After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday about a Colorado law prohibiting state-licensed therapists from offering conversion therapy to LGBTQ clients, there is one area in which the left and right can agree: A lot of LGBTQ youth struggle with feelings of shame, fear and even an urge to self-harm. But it was clear there was fierce disagreement about the source of these feelings. 

The left shares the view of the American Psychological Association, which argued in an amicus brief that this form of psychological distress in queer people, especially minors, is a result of “minority stress and stigma” and “systemic barriers to mental, physical, relational, and sexual flourishing.” This is a jargon-y way of saying that being raised to think your very identity is wrong can make a person feel bad about themselves. The treatment, then, is to counteract hateful messages with “affirming” therapy that holds that “variances in human sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression are normal.”

But to Kaley Chiles, a Christian evangelical therapist who sued the state to be able to offer conversion therapy, internalized queerphobia is an inborn quality. In her world, and presumably those of her attorney and the conservative justices, Lady Gaga’s queer anthem “Born This Way” shouldn’t be about LGBTQ identities, but about the wish of a person to “fix” whatever makes the different.

Throughout the morning, both the conservative lawyers and justices pointedly ignored the influence of church and parental pressure on struggling queer youth. Instead, they treated the desire to straight-ify themselves as something that kids are coming up with all on their own.

This fundamental mischaracterization of conversion therapy — which neither converts nor therapizes those subjected to it — was built into the case from the get-go. According to Chiles’ complaint, which was filed by the Christian right group Alliance Defending Freedom, she wants to counsel minor patients that they can “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with [their] physical body” to better live according the way she, as an evangelical Christian, interprets the Bible.

She depicts her clients as fully autonomous, seeking to un-queer themselves on their own. According to the brief, “Chiles’s clients are also Christian and specifically seek her help because of their shared faith-based convictions and biblical worldview.” Their “internal conflict, depression, and anxiety” is ascribed solely to urges “inconsistent with their faith or values.” The children are described as “voluntary” clients 13 times in the document. Not once does Chiles acknowledge that parents may have pressured or even forced children to pursue this course. To read this brief, one would assume parents are barely involved in the process of getting a referral, setting up an appointment or deciding why therapy is even needed to begin with.

This erasure of parental influence continued throughout the oral arguments. At one point, Justice Samuel Alito posed a question to Shannon Stevenson, Colorado’s state solicitor general. “Suppose an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants to end or lessen them and asks for the therapist’s help in doing so?” Alito’s question presumes that teenage boys routinely visit church-linked therapists of their own accord. The justice was not happy when Stevenson said a therapist is permitted to help a client “cope with their feelings,” but that telling the kid he could un-gay his thoughts was banned.

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As it should be, of course. Even many of the most prominent leaders of the original conversion therapy movement have come to admit that the whole thing was a pile of bunk. A group of the “architects, leaders, and most vocal advocates” of the “ex-gay” movement filed an amicus brief making it clear that “conversion therapy is fundamentally ineffective” and “99.9% of participants do not experience orientation change.” But, they added, “these practices cause documented psychological harm, including increased suicide risk.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor compared it to telling a patient with an eating disorder that she needed to starve herself more. Stevenson likened it to a doctor giving a kid steroids so he could be better at football.

The ex-ex-gay leaders also noted something that Alito evaded: The role of parents in all of this. One of the hard-won lessons they learned is that “conversion therapy undermines rather than strengthens families by creating conflict and damaging parent-child relationships.” In this, they acknowledged what should be obvious, but that the conservatives conveniently forgot: Kids don’t end up in conversion therapy because of some deep, internal drive to be straight, a message sent to their heart by God himself. It’s usually because their parents and evangelical culture are pressuring, coercing and often forcing them to cure innate feelings that don’t need changed in the first place.

This oversight is interesting. Alito and the other conservative justices are well aware that right-wing parents want to impose straightness on kids in the name of religion. Last summer, Alito authored a decision arguing that parents had an expansive right to block children from accessing books in public schools that conflict with the their anti-LGBTQ beliefs. But when it comes to a queer kid being told “therapy” can change them, suddenly the parental roles disappear from the conversation.

