children, who is a teacher, leave the state due to the hostile environment.
“It’s not safe for a lot of people,” he says.
Greener Pastures?
Despite all of this, a sea change may be on the horizon. A 2024 Brookings report found that the success rates of M4L-endorsed candidates were on the decline, and in Indian River County’s elections last year, both of M4L’s school board candidates lost. With the continued controversies of the Trump administration and the growing popularity of groups that oppose M4L’s ideology, Cunningham feels the tide may be turning for M4L’s influence in Indian River County and across America.
“In school board races, the Moms for Liberty label is toxic, so try to not get attached to that,” he says. “They’ve had quite an impact … I don’t wanna downplay that. But in terms of popular appeal and growth, I think it’s much more limited than it is portrayed.”
Editor’s Note: In an email, Jennifer Pippin responded to the allegations made about her in this story. You can read them here.
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He has additionally espoused a view of the United States as a white, Christian nation, claiming that white people are undergoing a “cultural genocide” and deliberate replacement.
Multiple Trump nominees have had histories of racist, violent, white supremacist, and even pro-Nazi tweets. But almost all of them still end up being confirmed by Senate Republicans.
NPR identified more than a dozen files released by the DOJ on Friday that are no longer available Saturday afternoon, including one that shows President Trump’s photo on a desk among several other photographs. The removed files also show various works of art, including those containing nudity.
A video posted to Instagram by the University of South Florida’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) shows three men interrupting students during their morning prayer, spitting and yelling at them, and waving strips of bacon at them. USF said that their police department is currently gathering evidence and anticipates asking the state attorney to bring criminal charges.
Last Tuesday morning, Nov. 18, several MSA members gathered on top of a parking garage on USF’s Tampa campus for Fajr, Islam’s morning prayer. A livestream by Warriors for Christ—an organization recognized by the SPLC as a hate group—shows Muslim students kneeling in prayer as one of the men, identified in the video only as Ricardo, approaches with a painted cardboard box that reads “KAABA 2.0 JESUS IS LORD.” The Kaaba is a stone building at the center of the holiest site in Islam. While praying, Muslims face the geographical direction of the Kaaba.
The man sets up the box in front of the crowd while two other men, identifiable via their social medias (where they posted the video along with many other similar videos at other locations) as Richard Penkoski of Oklahoma and Christopher Svochak of Illinois, start to “insult” the Muslim prophet, Muhammad, in obscene and sexual ways. One of the men calls them all terrorists. “Go back to Mecca,” he shouts.
At one point, Penkoski brings out a small Wawa container with bacon in it and waves it around while snacking from it.
“We do care about you, so we brought you some bacon,” Penkoski says. “It’s really good. Bacon? Bacon? Anybody?”
Like all pork products, bacon is considered haram, meaning Islam’s rules forbid eating it. All of the students remain kneeling and continue on with their prayer.
“I spit on the grave of Muhammad,” the man identified as Ricardo says before spitting on the ground within a few feet of the students, who are still praying on the ground.
“Take that towel off of your head,” he says, pointing to a woman in the back wearing a religious head covering. At this point, after several minutes of the men shouting at the largely silent students, Ricardo lunges towards a student and points his finger in his face, prompting the student to briefly grab his wrist. Immediately, all three Christian men say this is evidence that Islam is a violent religion.
“This is not how you preach,” one of the students can be heard saying. “Brother, you’re harassing us,” he says to Penkoski.
“You’re not my brother,” Penkoski responds. “This isn’t harassment; this is free speech. But thank you for doing what you did to give us more ammo to prove you’re a bunch of violent psychopaths.”
The video continues like this until the students leave and the Christian content creators do the same. “That was awesome. That was fun,” one of the men can be heard saying as they walk away.
“By the way, don’t ever spit on the ground. It’s actually illegal,” one of the Christians says to the man identified as Ricardo. “What? Spitting on the ground?” “Yes, it’s illegal.” “Well, uh, I didn’t know that.”
Penkoski later posted a screenshot from the MSA group chat, in which one member gives an update on legal proceedings with the state attorney’s office.
“It’s not a hate crime,” Penkoski writes in the caption. “For a ‘hate crime’ to exist, there has to be an actual crime first.”
Florida Statute 871.01, which makes disrupting religious assembly a crime, reads: “Whoever willfully and maliciously interrupts or disturbs any school or any assembly of people met for the worship of God, … commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.” In Florida, a first-degree misdemeanor is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and one year in prison.
