The Trump administration will install temporary warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History after releasing a report accusing the museum of promoting what it calls “radical” gender ideology and other politically biased content.

According to the Executive Order, “For purposes of policy formulation under EO 14253, this review of the National Museum of American History concludes that NMAH, by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

Executive Order 14253 refers to what the White House has deemed the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order. Therefore, the Trump administration has said it will take all available steps to ensure that the issues in the report are addressed and rectified.

Without specifying, the White House has stated that warnings will be posted along NMAH to alert visitors to sections of the museum it has deemed are in violation according to the report.

“The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the National Park Service (NPS) and in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall install temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum, informing visitors of the findings of the Report and of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order,” the Executive Order states.

The warnings were raised in a 162-page report issued by the Domestic Policy Council. The report detailed ways in which the National Museum of American History (NMAH) has “poorly” portrayed American history and insufficiently highlighted the founding story during America 250th celebrations.

The report outlined key findings of the NMAH. One of these findings was the Center for Restorative History within the museum, which has stated its purpose is to “encourage systemic change” by highlighting diverse groups. However, the report states that it highlights every group of Americans except for straight and white Americans.

The Domestic Policy Council accused the museum of engaging in “transgender activism.” According to the report, examples include referring to “biological men” as women or girls, displaying what it describes as sexually suggestive content, and incorporating discussions of gender fluidity, gender identity, and gender nonconformity into the museum’s educational curriculum, “Becoming US.”

The report also criticizes the curriculum for using the term “transgender” when discussing gender-nonconforming people and encouraging individuals to ask a person’s pronouns when meeting them. It further objects to exhibits stating that “transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes” continue to struggle for and demand equality.

It also condemns what it refers to as explicit content in an exhibition, “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)”, such as chest binders, questioning gender testing in women’s sports, and referring to biological females as “people inhabiting female bodies.”

Additionally, the report accuses the museum of no longer participating in flag-celebrating ceremonies because it was “too busy” preparing for June Pride and WorldPride events. It states, “As Director Hartig explained in a June 2024 presentation, all her attention was focused on flying the Smithsonian Pride Alliance’s ‘intersexual pride flag during June’ in 2023 and 2024.”

On July 9, the American Historical Association issued a statement rejecting the report’s findings.

In regard to the report, it states, “Its anonymous authors overlook a central lesson of the nation’s founding: the United States was forged by finding common purpose amid intense divisions, conflicts, and disagreements.” They argue that only “honest history” can tell the true history of the nation.

House Republicans led a subcommittee hearing that questioned Smithsonian Director Hartig extensively. A main focus of the questions was on the exhibits related to gender identity and whether they were appropriate. In the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace asked: “When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?”

In response to questioning, Hartig stated that the institution is nonpartisan and does not push a specific agenda.

Hartig published a two-page statement ahead of her hearing outlining her thoughts on the situation. In the report, she states that the institution is always open to criticism and will continue to look for ways to improve, but she sees the report as misleading.

“I can attest that the report does not fairly characterize the full body of work at this museum. I am familiar with the depth and breadth of our collections, exhibits, and programming. And while I recognize there is always room for improvement, I also know the beauty, inspiration, and expertise that exists in our museum,” Hartig wrote.

Democrats created their own 16-page report as a rebuttal to the Domestic Policy Council’s report. It argued that the attacks by the current Trump administration are another example of its attempt to rewrite history. Additionally, the report states that no policy changes were included in the Executive Order, as that is beyond the President’s role. “The Report recommends nothing. That is no accident. To recommend an action, the Report would need to identify who is legally empowered to take it, and its own opening chapter concedes the President’s only power is to ‘urge’,” House Democrats wrote.

It is still unclear when the temporary warnings will be installed or what form they will take beyond the requirements outlined in the executive order.

A decision by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the request of the Trump administration to discontinue direct federal funding of community-based organizations and clinics that provide HIV prevention services has raised concern among community health advocates, including LGBTQ advocates.

News surfaced earlier this month that the OMB informed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it would not renew $46 million in funding for 96 community-based organizations that provide HIV testing, referrals to medical care, and arrangements for obtaining pre-exposure HIV prevention medication known as PrEP that has been shown to be 99 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.

Under the new policy arranged by OMB, the funds will be redirected to the states to be allocated to state and local health departments. The policy calls for states to encourage but not require their respective state and local health departments to allocate some of those funds for community-based organizations. Under the new policy, the funding is scheduled to last until May of 2027, before a renewal decision is made.

Some political observers have speculated that the decision to end direct federal funding to community-based organizations could be motivated by the Trump administration’s hostility to diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs and organizations that promote those programs, with the belief that some of the groups receiving the federal HIV prevention funds are promoting DEI.

Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, is among the leaders of many AIDS advocacy organizations expressing strong opposition to the OMB action. Schmid said that in places like D.C. and some states, local officials will be willing to redirect the federal funds to local community-based organizations.

A list of the 96 community-based organizations across the country that are currently receiving the federal AIDS funds includes the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, which has a long history of healthcare support for the LGBTQ community, and La Clinica del Pueblo, which reaches out to the Latino community.

 Schmid said Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo have longstanding good relationships with the local D.C. government.

“But other states and jurisdictions don’t have that relationship with the community-based organizations,” Schmid said. “It depends on the state,” he said, adding, “Not all states send their money to the communities that really need it most. And not all states are fast in getting money to the community-based organizations.” 

Spokespersons for Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on whether they think the Trump administration’s latest action related to funding will adversely impact their respective organizations.  

Schmid said under the current federal grant program slated to be discontinued, which has been in effect for at least five years, HIV-related health organizations receiving the federal grant funds were eligible for an existing federal policy enabling them to purchase HIV-related medication, including the PrEP prevention medication, at a significant discount from pharmaceutical companies. With the ending of the direct federal HIV funds to community-based organizations, Schmid said it was unclear whether problems may surface in obtaining drug discounts.

“They could still qualify as a sub-grantee from a state,”  Schmid said. “But what if they don’t get that grant again? They would not be able to qualify to obtain the drugs” at the discounted price, he said.

Among the organizations expressing strong concern over the decision to discontinue the direct HIV prevention funding to community-based organizations has been the Federal AIDS Policy Institute and its subgroup called the HIV Prevention Action Coalition.

In a July 22 letter bearing the names of 71 community-based organizations from throughout the country sent to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya, the group called for the Trump administration to “reconsider” ending the current funding policy.  