Common sense alone tells us that conversion therapy is being driven more by parents than kids themselves, because homophobia is a learned and not in-born attitude. Research from San Francisco State University backs this up. In a revealing study, researchers found that religious leaders, right-leaning therapists and parents are the primary sources of pressure on kids to change themselves. Their findings were clear. Regardless of who initiates a conversation about sexual orientation or gender identity, “parents serve as gatekeepers to both engage in and take their LGBT children for external conversion interventions.” Even if conversion therapy is well-intended — and it very often is not — it’s experienced by children as a form of parental rejection. Unsurprisingly, suicide attempts skyrocket among queer youth whose parents insist conversion is possible.

The erasure of parents from the oral arguments had a clear, cynical purpose: To hide the fact that, ultimately, conversion therapy is a form of child abuse. Its proponents want to recast it as “help” that kids seek out themselves. In reality, it’s mostly driven by parents and religious leaders who want to force children to conform to what the adults in their lives want them to be. Parental erasure also serves to appropriate the real world stories of queer people, inverting them into a bizarre right-wing narrative. The young person trying to live an authentic life in the face of oppressive forces is a compelling narrative, one that the LGBTQ rights movement has deservedly and effectively used in persuading people to support their cause. So it’s not a surprise that the right would want to hijack it for themselves.

It just happens to be a lie.

Of course, the big news for this week is that the Federal government is officially shut down for the foreseeable future. What that means for the battle for queers and trans rights at the current moment is somewhat complicated, and I’m sure there will be more to report on that soon (I have also included an article that discusses this in the “Last Bits” section here). For right now, I’m going to focus on what has happened.

I know it is a rare occasion for this newsletter to begin with some positive news, but this week, I feel like it’s imperative that I do.

Some of you might have seen over the last few months that many LGBTQ authors, musicians, visual artists, arts organizations, and other people working in the arts spaces received letters of rejections to their applications to the Federal grant program run by National Endowment of the Arts grant proposals they submitted. In response to this and to the Trump administration’s executive order putting a total pause on grant proposals that “promote gender ideology,” the ACLU along with four plaintiffs — the Rhode Island Latino Arts, the National Queer Theater, The Theater Offensive, and the Theatre Communications Group — sued Federal officials for violating the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and the Fifth Amendment by adhering to the order.

On September 19, the case was heard in the Rhode Island District Court by Senior U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith, and like so many other U.S. District Court judges as of late, Judge Smith ruled that the Trump administration’s executive order is in direct violation of these laws. The court ordered the Trump administration to “vacate and set aside [their] current plan to implement the Executive Order.” What will happen in relation to the proposals that have already been rejected remains to be seen at this point, but this is a win for First Amendment rights — one that will likely impact some of the other executive orders Trump signed earlier this year.

Some Good News For Once

Bipartisan bill seeks to reinstate national suicide hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. You read that correctly. Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski have teamed up to co-author a bill that seeks to bring back the hotline the Trump administration cut funding to earlier this year. When the bill was announced, Baldwin said: “We are in the middle of a mental health crisis, and the 988 lifeline saves lives, plain and simple. There is absolutely no good reason that Donald Trump took away this specialized help for our LGBTQ youth. Mental health does not see partisan lines or geography.” We’ll track how it makes it way through Congress.

Federal judge orders 500 health science grants at UCLA restored, rebuffing Trump’s suspensions. Another blow to the Trump administration’s attempts at cutting funding to major research organizations, and one that will likely have reverberating effects over the coming months.

Transgender patients fight Justice Department subpoena seeking their UPMC records. As we’ve seen over the last few months, lots of university and state hospitals with comprehensive medical programs focused on trans youth and trans people have been capitulating to the Trump administration by either shutting down entirely or halting specific services. In response to the Trump administration’s attempt at accessing the medical records of trans patients at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, trans patients who are or have been treated at the clinic are taking matters into their own hands by holding direct actions at UPMC in protest of the administration’s insistence that their records should be released to the Federal government.