Florida Statute 775.085 contains rules for hate crime enhancement when there is evidenced prejudice against “race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age of the victim.” This bumps first-degree misdemeanors up to third-degree felonies. Third-degree felonies are punishable by up to $5,000 in fines and five years in prison.
Florida Statute 784.0493 deals with harassment based on religious or ethnic heritage. It makes it illegal (first-degree misdemeanor) to “willfully and maliciously harass or intimidate another person based on the person’s wearing or displaying of any indicia relating to any religious or ethnic heritage.”
The man, identified as Ricardo repeatedly told two women with religious head coverings to “get that towel off your head,” and called one a “wicked woman” and a “Jezebel dog.”
As the men left the parking garage, Svochak spoke to the camera, saying Jesus helped him and Penkoski beat drug addiction.
“What did he save you from?” Penkoski asks Ricardo. “I used to be a heathen,” Ricardo replies.
The state attorney typically decides what initial charges to bring. The 13th Circuit State Attorney’s Office has plans to speak with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay this morning, but as a policy it waits to start a case until police send investigative information along.
A statement issued by USF says that campus police are still trying to identify the men in the video. USF also said that it has reached out to the affected students, and will issue trespass warnings to the men who interrupted the prayer. They anticipate referring the perpetrators to the state attorney for criminal charges.
This wouldn’t be the first time Penkoski found himself in court over a stunt. The Christian content creator takes videos of himself and others “street preaching,” often insulting and demeaning nearby targets. Penkoski uploads the videos to his social media accounts and makes other targeted posts and includes a donation link through a Venmo account under his wife’s name.
In 2022, Penkoski was accused of targeting two leaders of Oklahoma for Equality, who later filed for a protective order against him. They were granted the protective order, but it was overturned on appeal by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision, since Penkoski was targeting organizations rather than individuals.
Penkoski has also been the plaintiff in several legal battles, including an attempt to overturn federal marriage equality for gay couples, a suit against the mayor of Washington D.C. for allowing a “Black Lives Matter” mural, and a lawsuit against a school district that sent his daughter home for wearing a shirt that said “homosexuality is a sin.”
Svochak gave this reporter a statement about his religious beliefs over Instagram DM, but would not answer specific questions. Svochak, who is affiliated with the recognized hate group Warriors for Christ, said that he is trying to spread Jesus’ message of love.
DEARBORN, MI — A pair of dueling demonstrations unfolded along Schaefer Road and Michigan Avenue on Tuesday, Nov. 18, as anti-Islam activists and pro-Muslim counter-protesters clashed in front of a heavy police presence before moving toward Dearborn City Hall for the evening council meeting.
The city, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, has recently become a repeated target for out-of-state activists who falsely claim it operates under “Sharia law.”
The tensions began when Jake Lang, a Jan. 6 rioter who has described himself as a political prisoner, arrived on Michigan Avenue attempting to burn a Quran.
Lang tried several times to ignite the book, holding it up with a lighter, but counter-protesters repeatedly knocked it from his hands.
At one point, Lang stepped into the center of Michigan Avenue and tapped the Quran with a slab of bacon before a Muslim counter-protester snatched the book and ran off with it.
Lang’s group later marched toward City Hall ahead of the 7 p.m. meeting.
Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, released the following statement.
“Attempting to burn a religious document is an unacceptable act of hate,” Hertel said. “Dearborn is a beloved, multicultural city with tens of thousands of people who are cherished friends, family members, and neighbors.”
A pro-Muslim and pro-Palestinian supporter holds a sign reading “Defeat Trump’s Fascist Movement” during a counterprotest in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
A Dearborn police officer told MLive there were about seven police cars stationed nearby to help keep the situation calm.
At the same time this was happening, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson, who had previously organized a separate protest without affiliation to Lang, walked with supporters along the sidewalk.
Hudson’s and Lang’s demonstrations were unrelated but appeared in the city on the same afternoon, drawing a mix of residents, activists, and counter-protesters on both sides of Michigan Avenue.
Yet after visiting three mosques in the area, Hudson declared “that there are many false and misleading narratives about Dearborn being spread and that all he found from Muslims in Dearborn was hospitality.” He further stated that he was opposed to outsiders coming to Dearborn with plans to burn the Quran.