“Ending this program without a clear plan for what comes next would dismantle prevention infrastructure that has taken more than three decades of federal investment to build and do so just as that long record of measurable returns is accelerating,” the letter states.

It says the initiative by President Trump in his first term as president to end the HIV epidemic and reduce new HIV infections by 90 percent by 2030 was moving ahead by the funding program for community-based organizations that the administration now wants to end. 

“Discontinuing this program would also cost far more than it saves,” the letter says. “Every HIV transmission prevented avoids an estimated lifetime treatment cost of roughly half a million dollars per person to the healthcare system – costs that fall heavily on taxpayer-funded programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program,” the letter continues.

“The choice before the administration is straightforward: a modest, targeted investment in prevention now, or far greater public expense for treatment later,” the letter concludes. 

Spokespersons for the OMB and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, have not immediately responded to news media requests for comment on the opposition to the funding change policy.

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 23.

By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | Earlier this month, hundreds of people filled a conference room in San Diego. These included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brian Christine, OpenAI executive Dean Ball, and the attorneys general of West Virginia and Idaho.

They all came together for Alliance Defending Freedom’s 2026 Summit. The Christian legal group, also a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate group, described the event as a “gathering of leaders from many different spheres, including law, public policy, media, business, education, and Christian leadership.”

Johnson — who has said that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and … society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle” — was a featured speaker.

In his speech, he seemed unconcerned with the separation of church and state: “It is so encouraging to Kelly and I to be among friends and fellow warriors for this cause and people who understand that God is not done with America yet. … ADF’s on the very tip of the spear, front line, defending those very truths and keeping the door open for the spread of the Gospel. This is our moment. I’m telling you, I believe the next season … is going to be the greatest season of this ministry since its inception.”

That ministry is one that has espoused aggressively anti-LGBTQ+ views since its inception in the early 1990s. It was co-founded by a group of evangelical men, including Alan Sears, who co-authored a book called “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” Since then, ADF has opposed gay marriage and supported bans on gay sex and on gender-affirming care for minors.

After helping overturn Roe v. Wade, ADF lawyers have led key victories at the Supreme Court. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, SCOTUS ruled that a website designer could refuse service to gay weddings. And this year they convinced the Court to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy and to uphold state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that ban trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.

At the summit, ADF President Kristen Waggoner, who has promoted conversion therapists and consistently misgenders trans people, interviewed these states’ attorneys general.

“The lawyers who were defending women’s sports were among the best I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Waggoner.

Similar to Johnson, Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Health Christine showed his commitment to governing based on conservative Christianity. He gave a Bible-thumping speech against gender transition and trans healthcare, saying that it “contradicts … the deeper moral order that is woven into creation itself. For Genesis 1:27 informs us that God created man in his own image. … Male and female” He also said the “complementary relationship between man and woman is divine” and advocated for youth with gender dysphoria to receive care from a pastor.

All of these remarks from politicians made me think of the interview I published earlier this week with Pete Hegseth’s pastor, Doug Wilson. He wants a Christian theocracy in America and told me that: both the perpetrator and the victim should be disciplined in some cases of marital rape; that transgender people are “sad;” that execution is justifiable for certain homosexual acts; and that gay sex should be illegal.

The ADF Summit is glossy and polished. And while its messaging may be less explicit than Pastor Wilson’s, the track record of the organizations shows they have the exact same desires. They’re just deeply strategic in what they say and when and how they say it.

I believe the political power players who attended this year’s summit know this. They know they are endorsing an organization whose members have essentially called for the illegalization of most — if not all ‚ forms of queer behavior and presentation.

In the last few years, these perspectives have become increasingly embedded in the highest rooms of the federal government and they have been effective in stripping away LGBTQ+ rights. Wilson, who just installed a full-time pastor in Washington to lead services, says there are 10 to 20 government officials who align with his church’s ideology.

It is vital for Americans to keep their eyes wide open to the ultimate goal of groups like ADF: to create a United States that leaves LGBTQ+ people without rights and that pushes us back in the closet.

Victoria Cruz, a veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising and unwavering advocate for survivors of violence, died on June 25 from liver cancer at age 79. Fierce, generous, and unyielding, Cruz emerged from Stonewall as a witness to history who would spend more than five decades helping to shape it. She became a fixture of New York LGBTQ+ activism and in time, one of the community’s most beloved elders and mentors.

One of 11 children, Cruz arrived with her family in Red Hook, Brooklyn, from Guánica, Puerto Rico, as a young child. She occasionally quipped that she was “never in the closet” but “in the armoire,” and knew from an early age that she was a girl at a time when there was little language to describe her experience. She studied cosmetology and hairdressing at Metropolitan Vocational High School, before attending Brooklyn College where she earned a theater degree in 1982. She supported herself through beauty work, as a stripper, sex worker, and entertainer in the New York City nightlife scene, giving her first drag performance at the Grapevine in 1973 to a Billie Holiday song.

A regular at the Stonewall Inn, Cruz often arrived in what she described as “full drag and semi-drag.” In a 2025 interview she recounted details of the gay bar on Christopher Street — the lack of plumbing, except for the bathroom, and how she would only drink beer because the ice for mixed drinks was drawn from unsanitary garbage cans where glasses were rinsed.

 “[The cops] used to come in and raid the place, and put the lights on. If you were two men together, you’d look for a lesbian to sit with or talk to.” If you had make-up on, she said, they’d make you wash it off with dirty water from the mop bucket. Officers also did what she called “the Robin Hood.” 

“They used to take the bra straps in the back and pull them, you know, they were very heavy elastic, and let it go so it’ll hurt their back.”

Harassment was routine. But the night of Friday, June 27, 1969, was different. Maybe the cops weren’t given “the little brown bag pay off” or “enough money,” she speculated.

Cruz hadn’t planned to go that night. She had work the next day at a beauty parlor but her boyfriend, Frankie, was a bouncer at Stonewall — and “a cheat.”

“I went and stalked him.” When he asked her to go home, she said, “‘No, I’m going to wait up here, because tonight you’re going home with me.'”

It was close to midnight, and the air was hot and humid, she recalled. A full moon in the sky. Judy Garland had just been buried, and the atmosphere in the Village was solemn — “like the calm before the storm.” Standing near the steps next to the Stonewall, Cruz spotted Sylvia Rivera — who would also become a prominent transgender rights figure — with her friends across the street by Sheridan Square Park.

