Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday announced the Pentagon has upgraded the paperwork of more than 800 veterans who were discharged other than honorably before discriminatory policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were repealed.

“More than 96 percent of the individuals who were administratively separated under DADT and who served for long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service now have an honorable characterization of service,” said Christa Specht, director of legal policy at the department’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

The change will allow veterans to access benefits they had been denied, in areas from health care and college tuition assistance to VA loan programs and some jobs.

Separately, this summer President Joe Biden issued pardons to service members who had been convicted for sodomy before military laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy were lifted.

More than a decade after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the administration has made a priority of helping LGBTQ+ veterans who are eligible to upgrade their discharge papers, directing the department to help them overcome bureaucratic barriers and difficult-to-navigate processes.

However, as noted by CBS News, which documented the challenges faced by these former service members in a comprehensive investigation published last year, these efforts are ongoing.

The department is continuing to review cases beyond the 800+ included in Tuesday’s announcement, with an official telling CBS, “We encourage all veterans who believe they have suffered an error or injustice to request a correction to their military records.” 

A 17-year-old Detroit man has been charged with first-degree murder for the Sept. 24 stabbing death of a 64-year-old gay man that prosecutors say he met through an online dating app.

A statement released by the Wayne County, Mich., Prosecutor’s Office says Ahmed Al-Alikhan allegedly fatally stabbed Howard Brisendine inside Brisendine’s home in Detroit before he allegedly took the victim’s car keys and stole the car.

The statement says police arrived on the scene about 4:04 p.m. on Sept. 29 after receiving a call about a deceased person found in their home. Upon arrival police found Brisentine deceased in his living room suffering from multiple stab wounds, the statement says.

“It is alleged that the defendant targeted the victim on an online dating app because he was a member of the LGBTQ community,” according to the prosecutor’s statement.

“It is further alleged that on Sept. 24, 2024, at the victim’s residence in the 6000 block of Minock Street in Detroit, the defendant stabbed the victim multiple times, fatally injuring him, before taking the victim’s car keys and fleeing the scene in his vehicle,” it says.

It further states that Al-Alikhan was first taken into custody by police in Dearborn, Mich., and later turned over to the Detroit police on Oct. 1. The statement doesn’t say how police learned that Al-Alikhan was the suspected perpetrator. 

In addition to first-degree murder, Al-Alikhan has been charged with felony murder and unlawful driving away in an automobile.

“It is hard to fathom a more planned series of events in this case,” prosecutor Kym Worthy said in the statement. “Unfortunately, the set of alleged facts are far too common in the LGBTQ community,” Worthy said. “We will bring justice to Mr. Brisendine. The defendant is 17 years and 11 months old – mere weeks away from being an adult offender under the law.”

She added, “As a result of that and the heinous nature of this crime, we will seek to try him as an adult.”

A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said the office has not designated the incident as a hate crime, but said regardless of that designation, a conviction of first-degree murder could result in a sentence of life in prison. The spokesperson, Maria Lewis, said the prosecutor’s office was not initially disclosing the name of the dating app through which the two men met, but said that would be disclosed in court as the case proceeds.

The NBC affiliate station in Detroit, WDIV TV, reported that Brisendine was found deceased by Luis Mandujano, who lives near where Brisendine lived and who owns the Detroit gay bar Gigi’s, where Brisendine worked as a doorman. The NBC station report says Mandujano said he went to Brisendine’s house on Sept. 29 after Brisendine did not show up for work and his car was not at his house.

Mandujano, who is organizing a GoFundMe fundraising effort for Brisendine, states in his message on the GoFundMe site that Brisendine worked as a beloved doorman at Gigi’s bar.

“We will do what we can to honor Howard’s life as we put him to rest,” Mandujano states in his GoFundMe message. “He left the material world in a volatile manner at the hand of a monster that took his life for being gay. Let’s not allow hate to win!”