As a result, Lang spray-painted the word “cuck” on what appeared to be Hudson’s campaign bus in Dearborn, accusing the Republican candidate of “selling out” for visiting mosques and expressing sympathy toward Muslims.
Hudson later denied the bus belonged to him.
Michigan gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson walks with supporters during a protest on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
One Hudson supporter, Kelly Elias, said she drove several hours from Northern Michigan because she wanted to see the situation firsthand.
“I just wanted to come and see what the mainstream media (is reporting) — if they’re lying to us. I’m Arabic too. I’m from the God of love. I don’t want to hurt anybody. If we’re in danger or if there’s any problem, I want to know. But if not, let’s be peaceful with each other and solve this problem. We need to work together and be just. Love each other. We don’t need any problems. Anybody with hate.”
Elias described herself as culturally mixed.
“I’m Lebanese, I’m Syrian, Italian,” she said. “I’m a mix.”
She said she has long viewed Dearborn positively.
“I’ve always thought it was a wonderful area. I’ve had friends here. I worked in Detroit. I lived in Detroit,” Elias said.
On the other side of the street, Muslim and pro-Palestinian counter-protesters rallied in response to Lang’s actions and the broader anti-Islam messaging.
Dearborn resident Karrar Haidar explained why he attended the protest.
“To show the American people that we are a religion of peace and we can coexist as the Abrahamic religions have coexisted in previous times,” Haidar said. “Some people are a little bit more extreme in their ideology, but we’re here to show them that we also have a voice and this is our country, too.
“Everybody comes from some sort of immigration, and we’re all happy to be here. We all pay our taxes, we go to work and try to provide for our family.”
Haidar also addressed claims that Dearborn is governed by Sharia law.
“If they really do believe Sharia is the jurisdiction here in Dearborn, when you walk in, you see a monument in regards of Maryam and Prophet Jesus,” he said.
He said protesters coming to Dearborn misunderstand the community.
“I think they lost their core beliefs with Christianity,” Haidar said. “I feel like there’s a form of Christianity that exists in this country that is more toward spreading hate. Because if you go towards Ford Road, you’ll see a mosque and two churches side by side, standing strong in solidarity. So, I don’t know what their ideology is. I think it’s more of a political extremist view rather than a religious one.”
Muslim demonstrators pray outside Dearborn City Hall during protests on Nov. 18, 2025.Fuad Shalhout — MLive.com
As both sides continued chanting and walking toward City Hall, police kept a perimeter on the sidewalks and along Michigan Avenue, intervening briefly when tensions escalated over Lang’s attempted Quran burning.
One person was seen arrested at the Dearborn City Hall. No injuries were immediately reported.
Fuad Shalhout
Fuad Shalhout is the business and community reporter at MLive.com-The Flint Journal. He joined MLive in July 2022 and covers a range of topics from new business openings, property sales and human interest…
“Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” protestors chanted in the middle of Times Square, among a sea of signs that read “love reigns not kings,” “gays against faux-king Trump,” “we stand with … our trans family” and “the future is coming.”
On Saturday, independent analysts estimated that the No Kings March drew between 5 and 8 million people, and organizers say over 7 million people attended 2,700 events across all 50 states. The event, which was organized to push against the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S., was the largest single-day protest in America since 1970.
Over 100,000 New Yorkers marched in all five boroughs in NYC on Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
Among the crowd were countless LGBTQ people, fighting back against an administration that has introduced a litany of anti-LGBTQ executive orders and used vile rhetoric to denigrate queer people. This backsliding of LGBTQ rights, according to experts, has a deep connection to authoritarianism, with research showing that when governments weaken protections for queer and trans people, they often turn to broader democratic institutions next.
“Threats to democratic institutions and threats to LGBTQ rights are mutually reinforcing, generating a vicious cycle that strengthens authoritarian control,” Ari Shaw, director of International Programs at the Williams Institute, told Uncloseted Media. “Increased persecution of minority groups, including LGBTI people, is itself evidence of democratic backsliding by indicating the erosion of liberal democratic norms [meant to protect] minority rights.”
Legal Abuse of Power
One of the ways the Trump administration’s abuse of power has been most evident is through its legal actions.
He’s also slashed HIV funding at a staggering rate. Uncloseted Media estimates that the National Institutes of Health has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, including 71% of all global HIV grants.
