For far too long Ukraine has been restrained and forced to fight under different rules than Russia. While Russia constantly attacks civilians, apartments, schools, and hospitals, Ukraine was forbidden todo so inorder to get arms to defend itself. Ukraine was forbidden to hurt the Russians in similar ways. Leaving Ukraine to feel all the pain of the war while Russia doesn’t. Recently that has changed. Maybe if Ukraine is allowed to make the Russian public feel as afraid as the Ukrainians, they will tell their government enough. Hugs
Residents of a damaged Kyiv apartment building recovered what remained of their belongings as rescuers sifted through rubble for survivors, a day after a Russian attack killed at least 30 people in the deadliest strike on the city this year.
Israeli thugs! Israel is a criminal rogue nation that must be dealt with. The US must stop all aid, all weapons sales until Israel agrees to live in peace with its nieboros and returns the land it has stolen. These are the criminals that John Fetterman says criticizing is being antisemitic. Bullshit. It is being truthful and honest. Jewish people who fight the abuses of their government and their fellows are not the problem, it is the government of Israel and the Israelies who support it. Hugs
Palestinian Mohammad Salameh was building a home for his family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for his recently engaged son. Instead, before construction was complete, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property.
This is a kids summer camp and the kids seen are very young. The claim is this is an evangelical church in Kentucky doing a mock execution of an illegal immigrant. The kids are chanting “Take him out and blow him up”. The screen says praise the lord and pass the ammo. My question is when did jesus preach hate? I know the bible does, but Christians are to be followers of Jesus and aside from the money changers event Jesus preached love and acceptance of the stranger. Bible traditions said to welcome the stranger. Sodom and Gomorrah is about god being angry the town was not hospitable to the strangers and wanted to dominate them rather than feed / house them.
I googled when did Jesus preach hate and I got this summary. Jesus did not preach hate; rather, He taught love and forgiveness. In Matthew 5:43-44, He instructs, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” emphasizing the importance of loving others, even those who may oppose us. Below was a list of biblical hate passages including two in John. Guess what I read the chapters. The passages were not direct sayings from or attributed to Jesus. So what god are these “Christians” following? As to the YouTuber showing this he is not trans, he is a VTuber and uses an avatar his fans make and like. As all things on the internet it can get weird and he thought that as people kept sending him stuff as a female and a furry he would b=play along with the bit. I skip the fan art stuff at the beginning as that stuff bores me and it is only a few minutes. Hugs
This church performed a mock execution in front of CHILDREN at a BIBLE CAMP. And somehow these people are the ones saying that the left is indoctrinating their kids, meanwhile they normalize public executions to children.
Wow. There is a lot of historic information in this video. The author / presenter has quick cuts to other personality characters she plays to highlight the absurdity of some positions held by the hierarchy. She delvesdeeply into the idea of what is proper femininity, who steps outside it, and who thinks they are responsible for judging or enforcing it. She delves into how many fights against change and equality are about fears by men of emasculation. The lowering of men’s status. When she elaborates on suffrage, all the fears seem to be that allowing women to vote would give women the right to be men and force men to be women. Seem familure? She goes into detail on how each repressive opressive responce to equal rights comes down to the same phrases such as save the children, save the family, or the claims that society it self will end. The clips she intersperses go by far too quickly so I had to stop the video to read them but she does describe what is on them. The begining was choppy and it took me a bit to get her style of presentation but once I did I found it very informative fillwed with facts, history, and fun to watch. Hugs
The transgender bathroom ‘debate’ isn’t new (but it is stupid). I’m looking at you TERF’s…
Looking back through history, gender politics is consistently entangled with race, class, misogyny, and disability. Minority groups existing outside the ‘norm’ are attacked as ‘radicals’ or menaces to society…
But what prevails each time we face oppression AND causes real change in our society?