The paddy wagons came. The bar got raided, yet again. But this time, a rebellion began to simmer.

“And then the crowd started getting a little bit rowdier outside, they started throwing pennies,” Cruz recalled. “They were calling them names, you know, ‘dirty copper.’ ” As cops started loading people into the paddy wagons, she “saw one queen got punched.” She thought it was Miss Major, who later publicly recounted taking a blow to the head and getting knocked unconscious.

Police brought a paddy wagon around and went back inside the bar. “And here comes a brick out of Sheridan Square Park, and it cracked the window, and they closed all the doors as a barricade. We were hearing noise from inside.”

Frankie came out to see whether she was still there. A Canadian in the country illegally, he wanted to leave. Cruz wanted to stay. “That’s serious when they started burning stuff — and then Frankie says, let’s get out of here.” She recalled the violence escalating. “First it was garbage pails. Then they started setting up fire on cars. And I said, no, no, no. That’s too crazy.”

After the raid, Frankie’s boss called him in “to clean out the basement and try to straighten up whatever the cops smashed up over there.” Frankie found one of three drink-price signs, and downstairs, the dog, Rusty, who guarded the liquor (“even though the liquor was watered down”). One of the owners let Frankie take him home. “I was so afraid of dogs, but I gave him food, and then he became my best friend and my protector.”

As for the sign, she kept it in her possession and shared that she hoped to return it to Stonewall along with photos of Frankie and Rusty. “They are part of our original history and they belong there.”

Those nights of chaos and violence are now widely regarded as the birth of the modern gay rights movement. One year later, Cruz joined thousands in what she called “the big first gay pride liberation march.”

“She was definitely one of our mothers in the movement,” says Shelby Chestnut, now executive director of Transgender Law Center, who worked with “Miss Vicky” at the New York City Anti-Violence Project from 2010 to 2017. Cruz first came to AVP seeking support after being sexually assaulted by members of the nursing staff while working at Cobble Hill Health Center. She later volunteered at AVP and remained with the organization for 18 years, eventually coordinating the domestic violence project and serving as a senior counselor advocate.

Shay Huffman, a school social worker and former AVP board member, credits Cruz with being her lifeline while going through intimate partner violence. “By the time I got to AVP, I was 95 pounds,” says Huffman. “I seriously doubted I would survive. I had lost my appetite, wasn’t eating, and felt like my spirit was being sucked out of me.” Huffman says it was important to her that Cruz was a woman of color. “She heard me. She met me where I was. She validated me. She gave me hope and encouragement. She made me believe, ‘Maybe I can survive this.’ It was the first step from becoming a fighter and survivor to really thriving.”

Cruz’s impact extended beyond those she counseled. For many young trans people, the presence of an elder figure like “Miss Vicky” was not something to be taken lightly, Shelby Chestnut says.

“Especially at the time when she got into advocacy, in an ‘official’ way, there was a real expansion of trans justice organizations in New York City, and she would come to all of the events and be this big voice of reason. Even in the face of so much terribleness in the world right now — even at almost 80 years old — she was so clear and articulate: ‘We can’t back down. We’ve been here before. We can’t give people new ground in this moment to take our power and livelihood away.’ She imparted this to a new generation of organizers and leaders in a way that not many people could.”

“She came up in a post-Stonewall reality but also was clear that so much of our conditions didn’t change just because Stonewall birthed our movement.”

Her commitment to justice came to wider public attention with the release of the 2017 documentary “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson.” The film documents her meticulous investigation into the 1992 death of her contemporary, Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman whose death was ruled a suicide despite suspicious circumstances. Cruz’s probing not only helped expose the very real possibility that Johnson was murdered, but also underscored a broader reality: Many trans women of the era were treated as throwaways, their deaths denied the attention and justice they deserved. 

Following Cruz’s death, the documentary’s director, David France, paid tribute to Cruz on Facebook: 

“Throughout her life she embodied pure joy, something she learned from Marsha P. Johnson (whom she called “The Rosa Parks of the gay movement”), and fierce resistance, which she dedicated herself to in her last conversation with Sylvia Rivera on her death bed. She promised Sylvia she would ‘keep the community together.’ And she did that and more. She died on Pride Week, her highest of holy days. There never will be another like her.”

“Victoria loved the beach,” recalls Cruz’s sister, Heyde Cruz, 73. “She called it her sanctuary and as my children and my other siblings’ children were growing, she would take them to the beach and show them how beautiful it was, picking up seashells and other beach objects on the sand and they loved it.”

Indeed, Cruz was a popular presence at the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, where she was often spotted beneath a sun tent in colorful attire and her signature headband with feathers and cowrie shells. She was considered royalty at this haven for queers near the former Neponsit Hospital — a building that fell into ruin over decades before ultimately being demolished, despite protests by a community that had laid claim to a landmark no one else seemed to want.

In a 2023 conversation, the “Queen of Riis” recounted tales of noble mischief dating back to the earliest days when she had first set foot on the sands in 1963. The facility had been running as a “Home for the Aged” and the gay folks delighted in helping elderly residents sneak out to frolic on the beach.

 “We would tell them when the guys were coming so they could run back to the premises,” she said. She loved hearing the concerts from the facility’s gazebo, where patients would be taken out for lunch. “I loved to go on Sunday mornings because of the church services,” Cruz said. “They played the most wonderful American gospel I ever heard.”

Cruz had hoped that the building might be preserved and turned into a hospice, where “the sounds of the sea, the sun, the gulls [might] make them enjoy life more, especially in their last days.” 

Last December, the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative honored Cruz with a Brick Award for Community Activism. Latina actor, model and trans activist Angelica Christina introduced Cruz, highlighting the elder’s fight for the LGBTQ+ community as “front and center,” noting she had “done so with courage, conviction and compassion.”

“From being a longtime leader at the Anti-Violence Project, to being a part of the documented history at Stonewall, Victoria has supported survivors of anti-LGBTQIA+ violence when few others would,” said Christina, herself a survivor of sexual assault and homelessness. “She fought for safety and accountability and dignity at a time when our stories — especially that of BIPOC trans women — were too often ignored… “

To a standing ovation, Cruz spoke to those who have long admired her spirit, as well as a new generation reaching for the torch amid a renewed political tempest intent on extinguishing the most marginalized:

“We resisted at Stonewall and we can resist now because they’re not going to erase us,” Cruz assured. “Today, it is better to be yourself. Life is much easier when you are you.” 