News I Wish I Didn’t Have to Report

GOP Lawmakers, including Nancy Mace, say trans people should be institutionalized following Charlie Kirk death. I don’t take anything these people say seriously, but I do feel as if this kind of rhetoric should be firmly on our radar as we fight anti-trans bigotry in our communities.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams targets transgender student bathroom access. This guy is desperately trying to stay relevant in a moment when no one cares about him or wants to hear from him. He called for this bathroom ban, and then a week later, he ended his bid for reelection as mayor of New York City. A lot of hot air coming from the mouth of someone who knows he doesn’t have a shot at public office anymore.

Trump administration to hold back grants from NYC, Chicago, Fairfax schools over trans bathroom policies. We’ve seen how state Circuit Courts generally respond to these kinds of attacks by the Trump administration — mostly, they have been ruling that these kinds of funding halts are unconstitutional — so I have a feeling the same thing will happen here. But again, this is something to be aware of as we continue to sharpen our axes for the battle ahead.

Woman undresses at a California school board meeting to protest transgender bathroom policies. A Moms for Liberty organizer got weird as hell at a school board meeting — what’s new, right? Mostly, I’m including this because these people are absolute freaks, and I think we need to keep calling that out.

Last Bits

Black trans woman Midori Monet crowned Miss International Queen 2025 in historic win for USA. The Miss International Queen pageant is the largest beauty pageant by and for trans women contestants, so let’s take a moment to say CONGRATULATIONS MIDORI!

Teachers on the Frontlines of LGBTQ Erasure. This is a wonderful feature on queer and trans teachers and cishet allies who are taking a stand against people trying to ban queer and trans content from their classrooms. I know I’m biased as an educator myself, but I love that these kinds of features are happening.

The government is shut down. What it means for the LGBTQ+ appropriations fight. Thank you to Erin Reed for this informational guide. If you’re anxious about what might go down now that the majority of the Federal government isn’t operating for a while, you should absolutely read this piece.

And in case you missed it, Gabe Dunn wrote On Being Labeled a Terrorist in Transphobic America for us this week.

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After gay marriage passed federally in 2015, I went dancing in West Hollywood with my sister and some friends. On the street in front of the country western bar Flaming Saddles (RIP), my situationship Liz and I made out in celebration. Weirdly, a man nearby whistled at us. Liz turned to him and yelled, “NOT TODAY, SIR.” He skedaddled away in shame. That day, we were invincible.

Ten years later, under Donald Trump’s fascism, whispers began that Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage, could be on the chopping block. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and whose trial was the impetus for the challenge of marriage equality for queer couples, has filed an appeal. Davis, a slug who came to life after a witch’s curse, kicked up panic among queer people that the Republican majority Supreme Court might take up her case.

Don’t panic yet! But Davis could win. Some other losers from the Liberty Counsel took on her “religious freedom” case, even though it is unlikely to advance to our highest court.

That being said, most everything left-wing activists have been warning could happen has happened. We have a solidly right-wing (6-3) Supreme Court who worship at the feet of an orange dictator. “We won’t allow gay marriage to be taken away!” Democrats cry. People said the same about Roe, and here we are post-Dobbs.

Justices Clarence Thomas, a sex pest who takes bribes, and Samuel Alito, a blight to Italian-Americans everywhere, have hinted at re-litigating both Obergefell and 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas (which would make queer intimate acts illegal — but only when gay people do them). Justice Thomas explicitly named Lawrence in his Dobbs concurrence. If Lawrence were overturned, states could theoretically create a legal foundation for attacking gay marriage rights as well.

I’ve crunched the numbers and Obergefell being overturned could, in my opinion, be the last straw for a new civil war. The political divide is already so deep. The right is mobilized, militarized, and declaring the left and transgender people terrorists. Where racism and xenophobia don’t move liberals to action, the cultural seems to.

I’ve been working on the ground since June with other dedicated anti-ICE activists, attending city council and police commissioner meetings, traveling to an illegal detention center in the desert, and protesting outside the Metropolitan Detention Center where ICE, DHS, and LAPD beat and arrest my friends. The numbers of us putting our bodies on the line to fight fascism dwindled after the incredible movement of No Kings Day. The next time I witnessed hundreds of people outside to protest was last Thursday in front of Disney/ABC to support Jimmy Kimmel after his show was cancelled because the Trump administration didn’t like a joke.