Jeffrey Cipriano at the NYC No Kings protest Saturday. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
It was these cuts that prompted Brooklynite Jeffrey Cipriano to turn out to protest. “The specific reason that I’m protesting is actually on the shirt I’m wearing,” says Cipriano.
“My best friend works for an organization called AIDS United. … His job is to travel the country and help people get AIDS medication, specifically trans and unhoused community members. But his job is at risk,” he says. “The end outcome of his work is that people who have issues in their lives have the issues resolved and that’s going away under the current administration.”
Executive orders are based on powers granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution or by Congressional statutes. The president cannot use an executive order to create new laws or spend money unless Congress has authorized it. They are meant to direct how existing laws are implemented. But Trump has ignored democratic norms, often filling agencies with loyal supporters, using orders to go after political opponents and pushing the limits of what the law allows.
In some cases, he has moved illegally. “The President is directing various executive branch officials to adopt policy that has either not yet been adopted by Congress or is in violation of existing statutory law,” says Jodi Short, professor of law at UC Law San Francisco. “The analogy to a king and what has troubled many about this presidency is the sheer consolidation of executive branch power in one individual.”
Short’s colleague, Dave Owen, agrees. “Illegality has been rampant,” he told Uncloseted Media in an email. “People are often cynical about the government, and they might think what Trump’s doing is nothing new. But most of the time, the executive branch takes the law seriously, and both legal constraints and norms of good governance matter,” he wrote. He says that through history, there’s been “a lot more integrity and a lot less lawlessness than most people realize.”
“This administration has broken with those traditions,” he adds.
Revolt Against Executive Orders
Many Americans have recognized this. A survey from April found that 85% of Americans agreed or strongly agreed that the president should obey federal court rulings even if he doesn’t like them.
In response to Trump’s overreach, more than 460 legal challenges have been filed across the country challenging his executive actions. One of these is a federal lawsuit by Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation that challenges the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people. Another lawsuit challenges Trump’s order directing federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that provide gender-affirming medical treatments for people under 19.
Zoe Boik and her father, Derik, protesting on Saturday. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Both of those lawsuits are one reason 17-year-old Zoe Boik came out to protest with her friends and her dad. “Obviously, I’m disappointed and kind of helpless because there’s nothing I can directly do to change or impact anything that’s going on,” says Boik, who identifies as pansexual and gender fluid and is not legally allowed to vote.
Boik—who was seven years old when Trump announced his run for presidency in 2015—says she’s doing a research paper on Trump’s trans military ban and is frustrated because she sees it as inexplicable discrimination. “They’re not letting trans people serve … which doesn’t make any sense.”
Zoe as a child with her dad, Derik. Photo courtesy of Boik.
LGBTQ Rights and Democratic Backsliding
This type of blatant discrimination is often a key sign of a country moving closer to authoritarianism and away from democracy. According to a 2023 research paper by Shaw and his colleagues, anti-LGBTQ stigma may contribute “to the erosion of democratic norms and institutions.”
The paper found that when a country with relatively high acceptance of LGBTQ rights introduces anti-LGBTQ legislation, it clashes with what most people believe and can weaken public trust in democracy, deepen political divides and make it easier for populist or extremist movements to gain power.
“The level of acceptance of LGBTQ people is closely associated with the strength of democracy in a country,” Shaw says. “In some cases, we even saw that rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric or policies preceded a broader decline in democracy.”
In Brazil, for example, early democratic gains coincided with rising LGBTQ acceptance, including legal recognition of same-sex unions and workplace protections. But as populist President Jair Bolsonaro came into power in 2019, he began questioning—without evidence—the security of Brazil’s voting systems, saying he would only lose his re-election campaign if there were fraud. He was also accused of trying to intervene in operations held by the Federal Police about the alleged criminal conduct of his sons, and he told his ministers that he had the power and he would interfere—without exception—in all cabinet ministries. At the same time, LGBTQ protections were rolled back, and schools and civil society faced censorship, suggesting that falling LGBTQ acceptance may have “preceded Brazil’s democratic erosion,” according to Shaw’s paper. In September of this year, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup.
Another example is Poland’s democracy weakening since 2015 under the Law and Justice Party, which consolidated power by undermining the Constitutional Tribunal, installing loyal judges and restricting independent media. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric became central to the party’s nationalist platform, fueling the creation of nearly 100 “LGBT ideology free zones,” inciting violence against LGBTQ individuals and stymying legal recourse through politicized courts.
