along with some positive news.

The City That Protected Trans People’s Rights in 1975

Fifty years ago this month, Minneapolis passed an anti-discrimination law so forward-thinking that much of the U.S. is still catching up.

By: Kate Sosin December 22, 2025

This article was originally reported by Kate Sosin of The 19th. Meet Kate and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Gay Pride Day on June 28, 1975 in downtown Minneapolis. Credit: Minnesota Historical Society/John Hustad Papers/Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies/University of Minnesota

It was likely one of the last pieces of city policy passed that winter, just before the New Year, a parting gift from a progressive city council.

On December 30, 1975, Minneapolis became the first city to adopt a trans-inclusive LGBTQ+ non-discrimination ordinance. Fifty years later, the United States still lacks similar protections on a federal level.

Minneapolis was special in that the right people were there at the right time, said Seth Goodspeed, director of development and communications at OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization.

“Minneapolis, since the early ’70s, has really been a leader in the gay rights movement,” he said. “That comes out of a lot of the student organizing at the University of Minnesota in the late ’60s.”

It was home to Jack Baker and Michael McConnell, two men who, in 1971, figured out how to legally marry, the first recorded same-sex marriage in history. It was also the stomping ground of Steve Endean, who founded the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign.

Endean started lobbying a city alderman, Earl Netwal, in 1973 to pass a gay rights ordinance. His timing was just right. In 1974 progressives won the mayoral race and the city council. That year they voted 10-0 to ban discrimination on the basis of “sexual preference.”

The next year, Tim Campbell, a local activist and publisher of the GLC Voice in Minneapolis, penned a trans-inclusive policy.

The council passed the ordinance on December 30, right before their term ended and a more conservative council was sworn in — one that would unsuccessfully threaten the ordinance later.

“I think it was a pendulum,” Goodspeed said. “The pendulum was sort of swinging back toward a more conservative mayor and a conservative city council.” (snip)

…

“You’re able to say, ‘We passed this two years ago, last year, in the past five years, and nothing’s really changed, there is no boogeyman under the bed,’” he said. “We’ve had these protections since the 1970s and all these fears that they might have … just never came to fruition.”

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The French City Striving to Stamp Out Sexism

From urban design to ‘gender-sensitive budgeting,’ Nantes is determined to create a safer, more equal place for women to call home.

By: Peter Yeung December 18, 2025

The public spaces in Nantes, a city along the Loire River in the west of France, might at first glance seem just like those in any other part of Europe. Across the city, there are numerous bike lanes, bustling fresh produce markets and pretty, historic squares.

But on closer inspection, there are signs of a profound attempt to make the city, its facilities and its built environment a more equitable place for women.

Hundreds of streets now bear the names of women, including Joséphine Baker, Frida Kahlo and Clémence Lefeuvre — the little-known creator of local specialty beurre blanc sauce. School yards, once dominated by soccer pitches, have been remodeled to incorporate spaces for calm and creativity. Stations for breastfeeding have been built in the city center to improve maternal comfort and visibly counter stigma. Free tampon dispensers have been installed in libraries, gyms and all kinds of other municipal buildings.

These initiatives form part of mayor Johanna Rolland’s bold plan to make Nantes, which is home to around 700,000 people and is the sixth largest city in France, a ville non-sexiste, or non-sexist city. From redesigning public areas to reallocating spending and inaugurating France’s leading center to counter gender-based violence, Nantes is trailblazing the way to safer, less discriminatory urban life.

“We couldn’t wait for change anymore, we had to take action,” says Mahaut Bertu, the deputy mayor of Nantes in charge of equality, the fight against discrimination and the non-sexist city project. “Femicides continue every year. Women suffer harassment every day. [To make change], we had to take a hold of the problem ourselves.”

Shortly after taking power in 2014, Rolland and her team set about carrying out research and compiling statistics on the extent of inequality in Nantes, since at that point limited information existed. 

The findings of the research, which included income, violence and public spaces, were striking. Analysis found, for example, that of the 3,000 streets in Nantes, fewer than four percent of them were named after women compared with more than 36 percent bearing men’s names. More broadly, it found that, in 2014, 58 percent of women aged 15 to 64 were employed, compared to 63 percent of men. And women represented 70 percent of the so-called “working poor” — those in employment but below the poverty line. 

From that understanding, city authorities went about introducing women-centered policy and ramping up investment. One of the most pressing issues was responding to gender-based violence.

In France, 99 percent of women have been victims of a sexist comment or act at least once in their lives, according to the French High Council for Equality, an independent advisory body. “Far from declining, sexism is becoming entrenched, even increasing,” its 2024 report concluded.

In November 2019, following years of consultation with residents, women’s rights groups and nonprofits, the city opened Citad’elles, a shelter for women victims of violence that provides free, centralized support 24/7 — something that to this day does not exist anywhere else in France. (snip)

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This year, a pilot study is taking place in four of the schools to assess the impact of the new playgrounds. Fischer’s team is also working with school employees to help promote fairer use of the spaces.

At the same time, Nantes has an initiative to fight “period poverty” and to help reduce the costly burden of women’s sanitary products.