“And I thank you for this prize, because like Sylvia [Rivera] said — and I promised her — that wherever I would go, I will try to keep the community together because we do have the numbers, and with our allies, we can defeat them anytime …  

“We’re here from the beginning and we’re going to be here ’til the end.”

An activist from Puerto Rico who spoke at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus briefing last week in D.C. said anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies have left the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. commonwealth even more vulnerable.

“A human rights crisis is unfolding in Puerto Rico — one that disproportionately affects LGBT+ people, particularly transgender and nonbinary Puerto Ricans,” said True Self Foundation Executive Director Miguel Vázquez-Rivera.

The True Self Foundation and LatinoJustice PRLDEF participated in the briefing that took place on July 15.

Vázquez-Rivera during the briefing highlighted several anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies that have been implemented since Gov. Jenniffer González took office in January 2025. These include Law 63-2025, which prohibits gender-affirming healthcare for anyone under 21, and Law 26-2026, which prohibits the University of Puerto Rico and other “government facilities” from installing “mixed or gender-neutral multi-occupancy restrooms.”

“The legislation aims to strengthen public safety standards while ensuring that no individual is subjected to unlawful discrimination,” noted the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration on Feb. 25 in a press release after González signed it.

González, a Republican who is a member of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, was Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives before she became governor. González supports President Donald Trump.

Vázquez-Rivera during the briefing highlighted anti-LGBTQ+ measures that have been introduced in the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly. These include House Bill 164, which would prohibit transgender athletes from school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity, and House Bill 131, which would allow faith-based adoption agencies to deny services to same-sex couples.

“The overwhelming scientific evidence is clear: children raised by same-sex parents do just as well as those raised by different-sex parents,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “What matters is not the gender or the sexual orientation of the parents; but the presence of love, stability, and support.”

Trump upon taking office for a second time on Jan. 20, 2025, signed his “Defending Women from Gender Identity Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order. Among its provisions is the federal government’s recognition of two genders: male and female.

Vázquez-Rivera noted “other proposals” in Puerto Rico “would recognize only ‘biological sex’ in government documents, prohibit inclusive language throughout public institutions, continue challenging recognition of nonbinary identities, and reverse protections for LGBT+ students previously adopted by the University of Puerto Rico.”

“The challenges facing LGBT+ Puerto Ricans cannot be viewed as isolated debates about healthcare, sports, bathrooms, or language,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “They are part of a much larger picture.”

“Puerto Rico is already confronting poverty, disaster recovery, healthcare shortages, and economic instability,” he added. “When discrimination is added to these realities, existing inequities become even deeper. Mental health worsens. Families are displaced. Communities become more vulnerable.”

Vázquez-Rivera further stressed “these issues are interconnected, and our response must be as well.” He also urged the LGBTQ+ rights movement to do more to support — and fund — advocacy efforts in Puerto Rico.

“Ultimately, this is not about granting special rights,” said Vázquez-Rivera. “It is about ensuring that more than three million American citizens living in Puerto Rico have the same opportunity to live healthy, safe, and dignified lives as every other American.”

The Puerto Rican government has not responded to the Los Angeles Blade’s request for comment.

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 18.

By SAM DONNDELINGER | On a June night in rural North Carolina, dozens of campers sat around the fire as a counselor asked them to close their eyes.

“Picture a place where you feel completely safe,” they were told. “Think about what it looks like and how it feels, what you can hear, smell, and taste.”

When they were invited to share what they had imagined, one camper described sitting in a circle with other trans people. It was dark. Trees surrounded them. Mosquitoes buzzed.

“‘That place is here, and this is the place where I feel safe,’” Jacob Hofheimer, one of the camp’s founders, recalled the camper saying. “It got all of us.”

For many of the 8- to 17-year-olds who attend Transcending Adolescence, the weeklong summer camp offers a reprieve from the calculations they have to make in their day-to-day lives: Who knows they are trans? Who can be trusted? Which bathroom can they legally use?

At a time when 40 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 90 percent of LGBTQ+ youth reported that recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies, and debates cause them stress or anxiety, those questions never disappear. But at this camp, young people are given space to ask them openly and to a community that understands why they need to.

“It really made me smile knowing that there’s a lot of people out there like me,” Ruby, a 12-year-old camper, told Uncloseted Media. “I’m putting myself out there, I’m being myself and no one judges me.”

Origins

Transcending Adolescence was founded in 2019 by Jacob and his wife Chrissy Hofheimer. The trans married couple wanted to create a camp for queer kids in America’s South, where affirming resources can be difficult to find.

Surrounded by thick woods and the backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains, campers swim, tie-dye shirts, complete ropes courses, roast marshmallows and perform in shows. They also gather for conversations about healthy relationships, medical care, legal rights, bathroom anxiety, coming out, misgendering, depression, substance use, and self-esteem.

“A huge part of it is that every single person there is trans or gender diverse, including the staff,” says Rory Sowers, a 19-year-old junior counselor from Florida. “That’s just something that you don’t get to experience a lot, especially as a young trans person.”

Sowers first attended Transcending Adolescence as a camper during its inaugural year in 2021. He returned three times before becoming a junior counselor.

“There’s so much that trans folks have to worry about just going about their day-to-day lives, especially living in the South,” Sowers says. “I was able to come into myself a lot more when I didn’t have all of those anxieties on my back.”

A place to be ‘just Ruby’

For 12-year-old Ruby, pre-camp anxiety was intense.

When she attended camp in June of last year, it was the first time traveling to another state without her parents.

“I was nervous about having someone there not really understanding me … and not really accepting me,” says Ruby, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Outside camp, Ruby worries about how other people perceive her, according to her mom, Kate, whose name has also been changed. She says her daughter has to consider a litany of questions cis kids don’t have to worry about: “‘What if someone finds out? Are they looking at me? Do I look the part?’ … All these thoughts go through her head every single day.”

Before camp, Ruby had been struggling so intensely that her family had questioned whether it might feel easier for her “not to be who she was,” Kate says. Ruby had faced bullying in school, prompting her family to withdraw her and homeschool her for the remainder of fifth grade.

“I couldn’t really go anywhere without picking [at] myself because I was anxious,” Ruby says.

But when she arrived at camp, a lot of Ruby’s anxiety subsided. She didn’t have to introduce herself through the lens of being trans. She could just be herself: a funny, theatrical, outgoing 12-year-old who likes Beyoncé, improvises rap battles, and wants to be in the center of dance shows.