This is horrific. I think the police overreacted for just an anonymous tip with sketchy vague accusations. It put this family through hell. This is all to stop Buttigieg from entering politics, and if it is given any credit it will only increase. Hugs
This is a very important news article. I hope everyone will read it. This is scary how a small mostly religious minority wants to erase an entire group of people from existence just for a made up moral certainty that they can’t accept that people different from them exist. They simply won’t accept that other people can feel differently than they do and they insist that they have the right to deny all rights to LGBTQ+ kids / people. I remember being a gay teenager hearing these same arguments about people like me in J high school. How gay kids shouldn’t be allowed in locker rooms as we may get excited by the other kids bodies and lose control and have sex with them right there in the locker room. It was a huge fight back then about gay teachers as the moral right felt they shouldn’t be teaching kids who might see being gay as normal. I remember the silly stupid republicans like Sam Nunn claiming no military person wanted to serve with or god forbid shower in the same room as a gay man. At the time I was gay and in the military and having more sex and great times even with straight guys. But the parent pushing the claim that their daughter had to change clothes in front of a trans kid went on right wing TV programs to promote the hate. The school denies that setup existed. Plus a lot of this is funded and pushed by religious hate groups with a lot of donated money behind them in an attempt to keep the country from progressing as their god is stuck with writings from 2,500 years ago and the majority of hate preachers seem to idolize the 1950s. I feel so sorry for the trans kids today. I remember what it was like for me as a gay kid in the public school system. I was not even out, just different but still I was attacked as a queer faggot. Why some people hate so deeply and want to act on it and even pass it on to others hopeing they will agree with them I can not understand. What happened to live and let live? I believe that if what someone else is doing doesn’t involve me, doesn’t harm me, then let that person be them. Qoutes from the article below. Oh and when did executive orders become laws? Did congress get dissolved, or are we now ruled by the whim or the racist bigot hater? Hugs
According to Liz Mikitarian, a retired kindergarten teacher and the founder of STOP Moms for Liberty, the coordinated efforts to undermine the rights of trans students in Illinois mimic a strategy playing out nationwide.
“You realize it’s so much bigger when you see all the communities around the country that have dealt with this exact same pattern,” Castro told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green, who is still grappling with the bullying his son experienced, shares Lascano’s concerns. “From the time he was born, he had this light,” says Green. “When he was at his old school, it was just gone. … I’m really scared about the way things are right now. I remember the fear of wondering if I was going to lose my son. [These groups] are not protecting children. They are causing so much harm.”
Parents and advocates say coordinated complaints over transgender students are driving legal fees, security costs and emotional strain across Illinois school districts.
$360,000 and Counting: School Districts Are Spending Big Bucks to Fight Anti-Trans Lawsuits
Parents and advocates say coordinated complaints over transgender students are driving legal fees, security costs and emotional strain across Illinois school districts.
Pat Green sits in front of Hinsdale Township High School South, the school his son transferred to after getting bullied for being queer. Photo by Mark Black for the Chicago Sun-Times.
This story was produced in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times, a nonprofit newspaper.
Editor’s note: This article includes mention of suicide and self-harm. If you are having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be, resources are available here.
As Pat Green took the stage at the Valley View 365U school board meeting on April 14, 2025, he recalled another night years earlier, when he picked up his 13-year-old son from the hospital. His son, who is trans and had recently come out as queer, had been shoved into a locker so hard that he needed four staples in his forehead.
“I hear the families of LGBTQI+ youth like mine,” Green tells the board. “And I just wanted to say thank you, and for God’s sake, don’t go backwards. … I almost lost the most precious gift God ever gave me.”
In the room with Green were also members of Awake Illinois, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate and anti-government extremist group known for fighting against the rights of trans kids. They had filed a federal civil rights complaint against the district for allegedly violating Title IX by allowing transgender students access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their genders.
When Green’s son, now 25, came out over a decade ago in eighth grade, he faced slurs daily and was told to use the faculty bathroom if he didn’t want to use the girls’ restroom.
“By the end of freshman year, the light my son used to have had turned into dread. Soon after came the cutting, the suicidal ideation, the grades slipping from honor student to barely passing,” Green told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green and his son. Photo by Mark Black for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Despite Green’s emotional appeal to the school board, Awake Illinois founder Shannon Adcock told the board that “failure to address the Title IX violations will invite severe repercussions, including the termination of federal funding for noncompliant institutions, which would mean $20 million in this district’s case.”
Voices like Adcock’s prompted Green to start attending school board meetings. He noticed an increasing number of complaints and lawsuits from conservative parent groups targeting transgender-inclusive school policies in Illinois that were resulting in legal and financial strain for school districts.
Documents obtained by Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) found that Deerfield School District 109 has paid nearly $360,000—the equivalent of four average teachers’ salaries—to fend off an ongoing lawsuit and pay for security costs spawned from complaints about trans-affirming bathroom and locker room policies.
A breakdown of costs Deerfield District 109 faces to fend off an ongoing lawsuit and pay for security costs spawned from complaints about trans-affirming bathroom and locker room policies, which was obtained via FOIA.
That amount is the equivalent of 37% of all federal funds the district received last year. It included more than $255,000 for legal defense, over $30,000 in school security upgrades and $4,000 for extra staff to screen threats.
Moms for Liberty supporters attend a Deerfield District 109 board meeting at Caruso Middle School on April 10, 2025. Photo by Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere for the Chicago Sun-Times.
