At the national level, the Trump administration cut the LGBTQ youth suicide hotline just weeks after Pride Month, despite a recent study by The Trevor Project finding that 39% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, more than 1 in 10 actually did attempt suicide and 90% of queer youth said political attacks on LGBTQ people directly harmed their overall well-being.
While these numbers reveal an urgent crisis, there are silver linings. Last year, 91% of anti-LGBTQ bills were defeated. Countless kids marched in the No Kings protest. Parents are organizing. And allies are popping up in unexpected places.
Photo by Adam Athas
Uncloseted Media has reported on dozens of stories that expose hate. But this holiday season, we decided to pause for a brief moment. In September, we launched a national campaign inviting people across the country to leave messages of hope for LGBTQ youth. The campaign culminated at the historic Stonewall Inn, where we installed a rotary phone and invited visitors to leave voicemails of resilience, positivity and joy for queer kids. Here are just a few of the most powerful messages.
In recent years, the language of parental rights has been used to stigmatize LGBTQ people as threats to children, with GLAAD finding that false “grooming narratives remain a central anti-LGBTQ disinformation tactic.
The positive impact of Mama Fox’s love for her kid is reflective of research that shows that supportive parenting is associated with lower suicide risk for queer youth, including when parents use correct names and pronouns and actively defend their child’s identity.
Paul, who has a lesbian daughter, is one of those parents.
Listen to Paul’s message above.
For those who can’t find acceptance within their families, there is still hope. Mark, an actor and singer from New York City, came of age in the 1980s during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
A lot of the hate aimed at LGBTQ people still comes from the same demographic that has historically held the most social power: white, cisgender straight men. But what often gets left out of the conversation is that there are many allies who are part of this demographic, including West Wilson, Anthony Siteman and Toronto’s Peter Horton.
Listen to Peter’s message above.
According to a Trevor Project survey, about a fifth of LGBTQ young people have participated in protests, a sign that civic engagement is surging. LGBTQ people continue to be among the most active groups in public resistance. Richard Rockman’s poem reminds us to stay active, engaged and hopeful.
Listen to Richard’s poem above.
And that hope is coming from so many people from all corners of the world.
Listen to Alice’s message above.
Listen to Lara’s message above.
Even as so many LGBTQ youth struggle, change is coming. More people in Gen Z identify as LGBTQ than any other living generation.
Listen to Lloyd’s message above.
Uncloseted Media wishes everyone a joyful holiday season. For people of all ages who are struggling, we want you to know that you are loved. You are not alone. And there is help.
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:
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 has retaliated against Colorado Gov. Jared Polis by denying FEMA reliefs for floods and wildfires and by ordering the dismantling of the nation’s premiere climate research facility.
tRump bribes / Fascism / Right wing media take over /
Mr. Trump has privately said Larry Ellison assured him that he would turn CBS News, which the Ellisons took over when they bought Paramount, into a more conservative outlet, two people with knowledge of the president’s comments said.
What Trump means is that he has to confer with his master in Moscow first.
Hate / DEI / Bigotry / Christians trying to take over the US / Christians forcing their church doctrines on all / Using the US might to enforce the Christian view / ICE / DHS
Earlier this month it was reported that Mahmoud, who remains jailed without bond, may present a “gay panic” defense, which is legal in Florida but banned in 20 states and Washington DC.
Government officials have traditionally steered clear of such overtly religious language, as the Constitution bans an official state religion. The First Amendment’s establishment clause prohibits the government from establishing a religion or favoring one religion over another, while the free exercise clause protects the religious expression of all faiths.
Earlier this month, members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee — whom Kennedy selected after firing the previous group — suggested digging into concerns about aluminum salts, though large studies have found them to be safe.
For me, considering going through the adoption process as an adult is about having the right to configure my family the way that’s best for me—a right we should all have.
The word adoption is synonymous with babies and expectant parents, joy and dreams come true. For most, it’s about families becoming complete and children becoming a permanent part of a legally recognized household.
My story is more complicated.
Recently, I found myself in the atypical and unexpected position of discussing adult adoption with the woman who became my roommate two-and-a-half years ago when I desperately needed a safe place to collapse and recover from a lifetime of trauma. We were strangers who became fast family; she was the perfect big sister and, after understandable initial trepidation about opening her home to a stranger, her extended family and friends have become my family and friends.
Last year my childhood stocking hung on the fireplace and there were gifts under the tree for me—the first time I’ve had a family Christmas since my adopted mother decided I was gay and told me not to come home for the holidays in December 2011.