It was surreal to hear speakers on megaphones say Kimmel’s firing and the restriction of free speech was “a step too far,” when I’ve spent months watching Latinos be hit with batons or dragged away from their families sobbing. But sure, if this is what it takes to get liberals on the streets, then fine.

So my thought is if Kimmel mobilized the privileged and the white, then the overturning of gay marriage could spark enough outrage to match the right’s insanity about the death of Charlie Kirk. It could be what ignites the left with the same lasting fervor.

The backlash would be immediate. Sixty-seven percent of the population supports gay marriage. Gay celebrities who have been silent on Gaza or ICE would finally have to give a shit. Democrats could have success making protecting gay marriage a cornerstone of their campaigns. (It’s far more popular than abortion and less of a risk than speaking up about trans rights or Palestine.)

Politically, fortifying gay marriages would fall to the states. New England, the tri-state area, DC, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Hawaiʻi have baked in protections in state law that wouldn’t be undone by Obergefell falling. States that don’t have these protections are Alaska, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia. The GOP has been working overtime to pass all power to individual states over federal mandates, like with the federal anti-abortion ruling or legislation being presented to allow states to decide if they want to frack on formerly federally “protected” land. Overturning Obergefell is another step in a long path toward civil war.

The states that banned gay marriage before they were forced to recognize it federally could reinstate their dormant bans. This leaves what rights gay people have in chaotic flux. There’d be a flight from those states to the ones where gay marriage is legal, adding fuel to the civil war flames. Those who can afford to uproot their lives will do so; those who can’t will be left behind.

A big reason for gay couples to need access to spousal protections was borne out of the AIDS crisis, where long-time partners were barred from hospital rooms (but toxic, abusive family members were let in). They were thrown out of their houses and received no financial support once their partner passed.

With marriages annulled, spouses would lose the rights to those hospital visits, their inheritances, joint taxes, Social Security, and immigration sponsorship. Spouses wouldn’t easily be entitled to pensions, and exes wouldn’t get alimony or child support. States could narrow who is considered a legal parent and void adoptions. In Oklahoma and Tennessee, lawsuits have sought to restrict who can be legally listed as a parent on birth certificates. The sperm donor could become the default father, for example. Existing marriages and families would fall into legal purgatory, unless their state rules to protect the partnerships. Employers would face complicated questions about benefits and HR policies. What if one spouse works in a state that recognizes gay marriages, but one lives in a state that doesn’t? In places where gay marriage becomes illegal, existing marriage could be fine but new marriages would be blocked.

A possible saving grace is 2022’s Respect for Marriage Act which requires both state and federal governments to recognize marriages that were valid where they were performed. For example, gay billionaire and Republican donor Peter Thiel was married in Vienna, Austria, so regardless of what happens in the US, his marriage is probably fine. Rich people, even gay ones, escape the fallout of most oppressive legislation.

Gay marriage is an unlikely and unpopular issue for Republicans to go after directly. There are out gay conservatives like Thiel or Ken Mehlman. Billionaire Paul Singer’s son Andrew is gay. If these people kowtow to eliminating gay marriages as official marriages because of the Bible (and we go back to civil unions), they would still balk the loss of their or their loved one’s rights. Even the most conservative justices may not want to mess with that. They also may not spark another culture-war firestorm so soon after Dobbs and while they believe they have the moral upperhand post-Charlie Kirk.

The Supreme Court has a very cohesive 6-3 conservative majority, but justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have not said anything specific about gay marriage. It is a political loser if said directly, but “religious liberty” carve outs for businesses and adoption agencies push us out of public life and away from resources. This could avoid the explosive backlash an outright ban would trigger.

If losing gay marriage sparks liberal action, and if Democrats ever gain power again and grow spines, bringing back or passing stronger federal gay marriage protections (like amending the Constitution or expanding RMA) would hopefully be a first order of business. They should have done it for Roe under Biden. For now, the Respect for Marriage Act provides a buffer.