In response to a Facebook message from the Washington Blade, a spokesperson for Gigi’s said the money raised from the GoFundMe effort will be used for Brisendine’s funeral expenses and his “remaining bills.” The spokesperson, who didn’t disclose their name, added, “Any leftover money will be donated to local LGBTQ nonprofit groups to combat hate.”

The GoFundMe site can be accessed here.

As her race against Republican challenger Eric Hovde tightens, with Cook Political Report projecting a toss-up in November, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is fielding attacks over her support for LGBTQ rights.

Two recent ads run by the Senate Leadership Fund, a superPAC that works to elect Republicans to the chamber, take aim at her support for gender affirming care and an LGBTQ center in Wisconsin. Baldwin was the first openly LGBTQ candidate elected to the Senate.

The first ad concerns her statement of support for Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’s veto of a Republican-led bill to ban medically necessary healthcare interventions for transgender youth in the state.

Treatments require parental consent for patients younger than 18, and genital surgeries are not performed on minors in Wisconsin.

The second ad concerns funding that Baldwin had earmarked for Briarpatch Youth Services, an organization that provides crucial services for at-risk and homeless young people, with some programming for LGBTQ youth.

Baldwin’s victory is seen as key for Democrats to retain control of the Senate, a tall order that would require them to defend a handful of vulnerable incumbents. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an Independent who usually votes with the Democrats, is retiring after this term and his replacement is expected to be the state’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s fall term began on Monday with major cases on the docket including U.S. v Skrmetti, which could decide the fate of 24 state laws banning the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors.

First, however, the justices dealt another blow to the Biden-Harris administration and reproductive rights advocates by leaving in place a lower court order that blocked efforts by the federal government to allow hospitals to terminate pregnancies in medical emergencies.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had issued a guidance instructing healthcare providers to offer abortions in such circumstances, per the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which kicked off litigation over whether the law overrides state abortion restrictions.

The U.S. Court of appeals for the 5th Circuit had upheld a decision blocking the federal government from enforcing the law via the HHS guidance, and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

The justices also declined to hear a free speech case in which parents challenged a DOJ memo instructing officials to look into threats against public school officials, which sparked false claims that parents were being labeled “domestic terrorists” for raising objections at school board meetings over, especially, COVID policies and curricula and educational materials addressing matters of race, sexuality, and gender.

Looking to the cases ahead, U.S. v. Skrmetti is “obviously the blockbuster case of the term,” a Supreme Court practitioner and lecturer at the Harvard law school litigation clinic told NPR.

The attorney, Deepak Gupta, said the litigation “presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, and the rights of parents to make medical decisions for your children.”

The ACLU, which represents parties in the case, argues that Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by allowing puberty blockers and hormone treatments for cisgender patients younger than 18 while prohibiting these interventions for their transgender counterparts.

The organization notes that “leading medical experts and organizations — such as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics — oppose these restrictions, which have already forced thousands of families across the country to travel to maintain access to medical care or watch their child suffer without it.”

When passing their bans on gender affirming care, conservative states have cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which overturned constitutional protections for abortion that were in place since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

The ACLU notes “U.S. v. Skrmetti will be a major test of how far the court is willing to stretch Dobbs to allow states to ban other health care” including other types of reproductive care like IVF and birth control.

Also on the docket in the months ahead are cases that will decide core questions about the government’s ability to regulate “ghost guns,” firearms that are made with build-it-yourself kits available online, and the constitutionality of a Texas law requiring age verification to access pornography.

The latter case drew opposition from liberal and conservative groups that argue it will have a chilling effect on adults who, as NPR wrote, “would realistically fear extortion, identity theft and even tracking of their habits by the government and others.”

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.” 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.” 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”

Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.” 

“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.” 

But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.” 

Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.” 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.” 

“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19^th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”

“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.” 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said. 

But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

A D.C. Superior Court jury on Aug. 15 ordered a company that owned and operated a McDonald’s restaurant franchise in Northwest Washington to pay $930,000 in damages to a transgender employee who charged in a lawsuit that she was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation because of her gender identity in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.