When it comes to LGBTQ rights, Trump has mimicked the moves of these leaders even though most of his constituents don’t want it: A 2022 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 80% of Americans favor laws that would protect LGBTQ people against discrimination.
“The definition of an authoritarian system is a system where power is consolidated in one individual whose power is unchecked by any other institution. And I fear that in certain domains, that’s the direction in which this administration is trying to move us,” says Short. “I think it’s incredibly dangerous.”
Attacks on Higher Education
Another common tool in the authoritarian playbook is attacking higher education.
While many universities are rejecting Trump’s demands, others are experiencing a chilling effect, changing their policies before the administration tries to hold up funds.
James Revson, Maddy Everlith and Shay Wingate holding their signs at the No Kings protest. Photo by Jelinda Montes.
“I’m here because I’m angry and I feel that we aren’t angry enough,” Maddy Everlith, a sophomore gender studies major at Pace University, told Uncloseted Media as she marched with her friends. “Being a woman of color in America and having so many intersectional identities is also what affects me. … I want to stand up and advocate for other people.”
Everlith’s university responded to Trump’s threats in September by renaming its DEI office to the “Division of Opportunity and Institutional Excellence.”
“I am beyond horrified how quickly our university was willing to bend the knee on this decision,” Austin Chappelle, a senior at Pace, told the student newspaper. This change comes in the midst of uncertainty under the Trump administration, which has already caused many LGBTQ students to feel uneasy on campus.
“It’s part of an electoral strategy to try to mobilize right-wing voters to distract from other sorts of political or economic scandals,” Shaw says, adding that this tactic is another way to gain power.
Lars Kindem protesting for his trans sister at the No Kings protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
The pain of this rhetoric has affected millions of trans Americans and allies alike, including Lars Kindem, a 64-year-old retired pilot from Minnesota who was marching to support his transgender sister.
“What Trump has done is he’s taken people that haven’t done anything wrong and has turned them into scapegoats,” he says, adding that Trump’s language is “hateful, petty, mean and hurtful.”
He says his sister and her partner are having issues getting the correct gender markers issued on their passports. Because of the Trump administration’s treatment of the community, they are making plans to move to Denmark, where “there’s a lot more acceptance.”
Christian Nationalism
This scapegoating has played into the hands of Trump’s voter base of white evangelical Protestants, the only major Christian denomination in the U.S. in which a majority believes society has gone too far in accepting transgender people.
Since 2020, Trump has increasingly embraced Christian nationalism in his rhetoric and imagery. He’s sold Bibles, created a federal task force on anti-Christian bias and been intrinsically linked to Project 2025, the 920-page plan calling for the establishment of a government imbued with “biblical principles” and run by a president who holds sweeping executive powers.
Experts say that “a strong authoritarian streak” runs through conservative Christianity. A 2023 study found that supporters of Christian nationalism tend to support obedience to authority and the idea of authoritarian leaders who are willing to break the rules. Nearly half of Christian nationalists support the notion of an authoritarian leader.
“They are trying to use the language of Christianity, but they are abusing it and misusing it constantly,” Rev. Chris Shelton, a gay pastor at the protest, told Uncloseted Media. “Our faith is all about reaching out to the marginalized, reaching out to the people who are ostracized by society and embracing them and offering love and welcome and a sense of dignity and worth. And to see any human being’s worth being denied is just a mockery of our faith.”
Rev. Chris Shelton marched in Saturday’s NYC protest. Photo by Sean Robinson.
Heidi Beirich, the vice president and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, says that “the LGBTQ community is the prime target of modern authoritarian regimes.”
“For Christian nationalists, attacking LGBTQ rights is the first pillar in destroying civil rights for all. This has happened in countries like Hungary and Poland as authoritarianism consolidated and now it’s happening here,” Beirich told Uncloseted Media.
Moving Forward
As the country bleeds toward authoritarianism, LGBTQ protestors are encouraging people to use their voice, something the queer community is familiar with doing: One 2012 survey found that queer folks are 20 times more likely to be active in liberal social movements than their straight, cis counterparts.
“It is imperative that people continue to pay attention,” Short says. “There is so much going on, a lot of it is disturbing and intense, and there’s such a strong impulse to look away. But we have to engage in political action and resist inappropriate assertions of authority and continue to show up and vote for our democracy.”