If gay marriage stays legal, that doesn’t mean anti-discrimination laws aren’t being chipped away. There’s more room for people like Kim Davis, a woman whose hair probably smells like black mold, to file discrimination claims under infringement of their religious liberty. Does providing a service to a gay wedding, like catering or venue rental, violate a business owner’s religious freedom? Christian nationalism is gaining power under the eye of the Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for Project 2025.

Let’s not be fear mongers. How likely is any of this? Not very.

We should prepare anyway. Create a will and trust so your spouse or partner can inherit any property regardless of if you are legally married. Go to a legal website like LegalZoom and make a “living will” too, on the cheap. There’s a lot of leeway in what a will looks like — it mainly needs you to be of documented sound mind and it needs your signature and those of two or three witnesses. A notary would be good, but it’s not necessary. Create an advance directive in case you are incapacitated. Make sure your spouse is listed as your medical and financial power of attorney and healthcare proxy because, if not, it defaults to your parents. That could be disastrous.

Even if both names are on the birth certificate, legal adoption provides an extra protective layer. In some states, you can get a judicial declaration of parentage as a court order, which is harder for opponents to challenge.

Check on your employee benefits. Where does your 401K or pension go if you pass? Can you keep someone on your health insurance if your marriage is now invalid? Do you have life insurance where you can leave money to each other? There are options like a joint tenancy with right of survivorship form to ensure property passes automatically. If your state seems like it would ban gay marriage, it might be a good idea to get married again in a safe state to create added protection.

I know. It’s a lot. It sucks to think about. But even if gay marriage doesn’t lose federal protection, it’s never a bad idea to create legal safety nets for your love that don’t rely on a Republican majority Supreme Court to validate.

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Although the abject horror of “Alligator Alcatraz” is and should be the major focus of most of the terrible news coming out of Florida, my home state has been making the headlines again for another infuriating reason.

Last Thursday, August 21, people in Orlando were stunned to discover the rainbow-painted crosswalk created as part of the Pulse Shooting Memorial and designed to help honor the victims was painted over by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). While I’m tempted to place all of the blame for the “crosswalk wars” chapter of our ongoing culture wars solely on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his order to FDOT was — at least partially — the result of an order from the Trump Administration. In July, the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico to immediately ensure that all roads in the country are “free from distraction.”

In this vague order devoid of any particular definitions or proof of its claims, Duffy wrote, “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork. Today I am calling on governors in every state to ensure that roadways, intersections, and crosswalks are kept free of distractions. Far too many Americans die each year to traffic fatalities to take our eye off the ball. USDOT stands ready to help communities across the country make their roads safer and easier to navigate.”

Being that it is an obvious attempt to enable governors of states in the same culture war hell as Florida, the order doesn’t clearly define what “distractions” he means. So, in a tweet announcing the order, he wrote to make sure people didn’t miss an already explicit anti-queer dog whistle: “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.” And of course, Governor DeSantis, the bootlicker he is, wasted no time in trying to make sure the major cities in Florida are complying with the order.

But if you know anything about the queer and trans communities throughout Florida, you know they rarely take these kinds of attacks lying down. In response to FDOT’s initial painting of the rainbow crosswalk at the Pulse memorial, people in Orlando showed up — not once, not twice, but three times — to cover the crosswalk in rainbow chalk that replicated the original painting. The threat of Orlando citizens returning over and over again to bring the rainbow crosswalk back to life became so imminent the state chose to begin allocating law enforcement resources to the area just to make sure people couldn’t chalk it up anymore.

Meanwhile, in the other major metropolitan areas with large queer and trans communities, the resistance against the Trump administration’s and Governor DeSantis’s order is just beginning to heat up. Chalked up rainbow crosswalks have been seen popping up on the west coast of Florida in Ybor City and Tampa. Responding to a letter from Governor DeSantis and FDOT that ordered all crosswalk art to be removed by September 4, the Miami Beach City Commission has vowed to resist removing the rainbow crosswalks that dot the city’s street. Miami Beach City Commissioner Joe Magazine told local reporters in Miami, “I want to show our community, the members, that this is so important, too, that we hear them loud and clear. We are here to fight for them, and we will always stand up for equality.”