It hadn’t always been that way. Growing up, my adoptive parents would tell me the bedtime story about how I was wanted, desperately, for the ten years they waited for me. They loved me before they even knew me. While I still believe the sentiment to be true, I have learned over the past 38 years that loving someone does not a healthy environment or nurturing relationship make.
It’s also become clear to me that the caregiving contract between parents and children hardly ends at age 18—especially at a time when we are watching our social safety net be dismantled piece by piece—and it flows in two directions. Unless you are in a family with wealth and security spanning generations, concern about whether the kids will be able to land a good enough job (or jobs, let’s be frank) to support themselves and whether parents and grandparents will have enough in their retirement for their elder care has only increased over the past few decades. (snip-go read it, it’s great info)
The daughter of Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz didn’t start posting until after the 2024 election—and she’s starting to become a leading young political voice.
Hope Walz had no intention of becoming a social media sensation when she first whipped out her phone to shoot a video with her brother, Gus. A few months ago, the Walz siblings—children of former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz—were headed back to their home state of Minnesota. Their father and his running mate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, had just lost the 2024 presidential election. And Hope Walz wanted to post an update.
From the front seat of a car, the pair described what it was like to drive without a Secret Service detail for the first time in months.
“We’re finally free,” Gus said from the driver’s seat.
“I would not describe it like that,” Hope replied. “It is a little weird, but it does feel freeing.”
“We’re going to be okay everyone,” she added, before posting the video to TikTok.
After spending months on the campaign trail with her dad, and watching Donald Trump and JD Vance clinch the White House, Walz was ready to return to her everyday life in Montana, where she’d settled after graduating college in 2023. Instead, the video she posted in the aftermath of the election quickly amassed more than 400,000 views. And her next video, breaking down her post-election thoughts, garnered 1 million. Now, Walz is navigating her newfound public platform while trying to map out a future career in public service—a decision inspired by her time on the campaign. (snip-go read the rest of this one, too!)
December 27, 1914 The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), an inter-religious peace group, was founded in Cambridge, England. “The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is an international spiritually based movement composed of people who commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of transformation – personal, social, economic and political.” “Your goal is, in my opinion, the only reasonable one and to make it prevail is of vital importance.” –Albert Einstein, in a letter to the FOR Read more
December 27, 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War staged a peace protest at historic Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia.
December 27, 2002 North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart the Yongbyon plutonium Plant to meet the fuel needs of its nuclear power reactor. The plant had been shut down and sealed by the U.N. in 1994 in exchange for shipments of fuel oil. When it was discovered that the North Korean had been pursuing a uranium-based weapons program, the U.S. and Japan, South Korea and the European Union suspended the fuel shipments.
December 27, 2002 1500 people gathered in Tel Aviv, Israel, the protest the Israeli military occupation of land beyond the 1948 borders of the country. With the slogans “End the Occupation” and “No to Racism,” and dressed mostly in black, they used a variety of means – drumming, singing, art installations, giving away olives and olive oil – to express their frustration and anger over the ongoing occupation. Alternative Ten commandments at demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel The Coalition of Women for Peace also showed a movie, Jenin, Jenin, which had been banned for public showing, in defiance of police orders to stop the projector. Shown on a large outdoor screen, it was a narrative about the actions of the Israeli army the previous Spring in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin.
The head of one group decried the ADL’s “disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration.”
The heads of three left-leaning US Jewish groups on Monday admonished the Anti-Defamation League after the controversial watchdog once again conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism in its latest report on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and his transition team.
The Anti-Defamation League noted approvingly in its updated “Mamdani Monitor” that “at least 25 individuals” in the democratic socialist’s transition team “have a past relationship with the ADL or partner organizations, or a history of supporting the Jewish community.”
The group also appreciated that “Mamdani’s team can and will respond appropriately” to actual incidents of antisemitism, pointing to last week’s resignation of Catherine Almonte Da Costa, Mamdani’s former director of appointments, following the revelation of antisemitic social media posts she published in the early 2010s.
However, the ADL said it remains “deeply concerned” by Mamdani’s statements and actions, highlighting what the group claimed were “many examples of individuals who have engaged in some type of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel activities and/or have ties to groups that engage in such activities” among the mayor-elect’s transition team appointees.