17-year-old Zoe Boik is ready. She remembers being in second grade and crying the day after Trump won his first election in 2016. She couldn’t believe how he could lead the country despite “all the bad things he said.”
Boik can’t wait until the midterm elections, when she will be 18 and finally able to vote. “If we don’t vote, then our voices won’t be heard,” she says.
Despite this, she’s also concerned about her freedom to exercise that right being jeopardized.
“My fears about Trump don’t stem specifically from me being queer, but from his authoritarianism as a whole,” she says. “I am scared about how far he will move into dictatorship, [and] my biggest fear is that our right to vote will be compromised, leaving us no recourse.”
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A court in Japan has decided the ban on equal marriage is constitutional (usuke Harada/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A court in Japan has decided the ban on equal marriage is constitutional (usuke Harada/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In a blow to the Japanese LGBTQ+ community, a court has ruled the country’s ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional.
The decision handed down by Tokyo’s High Court on Friday (28 November) outlined that Japan‘s ban on equal marriage does not violate Article 24(1) and (2) or Article 14(1) of the Constitution.
The judgement is the final ruling in a series of six high court lawsuits on same-sex marriage that were filed between 2019 and 2021 in cities including Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo. With all the high court decisions now made, a Supreme Court ruling is expected.
Judge Ayumi Higashi said a unit between a heterosexual couple and their children is a rational legal definition of a family and the exclusion of same-sex marriage is valid. Alongside this, the court also dismissed damages of one million yen ($6,400) which was sought by each of the couples in the lawsuits.
“I’m outraged and appalled”
Speaking outside court, as quoted by the Associated Press, plaintiff Hiromi Hatogai said the decision left her “disappointed”: “Rather than sorrow, I’m outraged and appalled by the decision. Were the judges listening to us?”
Her partner, Shino Kawachi, said it was “difficult to comprehend”, adding: “What is justice? Was the court even watching us? Were they considering the next generation?”
“We only want to be able to marry and be happy, just like anyone else,” another plaintiff, Rie Fukuda, told reporters.
“I believe the society is changing. We won’t give up.”
Japan is the only G7 country that does not recognise equal marriage or offer legal protection to queer couples, whilst in wider Asia only Taiwan, Thailand and Nepal offer same-sex marriages.
Participants for Tokyo Pride events march on the busy streets of Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan, on June 8, 2025. (Yusuke Harada/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Commenting on the decision, Amnesty International criticised the ruling and said it effectively means discrimination against LGBTQ+ couples in Japan is permissible under the law.
“The court’s decision today marks a significant step backwards for marriage equality in Japan,” Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher Boram Jang said.
“The ruling in Tokyo – the final high court ruling of six lawsuits filed across the country and the only ruling to say, in effect, that discrimination against same-sex couples is constitutional – cannot be allowed to hamper progress.
“But it should serve as a warning of the reluctance to acknowledge the concept of same-sex marriage and the reality of same-sex couples living in Japan.
“While these cases work their way to the Supreme Court, the government can resolve this issue through legislation without further delay.
“The Japanese government needs to be proactive in moving towards the legalisation of same-sex marriage so that couples can fully enjoy the same marriage rights as their heterosexual counterparts.
“Japan remains the only G7 country without legal recognition for same-sex couples. The law passed by the government in 2023 to promote understanding of LGBTI people is not enough.
“There need to be solid, legal measures in place to protect same-sex couples and the LGBTI community in Japan from all forms of discrimination.”
Previously, in 2024, Sapporo District Court in northern Japan came to an opposite conclusion and ruled the civil code which limits marriage to between a man and a woman is “unconstitutional [and] discriminatory”.
“Enacting same-sex marriage does not seem to cause disadvantages or harmful effects,” the High Court said in its ruling, adding it was “strongly expected” that parliament would “institutionalise an appropriate law” in the future.
“Living in accordance with one’s gender identity and sexual orientation is an inalienable right rooted in important personal interests,” the court also said.
The Sapporo decision followed prior decisions by courts in Nagoya and Tokyo – a separate lawsuit to the one detailed above – which also declared the ban unconstitutional.
What happens next?
Now that each of the six high court cases are completed, Japan’s highest court – the Supreme Court of Japan – is expected to manage the appeals and make a final decision on the matter.
Research has previously shown that most of the Japanese population is in favour of legalising same-sex marriage, with an opinion poll from 2023 revealing that two-thirds of Japanese people believe equal marriage should be legally recognised.
