Federal judge gives Pamela Ricard a religious-liberty nod to out students to unsupportive parents — What do you do when you’re a transgender teen and your teacher is your bully? In an apparent fit of pique, Pamela Ricard, a math teacher at Fort Riley Middle School in Kansas, told her supervisors that if they made her use transgender students’ chosen names in class, she would use those names with parents too, even if the students fear for their safety and…

Hypocrisy much? — As a child, did you ever get a homework assignment requiring you to convince a close personal friend to stop being gay? To persuade them God doesn’t approve of them? To “prove” it to them from the Bible? Would it ever occur to you that such homework could be handed…

Think Florida’s law is bad? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet! — What’s Don’t Say Gay 2.0? In one stunning example, New Hampshire is about to pass a law that not only prohibits teaching about transgender and gay people in public schools, but requires teachers to report effeminate boys and insufficiently feminine girls to parents. Find details below about how Don’t Say Gay 2.0 is about to…

Don’t like me at your house? Get out of my uterus. — A bulldozer almost ripped my arm off at a protest years ago… … when AIDS was killing my friends and loved ones in frightening numbers. I was with Act Up at the home of a pharma exec, doing what we did — making powerful men understand they had “skin in the game.” We had to make them see that if they continued…

A Prism & Pen writing prompt — Let’s counter ignorance with knowledge and love Have you guys noticed how much the ongoing anti-LGBTQ backlash is fueled by ignorance? Have you noticed how politicians push anti-trans laws by promoting fear … about things that don’t even happen in real life? Like myths that trans tweens and teens get “sterilizing” surgery or unfairly dominate school sports…

Target tween/teen programming like The Loud House — Ever hear this? “Don’t worry about Don’t Say Gay and other Republican laws. Those dinosaur pols are like kids with fingers in dams. They can’t stop the flood of young people learning and sharing that trans, bi, and gay people are ordinary and accepted.” I’ve heard that a lot since Florida first proposed…

I’m not alone crying happy tears. You should watch! — I finally binged the Netflix smash hit Heartstopper last night! Loved every minute and cried tears of joy … and tears of something else I’ll explain in a bit. If you’re trans, bisexual, gay, lesbian, or anywhere on the rainbow spectrum, I urge you to watch. Actually, I urge you…