“When schools are forced to fight lawsuits over issues that aren’t a problem for the vast majority of people, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. Straight up monetarily, why are we spending so much time prosecuting and persecuting a minuscule part of the population? Why do you want your tax dollars doing that?” Allaina Humphreys, founder of Bolingbrook Pride, told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
While these suits are playing out across the state, school officials say they are following policies that align with the Illinois Human Rights Act, which state regulators and courts say require schools to allow transgender students to use facilities consistent with their gender identity. That interpretation was reinforced by the Illinois Human Rights Commission ruling in 2019 and subsequent state guidance issued in 2021.
But none of this is stopping parents like Adcock. “Federal law reigns supreme,” she said at a Naperville district meeting three months after filing the first of her complaints. “Only recently have trans cultists tried to contest [Title IX].” Adcock did not respond to requests for comment.
“I think the muddying of it comes from all of [Trump’s] executive orders,” says Humphreys. “This administration has used them … to dictate policy that it has no right to dictate. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t using it as a basis for legal action.”
Why Deerfield Had to Pay Nearly $360,000
Last spring, during a series of fiery school board meetings, Deerfield parent Nicole Georgas said her cisgender daughter refused to change for gym class after seeing a trans girl in the locker room. Georgas says administrators made her daughter change in front of them and the other student.
The school district denies the allegations and says they are committed to obeying state law.
Despite this, Georgas—who declined to comment for this story—filed a federal civil rights complaint in March 2025 with the Department of Justice. Conservative legal groups Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies and Liberty Justice Center then cited Georgas’ story in complaints to the Department of Education.
America First Legal—a conservative legal group cofounded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller that has waged a litany of legal attacks against the LGBTQ community—then got in the mix. They urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Deerfield Schools District employees, asking federal prosecutors to look at whether school administrators coordinated enforcement of district policy in a way that violated students’ rights. Though no charges are identified in the referral itself, the letter invokes federal civil rights criminal statutes, which can carry penalties ranging from fines and probation to multi-year prison sentences.
In the Deerfield referral and accompanying press materials, America First Legal repeatedly referred to the transgender student as a “male” or a “boy ‘identifying’ as a girl,” and described school policies recognizing students’ gender identities as “radical gender ideology” and “transgender madness.”
Following this, Georgas sued the district seeking an injunction, punitive damages and money for emotional distress. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights repeated Georgas’ claim that students were “allegedly forced” to change in front of the transgender student, and cited previous Trump administration executive orders regarding gender.
Georgas’ message gained even more attention when she appeared on Laura Ingraham’s and the late Charlie Kirk’s shows, where she used transphobic dog whistles to describe the trans student.
“They have continued to have the biological male student present in the locker room with the girls, and they are absolutely in violation with President Trump’s executive order,” Georgas said on Kirk’s show.
Shortly after her appearance on Fox News, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about Georgas’ case. “We are not going to tolerate such behavior by men pretending to be women. The president will continue to strongly stand for the rights of women and girls, not just in sports and on athletic fields, but also private spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms,” Leavitt told the reporter.
Georgas is moving to make her ongoing lawsuit a class action before her daughter graduates from middle school, which would void the case entirely.
Parallel Efforts Across the Country
According to Liz Mikitarian, a retired kindergarten teacher and the founder of STOP Moms for Liberty, the coordinated efforts to undermine the rights of trans students in Illinois mimic a strategy playing out nationwide.
“They feed these outlets that produce more hate,” Mikitarian told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s a model of misinforming people and making them afraid of something, and that works, especially when it’s people’s children. … [But] it’s a grift and people are catching on.”
Financial Burdens
All of these complaints are costing significant time and money and frustrating many parents who see them as a waste of school resources.
Deerfield parent Elizabeth Castro attended the meetings in her child’s district last year and says it was shocking to look around the country and see the same “manufactured controversy.”
“You realize it’s so much bigger when you see all the communities around the country that have dealt with this exact same pattern,” Castro told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Hundreds of community members and trans-rights supporters applaud and cheer during a Deerfield District 109 board meeting at Caruso Middle School in Deerfield, IL, on April 10, 2025. Photo by Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere for the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Deerfield school district still hasn’t heard from the federal government, school officials say. And the Department of Education didn’t respond to a request for updates on the investigations.
“Schools should not be forced to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars away from classrooms, student services, mental health supports, accessibility accommodations and educational programming simply to defend their efforts to support vulnerable students,” Asher McMaher, the executive director of Trans Up Front IL, told Uncloseted Media and the Chicago Sun-Times. “These are vital public resources that should be invested in children, not spent responding to coordinated attacks on transgender youth and the institutions working to protect them.”
Policy Matters
Beyond the lost money and the chaos, the lawsuits and complaints have affected the trans kids who are at the center of these debates.
“The human cost is even greater than the financial one,” says McMaher. “These actions create fear, uncertainty and instability for transgender students and their families, many of whom are already navigating significant challenges. … The greatest tragedy is that these costs are entirely avoidable, yet they continue to grow as attacks on transgender youth are increasingly normalized and encouraged at the national level.”