“These activities include spreading classic antisemitic tropes, vilifying those who support Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland, seeking to undermine the legitimacy and security of the Jewish state, and more,” the ADL said, adding that “at least a dozen transition committee appointees expressed support for the anti-Israel campus encampments in the spring of 2024.”
The Mamdani Monitor also noted that “at least 20% of the 400-plus appointees have ties to anti-Zionist groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which openly glorifies Hamas’ October 7 attack… Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a fringe group that advocates for the eradication of Zionism and demonizes Zionists; Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a New York-based radical anti-Zionist organization… and others.”
Asked about the report during a Monday press conference, Mamdani said, “We must distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government.”
“The ADL’s report oftentimes ignores this distinction, and in doing so it draws attention away from the very real crisis of antisemitism we see not only just in our city but in the country at large,” he continued. “When we’re thinking about critiques of Zionism and different forms of political expression, as much of what this report focuses on, there’s a wide variety of political opinion, even within our own 400-plus transition committee.”
Critics say the ADL’s claim in the update that it “has long distinguished between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and antisemitism” is belied by not only the Mamdani Monitor’s language, but also its own significantly expanded definition of antisemitism and antisemitic incidents, which include protests against Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.
Jamie Beran, CEO of the progressive group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, said in an X thread that “we were disappointed but not surprised to see today’s ADL report continue their conflation of criticism of the Israeli government’s actions with antisemitism” and the group’s “favoring of Trumpian tactics over bridge building and its prioritization of fearmongering over the safety of American Jews and our neighbors.”
Beran continued:
The ADL of today seems to have three interests: keeping their right wing megadonors happy, protecting the current Israeli government’s violent far-right agenda by conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and cozying up to [US President Donald] Trump to stay close to power.
None of this fights antisemitism. Their McCarthyist Mamdani Monitor is the first of its kind because the ADL chose not to deploy a similar tactic when their bedfellows offered Nazi salutes, hired and pardoned neo-Nazis, and continued to openly spread dangerous antisemitic conspiracy myths.
“If the ADL truly wanted to fight antisemitism—like we do every day—they would actually confront it at its roots and how it works alongside all forms of bigotry, not instrumentalize it for an unpopular political agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish safety,” Beran added.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Jewish group J Street, also rejected the ADL’s “continued conflation.”
“J Street continues to be deeply concerned by the ADL’s ongoing use of its so-called ‘Mamdani Monitor,’ which goes well beyond combating antisemitism and too often conflates legitimate political speech with hate,” Ben-Ami said in a statement Monday.
Ben-Ami asserted that there is “something deeply wrong when major Jewish leaders and institutions focus disproportionate attention on left-of-center activists’ views on Israel while failing to apply the same scrutiny to the Trump administration and MAGA leaders, whose blatant antisemitism and ties to white nationalist movements pose a clear and dangerous threat to American Jews.”
“Our communal institutions should fight antisemitism consistently and credibly, wherever it appears—not selectively, and not in ways that inflame fear or deepen division,” he added.
Another liberal Jewish antisemitism watchdog, Nexus Project, also decried the ADL update, which it said “repeatedly blurs the line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.”
J Street among the groups supporting the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA), legislation introduced last week by US Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) in the wake of the Sydney Hanukkah massacre.
According to Nadler’s office, the bill “clearly states that it is against the policy of the United States to use antisemitism as grounds to pursue ulterior political agendas, including attacks on educational institutions, suppressing constitutionally protected speech, or any other enforcement of ideological conformity.”
ARPA stands in stark contrast with the Antisemitism Awareness Act (ARA), which was introduced in 2023 by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ, Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in the House of Representatives and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in the Senate.
The bill would require the Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism when determining whether alleged harassment is motivated by anti-Jewish animus.
The ADL has pushed a wide range of governments, institutions, and organizations to adopt the IRHA definition, which conflates legitimate criticism and condemnation of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry, and forces people to accept the legitimacy of a settler-colonial apartheid state engaged in illegal occupation and colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
House lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the legislation last year; however, the bill remains stalled in the Senate.
Zionism—the settler-colonial movement for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine—is being rejected by a growing number of Jewish Americans due to the racism, settler-colonialism, illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide perpetrated by Israel and rooted in claims of divine right and favor.
Jewish-led groups like JVP, IfNotNow, and Jews for Economic and Racial Justice (JERJ) have been at the forefront of pro-Palestine demonstrations since the start of Israel’s war and siege on Gaza, which have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; 2 million others displaced, starved, and sickened; and most of the coastal strip in ruins.
Scottie's Playtime 