“She can just go there and just be [Ruby],” Kate says. “[Being trans] is only a little piece of her. There’s so much more to her, and she’s able to do that for the whole week. … It was completely life-changing for her.”

Research suggests that spaces like Transcending Adolescence can have powerful mental health effects.

Young people tend to fare better when they feel they belong and have access to peers and adults who understand them. In one small study from 2021, participants of a six-day LGBTQ+ summer camp reported increased resilience, self-esteem and quality of life. Focus groups indicated that transgender and nonbinary campers found an affirming environment that offered social opportunities they had been unable to find elsewhere.

Though this environment can be transformative, it’s intimidating at first for some. Jacob remembers asking one camper from Texas his pronouns during medical check-in, and the boy responding that he used “guy pronouns” because he “was a guy.”

Jacob recalled him being closed off and leery of the “hippie-dippy nonsense.”

But on the second-to-last night, Jacob overheard him speaking with a fellow camper.

“‘When I first came here, I thought that I was a disgusting, mutilated pig and an alien, and nobody would ever love me because I’m trans,’” Jacob recalls the camper saying. “‘And now I know that being trans doesn’t make me disgusting. It’s actually a beautiful thing.’”

He later texted Jacob to say the camp had given him confidence during the school year.

“‘Half the time, I forget that I’m trans,’” Jacob remembers him writing. “‘I’m just a guy. I’m just me.’”

“Finding places where you literally see yourself and can be seen by others for who you are is important during adolescence. It’s a human need,” Stephen Russell, professor of social and family dynamics at Arizona State University, told Uncloseted Media. “For trans youth, especially those who may not feel fully accepted at school, at home or in their faith communities, a camp where their identity isn’t something they have to navigate or defend, but is simply centered as part of who they are, can be transformative.”

Filling the gaps

The Hofheimers know that these spaces can transform the mental health of trans youth because they experienced it firsthand when they met while working as lifeguards at a summer camp for young queer people in New Hampshire.

The camp was doing important work, Jacob says, but many of its attendees came from privileged families in New England and other parts of the country where affirming programs were more accessible. Far fewer came from places such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

That’s why, for the location of the camp, they intentionally chose North Carolina, a state that has laws on the books that exclude trans girls from participating in sports, restrict the instruction of LGBTQ+ topics in schools and ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.

“Access is really, really important,” Chrissy says, adding that while the camp costs $1,975 for the week, they offer robust financial aid, including a $1,500 “no questions asked” subsidized rate for families who can’t afford it.

At the camp, the staff educates campers about anti-trans laws, coming out, and how to have conversations with their doctors about gender-affirming care.

“The kids want to talk about this stuff,” Jacob says. “That was the gap that we identified.”

For Chrissy, baking education into the camp’s programming is personal: When she was transitioning as a young adult, accessing informed medical care was difficult. During consultations, doctors either quoted prices she could not afford or refused to treat her. One told her that they did not “put boobs on men.”

Desperate to change her chest, Chrissy turned to a friend who had undergone illegal silicone injections without an apparent complication. She received what she believed were similar injections in Florida.

But the substance wasn’t silicone, she says, and it hardened and became intertwined with her breast tissue. Seventeen years later, Chrissy underwent a double mastectomy to fix the damage.

This experience became one of the driving forces behind the camp’s educational work.

“Accurate information might have changed the course of my life,” Chrissy says.

To provide information that breaks out of the TikTok and Reddit misinformation bubble many campers exist in at home, Chrissy and Jacob bring in experts and host nightly fireside chats.

Each night, campers gather around for structured conversations about the nuances of being trans. They talk about coping with misgendering, managing bathroom anxiety, identifying red and green flags in relationships, asking for help, and caring for their mental health.

Jacob, who is a certified nurse practitioner, helps answer questions about gender-affirming care. A trans attorney explains policies affecting campers in different states and separates the practical effects of those laws from incomplete information and political fearmongering.

“It made me think about the people who I tell I am trans to and what I have to do to make sure I feel comfortable telling them,” Ruby says. “It let me think about all these questions I had but didn’t really know how to ask.”

Building what comes next

Chrissy hopes the results from the camp’s program will eventually be replicated across the country.

For now, roughly 30 campers come together for one week each summer. Some arrive unhappy about being sent to camp. But by the final day, Sowers says, those same campers are often crying because they do not want to leave.

They return home to the same schools, states, and political climates where they have to decide when it is safe to disclose their identities and how to respond when someone does not understand them.

But at camp, Ruby, among the other campers, found a weeklong respite and saw trans adults who were not merely surviving but building careers, relationships, and communities.

“After the camp, I really haven’t been talking about how I feel insecure that I’m trans,” Ruby says. “I can’t wait to go back and see the people I met and [meet] new friends.”

Attorneys for gay former FBI employee David Maltinsky, who was fired from his job as a non-agent employee at the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office in October 2025 after more than 16 years of service for displaying an LGBTQ Pride flag at his workstation, filed court papers on July 15 opposing a motion by government attorneys to dismiss some but not all of the provisions in his unlawful discrimination lawsuit seeking to overturn the firing.

Maltinsky’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. on Nov. 19, 2025, states that FBI Director Kash Patel acted illegally by violating Maltinsky’s First Amendment constitutional rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 by ordering his firing on grounds that he “exercised poor judgement with an inappropriate display of political signage” by displaying the Pride flag.

The firing came at a time when Maltinsky successfully completed 16 weeks of the FBI’s 19-week training program at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Va. to become an FBI Special Agent, according to the lawsuit.

In addition to Patel, who took office as FBI director in February 2025 under the Trump administration, the lawsuit names as defendants the FBI itself, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI.

“Defendants discriminated against Maltinsky for engaging in protected speech, for his sexual orientation, and for opposing discrimination – a clear and brazen violation of federal law and the Constitution,” the lawsuit states in an amended complaint filed May 5, 2026.

The Department of Justice, which is representing the FBI in its response to the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request from the Washington Blade for comment on the lawsuit and why it is seeking dismissal of some but not all of the lawsuit’s multiple allegations, including its claim that the firing violated Maltinsky’s First Amendment rights.

In its “Partial” motion filed on June 15, 2026, to dismiss some provisions in the lawsuit, the Justice Department through Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate and Associate Branch Director Christopher Hall, stated that the lawsuit fails to provide sufficient evidence that Maltinsky was fired because he is gay.    

