After originally defending the image as “an expression of art” in reaction to the “tremendous damage to the country and the world” she believes Trump is responsible for, Griffin quickly realized there was no way for her to successfully weather this storm, so she apologized.

All the while, Donald Trump has stripped transgender students of protections in schools, installed grotesque and overtly homophobic individuals in his cabinet ― from Tom Price to Ben Carson ― and has the anti-LGBTQ Mike Pence leading the way on domestic policy, along with many of the bigots he’s installed in the government as head of Trump’s transition team.

However, someone has to go, and this week it was NYC queen Alexis Michelle. In a season lacking major drama or arch villains, Alexis often seemed to find herself at odds with the other girls these last few episodes. However, even during her shadiest moments broadcast on the show, Alexis always managed to come off as a professional and on top of her game and she scored a number of wins throughout the season.

In the piece Navratilova addresses the Margaret Court Arena, named in honor of the tennis star, and calls for the venue to be renamed in light of Court’s outrageous statements. “Sporting venues named for athletes, or any place, really, named for whoever, are so named for one reason,” 18-time Grand Slam champion wrote. “That reason is their whole body of work.

Texas legislators are at this moment considering a special session, and,as Zack Ford notes, that means the threat of a statewide transgender “bathroom” amendment applying to public schools is still a very real. LT. Gov. Dan Patrick, who’d earlier in the year introduced a broader anti-trans bill, is the force behind getting a special session, since the legislative session ended on May 29, solely for the purpose of passing anti-trans legislation.

An award-winning British play that explores an unusual journey toward love and acceptance within the LGBTQ community just made its hotly-anticipated New York debut. Jon Brittain’s “Rotterdam,” which began performances at Manhattan’s 59E59 Theater May 17, follows Alice (played by Alice McCarthy), a closeted lesbian who plans to finally come out to her family after living with her partner in the Netherlands for seven years.

“Moonlight” proved to be the little movie that could this year, winning Best Picture over the splashy, big budget musical “La La Land” at the Academy Awards in February. Seeing an independent, coming-of-age tale that tackled homophobia, racism and patriarchal norms clean up at the Oscars felt like a victory on many levels.

The video of Education Secretary Betsy DeVosconfirming that she would allow private schools to receive federal dollars while they blatantly discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students is simply stunning. Congresswoman Katherine M.

Undeterred by the silent protest, Pence continued his speech, saying to the graduates: “While this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness ― all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech.” This is a line of reasoning we’ve heard time and time again, mostly from those on the right.

Anti-LGBTQ Republican legislators in Texas ― who have the full backing of GOP Governor Greg Abbott ― are also now using a stealth strategy, adding discriminatory amendments to must-pass legislation pertaining to agencies regulating nurses, lawyers and pharmacists rather than pushing broad-based “religious liberty” bills that garner a lot of attention.