Similarly, local leaders in my hometown of Ft. Lauderdale, which is home to the second biggest “gay village” in the U.S. after Provincetown, as well as local leaders in Key West and Delray Beach shared news this week that they would be joining forces to pursue an administrative appeal to the Florida Department of Transportation. At Wednesday’s Ft. Lauderdale City Commission meeting, Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said, “…we must stand our ground. We cannot allow us to be bullied into submission and to allow others to dictate what we should do in our own communities.” Although the resistance is just beginning to amp up, it seems as if most municipal leaders and local activists in cities where Florida’s queer and trans communities really thrive are on the same page about this particular issue.

South Florida’s NPR channel, WLRN, has also taken up the task of creating a living archive of threatened street art — including and especially the rainbow crosswalks. They are asking anyone from any community experiencing these kinds of threats to submit their stories and any supporting photos through a form on their website.

I generally don’t allow myself to get caught up in culture war related activity that doesn’t directly and/or immediately impact us materially. But considering Florida has been the breeding and testing ground for so many anti-queer and anti-trans policies that have been made national since the Trump administration began their reign, I think it’s important to pay close attention to how the “crosswalk wars” progress over the next few weeks.

Governor DeSantis, the Trump administration, and the rest of the far-right losers and failures who are currently trying to make our lives a living hell have explicitly said they want queer and trans people to disappear from the public eye. Sure, the dissolution of some rainbow crosswalks in various cities where they have already kind of faded into the background of people’s lives isn’t hurting anyone in the same way many of the other policies are, but these more minor attacks generally serve as the build up to much larger ones — all over the country, not just in the state of Florida.

Whatever larger attacks they have planned will most certainly have more material impacts on our lives, which means we need to keep showing them we’re not going to take it. Resistance via not giving into the demand, creating chalk murals, and through using legal channels like administrative appeals is a start. But in order to truly meet the demands of these times, we have to be unafraid to take our resistance tactics up several notches.

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My senior year of high school they had us read The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. This book by Jeffrey Toobin chronicles the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 to 2005 — when only one known rapist was on the court and Toobin’s own history of sexual harassment had yet to occur. As a teenage Democrat during Obama’s first term, the book affirmed for me that change within the system was not only possible but inevitable. I sped through the book like a supermarket paperback, thrilled by stories of progress happening at the 11th hour as a Republican-appointed judge — usually Sandra Day O’Connor — decided to side with the liberals. Never did I question a system where so many lives could be decided by one person’s whims, because according to the book those whims would always do right.

Ten years ago when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, my belief in this American institution had already faltered. While I celebrated the impact of this decision, I felt more concerned with the earlier ruling two years prior to gut the Voting Rights Act. At best, the Supreme Court was a roulette wheel where the bet was human rights.

As expected, we had another losing spin this morning as the court issued its ruling on U.S. v. Skrmetti, a 6-3 decision that upholds the laws that ban healthcare for trans youth. My lack of reverence for the court doesn’t change the devastating impact of this decision. Trans people under 18 will not be able to (legally) access healthcare in at least 25 states. 100,000 trans people will not be able to access the medication deemed medically necessary by their doctors, their parents, and themselves.  

The goal stated plainly by some, merely implied by others, is to eradicate trans people completely. Whether through death or detransition, they want to return to an imagined time when men were men and women were women. This won’t work. Of course it won’t work. Because that time never existed and trans people have survived through periods even harsher than our own.

But I’ve grown frustrated with this fixation on survival. I don’t want to talk to a collective “trans youth” like they’re hanging off a balcony and need to be coaxed back inside. Of course, it’s imperative that we continue to live. Of course, I want trans people impacted by this decision to know there is a future beyond this moment. But there’s something condescending about this focus on suicidality and merely living. 100,000 people lost their healthcare today. Even if every single one of those people live, these laws are still cruel and discriminatory. They still make life harder for people who already have to navigate a hostile world.