“The Amended Complaint contains no factual allegations that Director Patel or any other decisionmaker expressed hostility toward gay employees, relied on Plaintiff’s sexual orientation in making employment decisions, even knew Plaintiff’s sexual orientation or otherwise indicated that Plaintiff’s status as a gay man played any role in the challenged actions,” the motion states.

Based on that, among other things, the motion says the lawsuit’s claim that the firing violated the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be dismissed. A 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that the 1964 law bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity along with its other categories including race, religion, and gender.  

In its arguments that the decision to fire Maltinsky was illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, the lawsuit’s amended complaint points out that FBI officials at the Los Angeles Field Office where Maltinsky worked presented the Pride flag to him and gave him full permission to display it at his workstation.  

“The FBI encouraged and honored Maltinsky’s work by awarding him the 2020 Director’s Award For Excellence-Outstanding Service in Diversity and Inclusion,” the lawsuit says. “In 2022, the Attorney General for the Department of Justice awarded Maltinsky the Attorney General’s Award for Equal Employment Opportunity, DOJ’s highest award for performance in support of the Equal Employment Program,” it says.

“In special recognition of Maltinsky’s efforts to improve the FBI, in June 2021 LAFO [Los Angeles Field Office] leadership entrusted to Maltinsky two Pride flags that had been flown from the flagpole located in front of the LAFO,” the lawsuit complaint continues. “Maltinsky displayed one of those flags at his workstation.”

Although the lawsuit doesn’t say so directly, all of that happened during the administration of President Joe Biden and previous FBI Director Christopher Wray, who held the director’s position from August 2017 to January 2025, when Donald Trump took office as president.

Nathaniel Zelinsky, one of the attorneys representing Maltinsky regarding the lawsuit, told the Blade that because the Justice Department did not contest the lawsuit’s First Amendment provisions, the case will move forward to the discovery stage, in which he and fellow attorneys can seek and obtain government documents, and most likely go to trial. He said that regardless of whether the judge approves the dismissal of the lawsuit provisions the government has asked for, the other provisions and the case as a whole  will continue.

“And those First Amendment claims are extremely serious,” he said. “The government, by its admission, fired David Maltinsky because they did not like the speech he displayed when he put up the Pride flag that was gifted to him by the FBI,” Zelinsky said. “The federal government cannot discriminate against its workers based on their speech.”      

An officer-involved shooting outside of a gay dive bar, Shakey’s, in downtown Asheville, N.C., left one man dead Wednesday.

The bar released a statement the following morning regarding the incident, stating that bar staff had asked a patron to leave earlier in the night citing concerning behavior. The bar said that later the man was spotted with a gun in the parking lot.

The bar proceeded to call 911, locked the doors to the establishment, and followed dispatcher instructions on how to keep patrons of the bar safe while officers arrived. These protocols included getting patrons away from the windows and staying low to the ground.

According to Shakey’s, shots were fired outside of the business. When the Asheville Police Department officers arrived, they fired back. The individual died from their injuries, according to the police.

“Because of everyone’s quick actions, cooperation, and concern for one another, every customer and every employee inside Shakey’s made it home safely. We are incredibly thankful,” Shakey’s said on their Instagram page. They thanked Asheville police, emergency dispatchers, EMS, and all first responders who were on scene.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, Chad Flowers, stated that the suspect involved in the shooting was Arturo Castillo Palomar.

The Los Angeles Blade reached out to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation for a comment regarding the possibility of the event being considered a hate crime. They said the issue is currently under investigation and that the findings would be turned over to the district attorney for review.

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 14.

By HOPE PISONI | Jordan Korgood has come a long way. In 2023, she ran into financial difficulties while studying at Northeastern University in Boston and ended up unhoused. Ordinary shelters are hotbeds of discrimination and mistreatment for transgender women like her, and the only trans shelter was full. So for five months, she slept in her car, in public libraries and anywhere she could find in order to continue her studies and campus activism.

Korgood, now 24, started a bid in March for a seat on Massachusetts Governor’s Council, a state board tasked with approving judicial candidates. Despite running against an incumbent who has been in office for 41 years, she secured key endorsements from local Democrats and racked up more than 7,000 Instagram followers, the equivalent of nearly one-tenth of primary voters during the last election cycle.

But last month, her momentum was ripped away. It started when Ronald Iacobucci, one of her opponents, noticed that she was still registered to vote in the 2024 election with an old New York address. He proceeded to file an objection with the state, alleging that Korgood didn’t meet the five-year residency requirement. While Korgood has lived in Massachusetts since 2019, she didn’t have a valid address to register in the state while she was unhoused. So she used her mother’s address, where she had lived before moving.

In an email to Uncloseted Media, Iacobucci wrote: “Because serious questions have arisen concerning compliance with those requirements, an objection was appropriate so the matter can be reviewed through the lawful process established by the commonwealth. This objection was nothing personal, it was always about the integrity of the process.”

While most residency challenges like this fail in Massachusetts, the State Ballot Law Commission disqualified Korgood on June 18. While she initially attempted to appeal the decision, the financial and logistical burden became too much — she estimates it drained about 40 percent of her campaign funds. So on July 10, Korgood suspended her campaign.

“I am incredibly frustrated that this is what I have to do at this point,” Korgood told Uncloseted Media. “I’ve spent thousands of hours, I’ve sacrificed my own mental health, my social life, friendships, my professional aspirations and advancement to work on this campaign, and this is how they’re ruling.”

“These are cherry-picking remote issues to target specific individuals,” Eliot Tracz, assistant professor of law at New England Law Boston, told Uncloseted Media. “They’re legitimate laws, but what they’re looking for is a selective application.”

Korgood isn’t the only trans candidate facing barriers. While a 2025 report by the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute found that trans representation among elected officials has increased by over 700 percent since 2017, candidates still face major hurdles.

Uncloseted Media found examples of trans candidates running for public office in Ohio and Michigan who have been threatened with disqualification over challenges to their eligibility. Often, the challenges come from their primary opponents: fellow Democrats.

“It should be voters, not political opponents, who decide who represents them,” Daniel Hernandez, vice president of political programs at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, a nonprofit supporting queer candidates for public office, told Uncloseted Media. “This is not a legitimate way to fight — if you have a disagreement on policy, that’s one thing, but to try and target trans people just because of who they are is completely unacceptable, especially in a Democratic primary.”