However, the legalisation of same-sex marriage still looks set to be a long way off, with Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has expressed opposition to same-sex marriage, describing it as a “very difficult problem” in the past.
What amazes me is how frightened straight cis hegemony is over anything that is different from how they live / perceive the world. They can’t seem to be able to live in a society with people who are different from them or how they live. It scares them to their core and makes them think the world is ending. They reject anything that moves from their past comfort zones. The idea of coexistence with others is emotionally shattering to them. They are so fragile. So small in their thinking. They need to make sure anything different is not seen as if removing all evidence of it makes it not exist anymore. That is so stupid I shouldn’t have to address it. But OK let me explain, in the 1950s the only representation of homosexuality was negative and strongly biased toward hating, yet gay kids were born to straight parents, the entire LGBTQ+ had no representation yet all existed. Hugs
Lawmakers in Kazakhstan are following the lead of Russian President Vladimir Putin with a bill to ban so-called “LGBTQ propaganda” in the former Soviet republic.
The lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament on Wednesday approved the measure outlawing “LGBT propaganda” online and in the media, with fines mandated for violators, and up to 10 days in jail for repeat offenders, Reuters reports.
The legislation now moves to the Kazakh senate, where it’s likely to pass.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has expressed support for the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which, like similar laws passed in Russia, Georgia and, Hungary, has been promoted as a bulwark against “degenerate” values imported from the West.
“Children and teenagers are exposed to information online every day that can negatively impact their ideas about family, morality, and the future,” Kazakh Education Minister Gani Beisembayev told lawmakers before the vote.
Deputy Irina Smirnova cited library books and cartoons featuring same-sex relationships as examples of the “propaganda” addressed by the bill.
“I saw books in the library that promote LGBT, where a prince falls in love with a prince, two boys,” she told lawmakers. “There are cartoons that allow this to be shown, there are magazines and comics where all this is promoted.”
For months, President Tokayev has lobbied hard for passage of the bill — which is essentially copycat legislation of Russia’s own “anti-LGBTQ propaganda” measure — stressing the need to uphold what he and Putin call their countries’ “traditional values”.
Parties loyal to Tokayev dominate the lower house and voted unanimously in favor of the ban.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Kazakhstan legalized homosexuality as it drew politically closer to Europe and the West.
But while the Muslim-majority nation is officially secular, it remains deeply conservative when it comes to social issues. With Putin‘s prodding, far-right politicians have exploited those social fissures to push the country back into Russia’s sphere of influence.
“We live in an independent and sovereign republic. Or are we already a colony of the Russian Federation?” Zhanar Sekerbayeva, co-founder of the feminist initiative, Feminita, asked at a recent LGBTQ+ rights roundtable in the country.
Arj Tursynkan, an activist with the NGO Education Community, explained that language in the legislation was sweeping.
“Because of these amendments, people can be punished for anything – jokes, drawings, hugs,” he said.
The activist argued that the legislation is not just a legal text, but a test of Kazakhstan’s commitment to international norms of dignity and freedom.
Ahead of the vote, Belgium-based group International Partnership for Human Rights condemned the measure, saying it would “blatantly violate Kazakhstan’s international human rights commitments.”
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Sarah Rainsford,Eastern and Southern Europe correspondentand
Guy Delauney,Balkans correspondent
AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Civilians risked their lives to cross Sarajevo’s main boulevard during the Bosnian war
The public prosecutor’s office in Milan has opened an investigation into claims that Italian citizens travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina on “sniper safaris” during the war in the early 1990s.
Italians and others are alleged to have paid large sums to shoot at civilians in the besieged city of Sarajevo.
The Milan complaint was filed by journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni, who describes a “manhunt” by “very wealthy people” with a passion for weapons who “paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians” from Serb positions in the hills around Sarajevo.
Different rates were charged to kill men, women or children, according to some reports.
More than 11,000 people died during the brutal four-year siege of Sarejevo.
Yugoslavia was torn apart by war and the city was surrounded by Serb forces and subjected to constant shelling and sniper fire.
Similar allegations about “human hunters” from abroad have been made several times over the years, but the evidence gathered by Gavazzeni, which includes the testimony of a Bosnian military intelligence officer, is now being examined by Italian counter terrorism prosecutor Alessandro Gobbis.
The charge is murder.
CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP
More than 11,000 civilians died in the siege of Sarajevo
The Bosnian officer apparently revealed that his Bosnian colleagues found out about the so-called safaris in late 1993 and then passed on the information to Italy’s Sismi military intelligence in early 1994.
The response from Sismi came a couple of months later, he said. They found out that “safari” tourists would fly from the northern Italian border city of Trieste and then travel to the hills above Sarajevo.
“We’ve put a stop to it and there won’t be any more safaris,” the officer was told, according to Ansa news agency. Within two to three months the trips had stopped.
Ezio Gavazzeni, who usually writes about terrorism and the mafia, first read about the sniper tours to Sarajevo three decades ago when Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported the story, but without firm evidence.
He returned to the topic after seeing “Sarajevo Safari”, a documentary film from 2022 by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic which alleges that those involved in the killings came from several countries, including the US and Russia as well as Italy.
Gavazzeni began to dig further and in February handed prosecutors his findings, said to amount to a 17-page file including a report by former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic.
MICHAEL EVSTAFIEV/AFP
Snipers would shoot at civilians from areas controlled by the Bosnian Serbs overlooking Sarajevo
An investigation in Bosnia itself appears to have stalled.
Speaking to Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, Gavazzeni alleges that “many” took part in the practice, “at least a hundred” in all, with Italians paying “a lot of money” to do so, up to €100,000 (£88,000) in today’s terms.
In 1992, late Russian nationalist writer and politician Eduard Limonov was filmed firing multiple rounds into Sarajevo from a heavy machine gun.
He was being given a tour of hillside positions by Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was later convicted of genocide by an international tribunal in the Hague.
Limonov didn’t pay for his war tourism, though. He was there as an admirer of Karadzic, telling him: “We Russians should take example from you.”
Italian prosecutors and police are said to have identified a list of witnesses as they try to establish who might have been involved.
However, members of the British forces who served in Sarajevo in the 1990s have told the BBC that they never heard of any so-called “sniper tourism” during the Bosnian conflict.
They indicated that any attempts to bring in people from third countries who had paid to shoot at civilians in Sarajevo would have been “logistically difficult to accomplish”, due to the proliferation of checkpoints.
British forces served both inside Sarajevo and in the areas surrounding the city, where Serb forces were stationed and they saw nothing at the time to suggest that “sniper tourism” was taking place.
One soldier described the allegations that foreigners had paid to shoot at civilians as an “urban myth”.
Participants in a World AIDS Day event light candles along a red ribbon. | Shutterstock
The U.S. government will no longer commemorate December 1 as World AIDS Day, the State Department recently notified its workers. The U.S. has commemorated the international observance annually since 1988, including every year of the current president’s first term.
An email to State Department workers notified employees and grant recipients not to publicly promote the day “through any communication channels, including social media, media engagements, speeches or other public-facing messaging” nor to use U.S. government funds towards any World AIDS Day observances, The New York Times reported.
The email said employees and grantees could still mention various anti-HIV programs and attend World AIDS Day events.
The email also reportedly said that the current U.S. government’s policy is “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day.” However, the current president has signed proclamations for various awareness days and other commemorative observances.
World AIDS Day is an international day for raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, remembering those who have died from it, and celebrating progress in prevention, treatment, and care. Two World Health Organization (WHO) public information officers started World AIDS Day in 1988 as a way to raise awareness about the global health challenge.
The current administration has drastically cut federal funding for HIV prevention worldwide. An estimated 127,073 adult and 13,527 infant deaths have been caused by the effects of HIV/AIDS due to the current president’s cuts in funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that has saved an estimated 25 to 26 million lives since its inception in 2003.
The State Department usually issues an annual PEPFAR report on World AIDS Day. It’s unclear if the department will do so this year.
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USF logo. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (Aug. 2015).
(L-R) Richard Penkoski, Christopher Svochak, and Ricardo.Credit: Screengrab via Warriors for Christ / YouTube
Greg OwenNovember 12, 2025, 4:00 pm ESTRussian President Vladimir Putin | Shutterstock
AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Civilians risked their lives to cross Sarajevo’s main boulevard during the Bosnian warCHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP
MICHAEL EVSTAFIEV/AFP
Daniel Villarreal (he/him)November 29, 2025, 9:00 am ESTParticipants in a World AIDS Day event light candles along a red ribbon. | Shutterstock
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