As we continue to face political and cultural losses in the U.S., the U.K., and beyond, I don’t want trans people of any age to just keep on living. That’s a bare minimum. I want all of us, young and old, to get access to the healthcare we need even if that requires breaking the law. I want all of us to find community, whether online or in person, that doesn’t just remind us we’re not alone but that makes us laugh and feel challenged and feel seen in ways that go beyond gender identity. I want those of us who are artists to get to create. I want those of us who are athletes to get to compete. I want the world we were fighting for before the tide turned against us. We can still fight for that world.

The truth is most of us will survive. And that includes most of the 100,000 people under 18 affected by this decision. And while that word most holds unbearable tragedy — decisions like the one this morning don’t just lead to suicide, there are a myriad of ways people are endangered when denied healthcare and ostracized from society — I want to know what world we’re creating for everyone who is still here.

This manufactured culture war does not get to determine our hopes for ourselves or for other trans people. Our enemies do not get do decide our goals. So, yes, survive, but then let’s keep fighting for the futures we all deserve. This is not a time for compromise. The Supreme Court does not get to rule on our dreams.

To learn more about this case, read my review of the upcoming documentary Heightened Scrutiny. 

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“Imagine getting raked over the coals by Ron Swanson himself.”

Lindsey Weedston

Posted on June 3 2025 12:58 pm CDT

Actor Nick Offerman had no patience for an X user who took a Parks and Recreation gif and turned it into an anti-Pride meme. His response turned homophobic imagery posted on the first day of Pride Month into a celebratory moment for the LGBTQ+ community.

Featured Video

Though Ron Swanson was a self-described libertarian, he rejected bigotry and would have told the government to stay out of queer folks’ business.

The Pride of Nick Offerman

On June 1, right-wing X user @realmflynnJR posted an altered version of a popular GIF of Parks and Recreation character Ron Swanson throwing his computer in a dumpster. Michael Flynn Jr., son of President Donald Trump’s former U.S. national security advisor, replaced the computer with a Pride flag.

“No quotes today,” he wrote. “Just wanted to post how I feel about ‘Pride’ month.”

The next day, Nick Offerman discovered the Pride-hating post and used Swanson’s characteristic gruffness to respond.

“Ron was best man at a gay wedding you dumb f*ck,” he said in a quote tweet.

Swanson performed this honor for characters Craig and Typhoon in the series finale. Not only that, but he was also an unashamed patron of the local Pawnee gay bar The Bulge.

Offerman himself also played a gay character in a highly acclaimed episode of The Last of Us that celebrated the relationship between two older men trapped in a zombie apocalypse together. During his acceptance speech for the Independent Spirit Award he won for that performance, he condemned homophobia.

“Thanks to HBO for having the guts to participate in this storytelling tradition that is truly independent,” he said. “Stories with guts that when homophobic hate comes my way, and says, ‘Why did you have to make it a gay story?’ we say, ‘Because you ask questions like that.’”

That’s one brutal ratio

The difference between the response to Flynn’s post vs. Offerman’s suggests that bigoted hate hasn’t yet entirely overrun X. Flynn Jr. got just 2,800 likes with his gif alongside 2,300 comments, while Offerman gained over 429,000 likes.

LGBTQ+ folks, allies, and Parks and Recreation fans came in droves to praise this fantastic kick off to Pride Month 2025—and, occasionally, to rub it in some deserving faces.

“General Sidney just put the homophobes in their place,” said @trygraptor with an image of another Offerman character.

User @TheAlexisKraft referenced another moment in Parks and Recreation in which Leslie Knope rubs her arm on Swanson’s face.

“I have goosebumps. Feel,” she says.

Meanwhile, @mutedcredits replied to Flynn with Offerman’s response just to make sure the man knows what’s up.

“Every piece of art you have ever enjoyed is made by people who hate you,” they pointed out.

“Imagine getting raked over the coals by Ron Swanson himself,” wrote @sharii_ann. “Dude should just deactivate.”

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By

Rachel Leishman
Jun 2nd, 2025, 6:25 pm