A growing strategy

The first widely publicized eligibility challenge against a trans candidate Uncloseted Media identified took place in Stark County, Ohio, in 2024. The Stark County Board of Elections, which has the same chairman as the county’s Democratic Party, disqualified Vanessa Joy, a trans woman who was running for a seat in the state legislature. The board cited an obscure state law requiring candidates who changed their name in the last five years to list their former name on candidacy petitions — in Joy’s case, her deadname.

“The original spirit of the law I kind of agree with,” Joy told Uncloseted Media. “But there’s hardly any information about this law ever being enforced.”

Days later, Arienne Childrey and Bobbie Arnold, two other trans candidates, had their eligibility challenged based on this law. While both candidates were cleared to run, that wasn’t the case for Joy, who never made it on the ballot.

Tom Sutton, a political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University, told Spectrum News 1 he had never seen this law enforced in his 30 years of study. At the time, the relevant forms didn’t include a space to list former names, an omission that has since been corrected.

“The only way to find out about it was to dig deep into all of the additional documents on their website,” says Joy. “They used this law against me.”

Similar challenges cropped up in Michigan this year. Joanna Whaley, a trans woman running for a seat in the state legislature, faced a legal complaint from her Democratic primary opponent Frank Liberati, who claimed in April that she should have filed campaign paperwork under her deadname.

“Because both the original and amended affidavits of identity filed by ‘Joanna Michelle Whaley’ contain FALSE statements, she/he cannot be certified to appear on the Aug. 4, 2026, primary election ballot,” the complaint argues.

The county clerk denied the challenge, which deadnames Whaley, because she had legally changed her name. Liberati’s complaint was widely condemned, with the Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus calling it “meritless” and “transphobic.”

“It completely backfired on him,” Whaley told Uncloseted Media. “We tripled our cash on hand within a week because of the support that we’ve gotten from our community, and actually are in a stronger position now to win this race.”

While Whaley benefited from the challenge, that’s not the norm. Toni Mua, a trans woman running for a seat in the Michigan legislature, received a complaint from political activist Robert Davis in April who alleged that she also should have run under her deadname.

One of Mua’s opponents, Democrat Arthur Harrington, had discussed the challenge with Davis before it was filed, according to DeNiro Jones, Harrington’s former campaign manager. Jones told Uncloseted Media he sat in on a meeting between the two where they discussed the plan.

Jones also sent Uncloseted Media a screenshot of what he says is a text thread that Harrington sent him. In the screenshot, Davis tells Harrington, “The transgender candidate will be eliminated,” and Harrington responds that “Toni also won’t have the money to fight it.” Those texts were from April 22, two days before Davis filed the challenge.

In an email to Uncloseted Media, Davis called this story “baseless and meritless” and referred to Mua as “an illegitimate candidate seeking attention.”

“A candidate who happens to identify as transgender clearly violated Michigan Election Law and should not have been allowed to appear on the ballot,” Davis wrote. “A person’s sexual orientation nor identity played no part in the litigation seeking to have the person who filed a false affidavit of identity properly removed from the ballot.”

Arthur Harrington did not reply to multiple requests for comment. But in a June statement to Michigan Advance, he denied allegations that he was involved in Davis’s challenge.

These legal fights cost a lot. Korgood paid her lawyer $5,000. And while Mua defeated her challenge, she also had to use an estimated 40 percent of her campaign funds, or $10,000, to fight it.

In its opinion rejecting Davis’s challenge of Mua’s candidacy, the state court of appeals wrote, “Plaintiff misreads the statute … The Court of Claims did not err by concluding that Mua complied with the law or that the Wayne County Clerk did not err in rejecting plaintiff’s challenge.”

“I had to leave my job to run for this open seat,” Mua told Uncloseted Media. “It truly pisses me off, because [Democrats] have always said that they were better than this, and it’s showing truly where their support lies.”

Quinn Allred, executive director at Let Us Lead, a youth-focused voting rights nonprofit, finds these eligibility challenges from Democrats “despicable.”

“Instead of saying ‘trans people shouldn’t be running,’ [they’re entering] into this respectability politics and saying ‘oh, it’s actually because the names don’t match up, or it’s because of this residency law,’” Allred told Uncloseted Media. “[It’s a] special brand of cowardice that it takes for a Democrat to target a queer person who is also running for office.”

Uneven enforcement

While challenges to candidates’ residency aren’t uncommon in Massachusetts, they usually fail, according to Western Mass Politics & Insight, a long-running blog by local political and legal analysts.

The blog says most officials with authority over elections have a “great reluctance … to remove an individual from the ballot.” This makes Korgood’s removal unusual.

And while the State Ballot Law Commission says it considers many factors when determining a candidate’s residency and “no factor standing alone can be dispositive,” it largely cited Korgood’s voter registration in its decision despite other evidence that supports her eligibility, including apartment leases and membership in city programs.

“While there’s an undertone of legitimacy to some of those claims, it’s very selective,” Tracz says. “Most of us, when we move to a new state, don’t bother to go through the process of getting rid of our registration to vote in the prior state.”

Throughout history, Massachusetts candidates who faced similar challenges have been left on the ballot. These include former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who received a tax credit in Utah reserved for primary residences, and Brockton, Mass., mayoral candidate Hamilton Rodrigues, who had gotten his voter registration in Brockton removed and hadn’t voted in the city for over 10 years.

Months after Joy’s disqualification in Ohio, the Mahoning County Board of Elections struck down a similar challenge against Republican Tex Fischer, a cisgender man who changed his legal name. They allowed him to stay on the ballot.

Tracz says a judge would likely find selective enforcement like this questionable.

“[That rule is] applicable to any candidate, and the question then becomes ‘Is this only being enforced against a select group of candidates?’” he says. “Why are we only investigating a specific type of candidate? I think that will give some courts pause.”

Making existing challenges worse

Trans candidates face hurdles beyond eligibility challenges. A June report from the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute found that nearly two-thirds of LGBTQ+ candidates face in-person harassment and nearly 80 percent of them face online harassment.

“Whether it’s threats of violence, coordinated harassment campaigns, attempts to remove people from the ballot, the cumulative effect is the same: public service becoming more difficult and less accessible to the LGBTQ community,” says Hernandez of the Victory Fund.

Whaley says the increased attention from Liberati’s challenge brought even more harassment her way. She says she reports death threats to the police weekly and has a security detail at every public appearance. Security has become her second-largest campaign expense, and for good reason; in October, her team intervened when a man wearing a Make America Great Again hat followed her around with a gun at a No Kings rally.