The lawsuit, which was filed in January 2021 by attorneys representing Diana Portillo Medrano, says Medrano was first hired to work at the McDonald’s at 5948 Georgia Ave., N.W. in 2011 as a customer service representative and was recognized  and promoted for good work until she began to transition as a trans woman two years later.

It says she was fired in 2016 after she filed a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights on grounds that she did not have legal authorization to work in the U.S. as an immigrant from El Salvador. One of her attorneys, Jonathan Puth, said the jury agreed with the lawsuit’s allegation that the reason given for the firing was a “pretext” and the real reason was retaliation for her discrimination complaint.

Puth said evidence was presented during the eight-day civil trial that the McDonald’s had knowingly hired other immigrant employees who did not have legal authorization to work and never held that against them.

“Despite a successful five-year career with McDonald’s marked by raises, promotions, and awards and absence of discipline, Plaintiff Diana Medrano’s supervisors and co-workers subjected her to a barrage of taunts, laughter, ridicule, and harassment because she is a transgender woman,” the lawsuit states.

“Managers and supervisors routinely referred to her as male despite her expressed request that they respect her gender identity as female, encouraging co-workers to harass her relentlessly in like fashion,” it says. “When she complained to her managers, they claimed Ithat the harassment was justified because she hadn’t legally changed her name,” the lawsuit’s complaint continues.

“After she formalized and elevated her complaints, Defendants fired her on pretextual grounds. Defendants discriminated against Ms. Medrano because of her gender identity and retaliated against her in violation of the District of Columbia Human Rights Act,” the lawsuit complaint states.

The lawsuit names as defendants International Golden Foods LLC and MCI Golden Foods LLC, two companies based in Burke, Va. that it says were owned and operated by Luis Gavignano, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the two companies held the franchise rights to own and operate the McDonald’s where Medrano worked.

The Washington Blade’s attempts to reach a spokesperson for the two companies and for Gavignano as well as two of the attorneys that represented them in contesting the lawsuit through email and phone messages were unsuccessful. 

In a nine-page written answer to the lawsuit filed Feb. 12, 2021, on behalf of International Golden Foods, which is referred to as IGF, attorneys Amy M. Heerink and Kelvin Newsome dispute the allegations that Medrano was targeted for discrimination and harassment because of her gender identity.

The written answer to the complaint highlights the company’s claim that Medrano was fired because she didn’t have legal authority to work in the U.S. It refers to the company’s personnel official, Carla Vega, who informed Medrano that she could no longer work for the McDonald’s outlet.

“IGF admits that Ms. Vega informed Plaintiff that her employment had to be terminated due to Plaintiff’s voluntary and unprompted statement during the investigation that she was not authorized to work in the United States,” the written answer to the lawsuit states. “IGF admits that Plaintiff’s employment was terminated based on her ineligibility to work in the United States,” it says.

“The jury clearly found that IGF continually used unauthorized employees, hired and employed unauthorized workers knowingly,” Puth, Madrano’s attorney, told the Blade. “And they never fired anyone for that reason at any of their stores except for Diana,” Puth said.

“And so, the jury found that the reason given was a pretext for retaliation,” he said. “That was what was motivating them. They were motivated to retaliate against her because she kept complaining about discrimination.”

Puth noted that Medrano initially filed her complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and was represented at that time by an attorney with Whitman-Walker Health’s legal clinic. He said Whitman-Walker later referred her to his law firm, Correia & Puth, after determining the case could not be resolved at the Office of Human Rights.

The jury’s verdict of $930,000 in damages included $700,000 in punitive damages and $230,000 in damages for the emotional distress Medrano suffered due to the discrimination and harassment to which she was subjected.

A statement released by the law firm representing her says the action by the jury is believed to be the first jury verdict in a transgender employment discrimination case under the D.C. Human Rights Act.