According to Corey Lascano, LGBTQ coordinator for the Chicago Teachers Union, policies inform school culture, which is concerning especially when school is “the only place where [some trans youth] can feel safe to be themselves.”
Corey Lascano, a board member with Trans Up Front IL. Photo by Anthony Vazquez for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pat Green, who is still grappling with the bullying his son experienced, shares Lascano’s concerns. “From the time he was born, he had this light,” says Green. “When he was at his old school, it was just gone. … I’m really scared about the way things are right now. I remember the fear of wondering if I was going to lose my son. [These groups] are not protecting children. They are causing so much harm.”
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation in the U.S. through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
A federal judge said a lawsuit challenging the Department of Justice’s creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund will proceed.
Judge Leonie Brinkema cited the DOJ’s refusal to confirm in writing to her that the fund is dead.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified to a House committee on June 2 that the fund is not going forward. DOJ lawyers have pointed to that statement in arguing to Brinkema and another federal judge that it is sufficient to dismiss suits challenging the fund.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks at a press conference at the Department of Justice on May 4, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday said a lawsuit challenging the Department of Justice’s creation of a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund will proceed, citing the DOJ’s refusal to confirm in writing to her that the fund is dead, as the department has verbally said it is.
Brinkema said that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s refusal to rescind his May 18 memo that set up the structure of the fund, as well as his and President Donald Trump’s continued interest in compensating purported victims of DOJ overreach, “all support this conclusion” that the lawsuit is not moot.
The judge ordered the DOJ to file its answer to the lawsuit by July 17.
Blanche created the fund as part of a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over a leak of his tax records. The fund, whose total possible disbursements would be $1.776 billion — in a nod to the year in which the Declaration of Independence was signed — was designed to provide redress to people who allegedly “suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
Critics called it a “slush fund” that would pay allies of Trump, including potentially hundreds of people convicted of crimes related to their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Blanche testified to a House committee on June 2 that the fund is “not going forward, period,” after sharp criticism of it by Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
DOJ lawyers have pointed to that statement in arguing to Brinkema and another federal judge that it is sufficient to dismiss suits challenging the fund.
In a court filing this week, the DOJ said that written declarations that the fund is dead “are unnecessary,” and that Brinkema’s request that Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put in writing Blanche’s promise “implicates serious separation of powers concerns.”
But Brinkema, in her order Thursday, wrote, “That the defendants have refused to accord a genuine degree of trustworthiness to their representations about the Fund not going forward is particularly concerning because of the President’s consistent support for the Fund and Acting Attorney General Blanche’s acknowledgement that the Fund remains ‘important.’ ”
“Although Acting Attorney General Blanche reiterated several times during his testimony that the Fund was not going forward, when asked whether he would ‘issue a new memo in writing rescinding that May 18 memo,’ he replied, ‘I’m not committing to putting anything in writing. And I said it over and over again,’ ” Brinkema noted.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Andrew Floyd, a former federal prosecutor who has said he was fired for prosecuting cases against Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. The other plaintiffs are Jonathan Caravello, a professor at California State University Channel Islands, and the city of New Haven, Conn.
More Christian privilege and threats for those who are different or they don’t like. There is no hate like Christian love. And if you have listened to Dan McCallen the prohibitions against homosexuality these people like to claim are wrong. It is wrong because they do not understand the culture of the time the bible was written and what the original text / words were. They just want to hate and they think that if it comes from god then it is not their fault. Imagine hating so bad that just people wanting recognition for existing and for equality free from discrimination enrages you. This is why pride is still so desperately needed. As I read what he wrote again the anger, ignorance, and implied violence just because other people have different ways and feelings than he does. And the billerent stupidity makes me worry for the people around him and his children.. His view of being a man or manly is incredibly toxic. There is a video at the end of the post I did not include. Hugs
A controversial former San Francisco Giants player has gone crazy online in a lengthy homophobic rant against his ex-team’s Pride Night debacle. Aubrey Huff took to X on Wednesday morning, and he didn’t pull any punches when it came to his thoughts on general manager Buster Posey’s befuddled response to reporters’ questions on Tuesday.
“I can pretty much guarantee you I know exactly what Buster wants to say about having to answer irrelevant non-Baseball questions that pertain to the sexual preference within the LGBTQ fudge packing community,” Huff began.
“I’m not wearing this gay bulls–t. Queers don’t watch Baseball anyway. They watch The View, enjoy therapy, & fudge packing sessions. And anyone inside the LGBTQ community, or those who support them don’t like what I just said, then I say to you…. Go f–k yourselves, & eat a d–k. And I mean that in the most literal sense,” he said.
Key Points
Scottie's Playtime 