“At the end of the day, I want to get home to tuck my kids in bed,” Whaley says. “We could be using that money for other things, but we’re having to use it to just keep me alive.”

Eligibility challenges distract from the candidates’ policies. Childrey remembers one woman telling her she couldn’t vote for her because she’s “only about the rainbow people.”

“Most of what [I’m] talking about is affordability, funding for our public schools … bread and butter issues,” Childrey told Uncloseted Media. “There is an assumption, because we’re trans, that that’s all it is.”

Barriers also pile up intersectionally. Nearly one-third of trans people experience homelessness at some point in their lives, a rate eight times higher than the general population. This means barriers for unhoused people disproportionately affect trans candidates.

“Trans youth, trans people of color, students, those who are unhoused like [Korgood] was, or who are disabled or low-income — those barriers only compound,” Allred says.

What could change?

Zein Murib, a political science professor at Fordham University, says these incidents demonstrate the need for more leniency with official documentation, arguing that a candidate’s deadname or legal sex aren’t relevant information. Today, 45 states accept common-law names, or the name a person uses in everyday life regardless of their ID, for other legal procedures, and Whaley says this should apply to campaigns as well.

Besides these policy changes, Allred says LGBTQ+ advocacy groups should allocate more funds to defend trans candidates from eligibility challenges. And Hernandez says that more people should condemn these tactics and show support for those targeted.

“We need to make sure that we set the expectation that everyone … is rejecting these tactics that are disproportionately burdening our trans candidates,” he says. “We have to call it out when we see it, and we have to make sure that we are not just letting candidates fight these fights themselves.”

Mua says that she doesn’t see a future for herself or other trans people with the Democrats unless the party stands up for them. “I refuse to put myself into a party where I don’t see my safety and protection being vital.”

While Korgood says she is saddened by this outcome, she doesn’t intend for her political career to end.

“I’m incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish, and while I am beyond disappointed and frustrated that this is how this is ending, I am so grateful that I earned the support and the attention of thousands of people in this race.”

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Uncloseted Media also reached out to the Stark and Mahoning County Boards of Elections as well as the office of the Secretary of State in Ohio, and the Elections division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, under which the State Ballot Law Commission serves. None replied.

Just over two and a half miles from President Donald Trump’s primary residence lies one of Florida’s most reliably Democratic congressional districts. There, a 27-year-old progressive is mounting a campaign centered on resisting what he calls the Trump-Vance administration’s attacks on civil rights, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ Americans.

Elijah Manley, an openly gay Democrat, sat down with the Los Angeles Blade to discuss why he is running for Florida’s 20th Congressional District, why he believes this moment calls for a new generation of leadership, and what he hopes to accomplish if elected to Congress.

Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale’s historic Sistrunk neighborhood — the city’s oldest African American community — Manley was raised by a single mother who struggled to make ends meet. His family experienced housing insecurity and, at one point, homelessness, experiences he says continue to shape both his politics and his policy priorities.

For Manley, those experiences are precisely what he believes Congress is missing.

“I think now the country is in need of somebody like me, with my story, my lived experience, the struggles I’ve been through in my life. We’re going through a really dark time in the country with the Trump administration coming for our civil rights and an economy that is not working for everybody. In a time where we have MAGA fascism, we need progressive leadership, and we need people who are really going to do the work of fighting back and resisting and obstructing Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans’ agenda in Congress.”

Manley said his campaign is also about ensuring people from marginalized communities — those without wealth, political connections, or institutional backing — have a voice in Congress.

“I think my story sets me aside from everyone else. I’m the only one in this race who has a story to tell voters that lines up with their lived experiences and their struggles. Growing up in poverty and experiencing homelessness was instrumental in developing my worldview and how I fight for people, and I think that’s something that’s absent on Capitol Hill.”

He argues that lived experience offers a perspective often missing on Capitol Hill.

“There are too many lawyers and people coming from professional and political backgrounds. Then you have somebody like me who is rooted in the story of this district. That’s what sets me apart from everyone else in this race.”

According to his campaign website, Manley’s interest in public service dates back to childhood. He cites the election of President Barack Obama as a defining moment that inspired him to pursue politics.

“He was inspired by Barack Obama’s historic election, igniting his passion for public service. He began writing to elected officials, speaking at school board and city council meetings, and advocating for issues affecting his community,” the website states. It goes on to describe his involvement in criminal justice and law magnet programs, Navy JROTC, and hundreds of hours of volunteer service while in high school.

As an openly gay candidate running during Trump’s second administration, Manley said Congress must take a far more aggressive approach to protecting LGBTQ+ Americans, particularly as Republican-led states continue passing restrictions targeting transgender people.

“I think we need to bring the hammer down on some of these states. I’m not one of these states’ rights people — Congress has the power to preempt laws that states pass through the Supremacy Clause. There’s never been a more important time in our history when we’re seeing fascism, we’re seeing an administration out of control, and we need Congress to act.”

His campaign has also drawn criticism from both Republicans and establishment Democrats for his positions on Gaza, immigration, and his call to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Manley said abolishing ICE does not mean eliminating immigration enforcement altogether.

“I’m not saying there should be no immigration laws. We want laws around immigration, but we want dignity. We don’t need a hypermilitarized, paramilitary group chasing people through the streets, terrorizing communities, churches, schools, and families.”

His personal experiences also inform his healthcare agenda.

“When we talk about healthcare, my experience growing up on Medicaid is seeing the failure of the government to expand Medicaid here in Florida, and now we’re seeing cuts from the Trump administration. I’m not just looking at statistics or numbers on paper — this is based on lived experience. I know how the people in this district are going to be hurt by these policies because I’ve lived it.”

California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, who has generated early buzz as a potential 2028 presidential contender for his “progressive capitalist” approach to governing, has endorsed Manley’s campaign, giving the first-time congressional candidate one of his highest-profile endorsements.

Manley faces six other Democrats in the primary, including U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, along with four Republican candidates in the general election field. Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress ahead of a potential expulsion and is running again while facing federal criminal charges.

Despite running as the youngest candidate in the field, Manley said he hopes voters leave the race remembering one thing above all else.

“I want people to remember bold and authentic leadership. I want them to know I’m running because I’ve been through what people are going through right now — and it’s not that I’ve been through it, I’m actually still going through it. We need bold people who are going to fight for everybody and stand up for what’s right, and that’s what I hope voters see when they go to the polls.”