Attorney Puth and his law firm partner, attorney Andrew Adelman, were the attorneys of record representing Medrano in her lawsuit. 

 “When you are sure of what you have experienced, no matter how much time passes, the truth will come to light,” Medrano said in the statement released by her attorneys. “Our truth is our best weapon to achieve justice,” she said. “It is truth, justice, and faith in God that have helped me get here.”

In his law firm’s statement, Puth called the jury’s verdict a vindication of Medrano’s 11-year battle for her legal rights.

“Diana is our hero,” he said. “She stood up for her rights in the face of terrible harassment and kept fighting even after she was fired for doing so. This verdict puts other employers on notice that tolerating harassment of transgender employees is both unlawful and costly.”

Puth said earlier this year Medrano was approved for U.S. political asylum based on discrimination and harassment she faced in El Salvador. He said she is currently working full-time as a counselor for Empoderate, an LGBTQ health organization providing services for the Latina/Latino community that is affiliated with the D.C.-based La Clinica del Pueblo.

Advocacy groups across the country are marking National Hispanic Heritage Month.

The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles on Sept. 20 hosted a comedy night that featured Danielle Perez, Gabe González, Lorena Russ, and Roz Hernandez. The event, which GLAAD organized, also included a screening of “Dímelo,” a digital series the organization produced with LatiNation that features interviews with Latino comedians. 

A press release notes Damian Terriquez, Mimi Davila, Salina EsTitties, and Tony Rodriguez attended the event. GLAAD in a post on its website on Sept. 25 highlighted Essa Noche and other Latino drag queens.

“The art of drag has always been a vibrant expression of resistance, creativity, and identity, particularly within marginalized communities,” reads the post. “Latine drag artists not only embody the resilience and power of their heritage but also elevate queer voices in spaces where their visibility is often limited.”

EsTitties on Sept. 29 hosted Queerceañera, “an inclusive take on the coming-of-age quinceañera tradition throughout Latin America and the United States” the Los Angeles LGBT Center organized.

Celebrate Orgullo, which describes itself as the “first Hispanic and Indigenous LGBTQ+ festival in Greater Miami and Miami Beach,” will take place from Oct. 4-14. Unity Coalition|Coalición Unida, is organizing the events.

“The festival invites you to experience a warm and welcoming ‘wave’ of pride that celebrates what makes us unique while uniting us in a shared spirit of inclusion,” reads a press release.

GLSEN has posted to its website a list of resources for undocumented students.

“Especially in this political climate, it’s important not only to affirm LGBTQ Latinx identities with positive representation but also to ensure that students know how they’re protected, especially those who are among the most marginalized,” says GLSEN.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is from Sept. 15-Oct. 15.

Fenway Health in Boston on its website notes National Hispanic Heritage Month “honors and celebrates the vibrant histories, cultures, languages, traditions, values, and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.”

Hispanic Heritage Week began in 1968. It became National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua mark their respective Independence Days on Sept. 15. Mexico’s Independence Day is on Sept. 16, and Chile’s Independence Day is on Sept. 18. Día de la Raza is Oct. 12.

“Here at Fenway Health, we are grateful every day for the many Latino/a/é staff members, clients, patients, volunteers, and supporters that are part of our community,” said Fenway Health. Their contributions and perspectives help drive Fenway’s mission: To advocate for and deliver innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education and to center LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.”

President Joe Biden in his National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation made a similar point.

“In our country, Latino leaders are striving for the American Dream and helping those around them reach it too,” he said. “From those who have been here for generations to those who have recently arrived, Latinos have pushed our great American experiment forward.”  

The proclamation also acknowledges Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and other Latino members of his administration.

“I am proud to work with incredible Latino leaders, who are dedicated to bettering our nation every day,” said Biden.

People across the country from Sept. 22-28 are observing Banned Books Week, which has taken on added significance amid a surge of censorship efforts.

Banned Books Week, organized by PFLAG and a coalition of other advocacy groups, literary organizations, and educational institutions, seeks to raise awareness about efforts to remove content from public libraries, schools, and bookstores.

The current wave of book bans, which began intensifying in 2021, is driven primarily by conservative groups who disproportionately target titles featuring the voices and experiences of LGBTQ people and people of color.

“This is part of an organized effort to divide our communities by stoking fears against LGBTQ+ people, Black people, and immigrants,” PFLAG Vice President of Advocacy Katie Blair said. “[It] is targeted not only to banning books and censoring schools, but to infiltrating the lives of LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.”

While LGBTQ books have always been a target of book bans, censorship efforts in recent years are more focused on restricting access to LGBTQ content than in the past.

The Washington Post reports “LGBTQ books were the targets of between less than 1 and 3 percent of book challenges filed in schools” from the 2000s to the early 2010s. In 2022, however, 45.5 percent of unique titles that were challenged were written by or about LGBTQ people.

“Book bans have no place in our democracy,” the Congressional Equality Caucus said in a post to its X account.

Book bans have no place in our democracy.

During #BannedBooksWeek, we’re proud to stand with the authors, teachers, librarians, and readers who constantly stand up and say #LetFreedomRead! pic.twitter.com/T4uhCfnzjN

— Congressional Equality Caucus (@EqualityCaucus) September 22, 2024

On the American Library Association’s 2023 list of the 10 most challenged books, seven books featured LGBTQ voices; with Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer,” George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” and Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay” topping the list.

The consequences of restricting access to LGBTQ stories and voices are far reaching especially for young people, Blair said.

“These bans contribute to the erasure of our communities and our histories, and all our stories deserve to be told. We believe that all students deserve the freedom to learn. They deserve to be able to develop their critical thinking skills, to be in schools that are open and affirming,” she said.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, said another difference in the current wave of censorship is that most calls to censor books in school libraries and public libraries are now driven by organized advocacy groups.

She explained that in the past, most book challenges were initiated by parents and guardians who were concerned about a particular book their child was reading and brought those concerns to a teacher or librarian.

“But now we’re seeing organized groups or their spokespersons showing up at board meetings demanding the censorship of sometimes hundreds of titles all at once. And we’re seeing state legislatures pass laws that are intended to remove hundreds of books, if not thousands of books, all at once, from library shelves,” she said.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, 2024, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 1,128 unique titles targeted for censorship. While this number marks a decline from the 1,915 titles challenged during the same period in 2023, it remains far higher than pre-2020 levels, when challenges hovered between 200 and 300 unique titles annually.

Moreover, PEN America, which tracks the total number of book bans rather than unique titles, counted more than 10,000 books that were banned in public schools during the 2023-2024 school year, nearly triple the amount from the previous year. Both ALA and PEN America’s reports exclude instances of soft censorship, where libraries and organizations preemptively avoid purchasing certain books or restrict access due to fear of potential challenges.

According to PEN America, around 8,000 books were banned in Florida and Iowa alone. Both states passed laws in recent years restricting access to books in schools that depict or describe sex. The vague language of the laws has drawn criticism for exacerbating soft censorship, and has often been interpreted to ban books with discussions of gender and LGBTQ identities.

Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said, it is “not clear what [the language] means, and that is a problem in and of itself, because if teachers and librarians and other educators face discipline for violating that law, and they don’t know what the law means, that’s a due process problem.”

She noted that the laws have been and are being challenged on grounds of vagueness, and for violating the First Amendment.

Banned Books Week, which library activist Judith Krug founded in 1982, will culminate in “Let Freedom Read Day” on Saturday, on which organizers urge people to take at least one action to defend the freedom to read, such as participating in this year’s elections.

Caldwell-Stone emphasized the importance of being engaged at all levels of government.

“This is an intensely local issue,” she said. “While we are seeing state legislation intended to engage in broad censorship across the state, primarily these decisions are made at the local level.”

Banned Books Week recommends engaging with school and library administrators, school board and library board members, city councilpersons, and elected representatives at meetings to voice support for access to books. People are also encouraged to attend town halls or rallies to demonstrate opposition to book bans, purchase banned books, and volunteer at local libraries.

Throughout the week, filmmaker Ava DuVernay and student activist Julia Garnett, the honorary chairs of this year’s Banned Books Week, are discussing the various ways people can stand up against censorship attempts in virtual events accessible through the Banned Books Week website.

Libraries in D.C. and across the nation, meanwhile, are hosting readings, art exhibitions, and other activities to educate families about the freedom to read.

The Anne Arundel County Public Library system on Wednesday held an event to celebrate its launch as a “book sanctuary,” designating its libraries as “safe havens where the freedom to read is fiercely protected.”

Caldwell-Stone recommends those who are interested in countering up to censorship efforts view the action toolkit available at www.uniteagainstbookbans.org and the ALA’s “Reader. Voter. Ready.” guide at www.ala.org.

The U.S. Senate voted 52-41 on Tuesday to confirm Mary Kay Costello as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, thereby setting a record for the number of LGBTQ federal judicial appointments made under the Biden-Harris administration, 12.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights says less than three percent of the country’s nearly 900 federal judges are LGBTQ. Until this week, the Obama-Biden administration had appointed the most, 11, over two terms.

Costello is a prosecutor who has served as assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia since 2008.

In a post on X, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic majority wrote that she “exhibits a breadth of experience and a strong dedication to public service” and is “ready to serve as a federal judge.”

CONFIRMED: Mary Kay Costello to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Ms. Costello exhibits a breadth of experience and a strong dedication to public service.

She’s ready to serve as a federal judge. pic.twitter.com/nBAf8pusty

— Senate Judiciary Committee (@JudiciaryDems) September 17, 2024

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the Democratic majority whip and chair of the committee, shared another post on X celebrating the administration’s record-breaking number of LGBTQ judicial appointments, writing, “We’re diversifying the federal judiciary for generations to come.”

We’re diversifying the federal judiciary for generations to come. https://t.co/WQfOus1YDE

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) September 17, 2024

In a little-noticed development, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Sept. 9 that federal prosecutors obtained indictments against two leaders of a U.S.-based terrorist group that allegedly was arranging for the murder of federal government officials and soliciting others to commit hate crimes against “Black, immigrant, LGBT, and Jewish people.”

The Sept. 9 announcement says Dallas Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, Calif., and Matthew Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho, who are leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a transnational terrorist organization, were charged in a 15-count indictment for “soliciting hate crimes, soliciting the murder of federal officials, and conspiring to provide material support for terrorists.”

It says the two men were arrested on Sept. 6, but it does not say where they were at the time of their arrest.

“Today’s indictment charges the defendants with leading a transnational terrorist group dedicated to attacking America’s critical infrastructure, targeting a hit list of our country’s public officials, and carrying out deadly hate crimes – all in the name of violent white supremacist ideology,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the announcement.

“This indictment charges the leaders of a transnational terrorist group with several civil rights violations, including soliciting others to engage in hate crimes and terrorist attacks against Black, immigrant, LGBT, and Jewish people,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in the announcement. “Make no mistake, as hate groups turn to online platforms, the federal government is adapting and responding to protect vulnerable communities,” Clarke said.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, Phillip A. Talbert, one of the prosecutors in the case, added in the announcement, “The defendants solicited murders and hate crimes based on the race, religions, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity of others…My office will continue to work tirelessly with our partners in law enforcement and in the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute those who commit such violations of federal criminal law.”

The announcement also says federal investigators determined Hunter and Alison helped to develop a “hit list” of targets for terrorist attacks and hate crimes that included “U.S. federal, state, and local officials, as well as leaders of private companies and non-government organizations, many of whom were targeted because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”