Budapest Mayor to Stage Pride Parade Over Orban's Opposition

Budapest's mayor said the Hungarian capital would organize this year's Pride parade under its own auspices to shield it from attempts by national authorities to ban the LGBTQ event.
The announcement by mayor Gergely Karacsony, a prominent critic of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, followed a police decision earlier this month to reject a petition to hold the annual parade in Budapest. The police's move was in line with Orban's guidance and a recent law that casts the event as a threat to children's development.

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Yahoo

an hour ago

• Yahoo

JD Vance becomes the most blocked account on Bluesky after anti-trans post

JD Vance has become the most blocked account on Bluesky just two days after joining the social media platform. The vice president signed up for the site, a competitor of X/Twitter, on Wednesday. Vance used his first post to mock transgender people by sharing part of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti, in which he incorrectly said that gender-affirming care relies on 'questionable evidence.' "Hello Bluesky, I've been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis," Vance wrote. "So I'm thrilled to be here to engage with all of you." Within just one day, Vance became the most blocked account on Bluesky, according to Clearsky, the platform's unofficial data tracker. As of publishing, Vance has been blocked by over 117,500 accounts, more than 29,000 of which blocked him in the past 24 hours. He has only gained 10,000 followers since joining the site. The title formerly belonged to anti-trans journalist Jesse Singal, whom GLAAD has criticized for spreading misinformation harmful to LGBTQ+ people. It took 12 days for Singal to become the most blocked account, with users even starting a petition asking the site to remove his account. He is currently blocked by over 81,000 people. "The only thing I've ever accomplished in my life, gone, all because being vice president wasn't enough for JD Vance — he needed more," Singal recently posted on X/Twitter in response to the news. "We are in hell." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 Wednesday that Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth – while allowing the same treatments for youth who aren't trans – does not constitute sex-based discrimination, and therefore does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In the snippet of his opinion shared by Vance, Thomas asserted that the Court should not listen to "so-called experts," accusing medical professionals of allowing "ideology to influence their medical guidance." He then falsely claimed that "there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender dysphoria in children." The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the World Medical Association, and the World Health Organization all agree that gender-affirming care is evidence-based and medically necessary not just for adults, but minors as well. Out of 55 peer-reviewed studies, not a single one found that gender transition has negative outcomes. Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissenting opinion that the law explicitly discriminates on the basis of both sex and gender, as it 'expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status,' since 'male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls.' The decision "does irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause and invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight," Sotomayor wrote. "It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them. Because there is no constitutional justification for that result, I dissent." Back on Bluesky, Vance was met with , with one person asking, "Why pick such a polarizing issue if you want to have a real discussion, and why not something relevant to more Americans?" To which another replied, "It's only a polarizing issue because ignorant bigoted child abusing superstitious sadists like Vance want to pretend that they know more than doctors." This article originally appeared on Advocate: JD Vance becomes the most blocked account on Bluesky after anti-trans post JD Vance admits to making up crazy stories to get press attention and says he'll continue doing it JD Vance wants the UK to repeal its LGBTQ+ hate speech laws to secure a trade deal JD Vance falsely accuses Algerian Olympic boxer of being transgender & weirdly blames Kamala Harris JD Vance now says Haitian immigrants are spreading HIV after bizarre pet-eating claim flops

Time​ Magazine

3 hours ago

• Time​ Magazine

The Lavender Scare and the History of LGBTQ Exclusion

This month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Navy would rename the USNS Harvey Milk, named after the assassinated gay-rights icon, Navy Veteran, and San Francisco politician. The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump Administration during its second term that reflect a broader rollback of LGBTQ rights. Since January, the administration has reinstated a ban on transgender military service members, which the Supreme Court has allowed the administration to implement while legal challenges wind through the court system; has ordered the federal government only to recognize two sexes; and has sought to bar transgender athletes from participating in women's sports. According to Gallup, since 2022, Republican support for same-sex marriage has dropped from 55% to 41%. The rollback of LGBTQ rights and inclusion echoes an often overlooked, but deeply consequential, chapter of American history: the Lavender Scare. During the Cold War, U.S. officials branded gay and lesbian Americans as national security threats, fueling a moral panic that reshaped American society and stigmatized countless individuals. The legacy of the Lavender Scare era continues to influence America's culture and political landscape. The Lavender Scare emerged in the early 1950s alongside the Red Scare. But while Red Scare proponents like Senator Joseph McCarthy and others linked homosexuality to communism, the campaign against LGBTQ Americans operated on distinct ideological grounds. A 1950 State Department memo, titled 'Problem of Homosexuals and Sex Perverts in the Department of State,' linked tolerance of 'homosexuality with the accompanying decline of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires' and argued that the United States, as the modern global power, had to purge gay and lesbian individuals to survive the Cold War. The State Department took heed of such harmful, and ahistorical, rhetoric. Read More: The Military's Unexpected Role in Building San Francisco's LBGTQ+ Community That same year, Deputy Undersecretary of State John Peurifoy testified before a Senate subcommittee that while no communists were employed at the State Department, the department had ousted various individuals considered security risks, including 91 people the department deemed homosexuals. Rather than calming fears, Peurifoy's testimony intensified public anxiety. White House Cabinet meetings followed up on the supposed security threats of homosexuality. Newspapers ran stories highlighting the imagined security risks posed by gay and lesbian government workers. Politicians brought the issue to House and Senate floors and committees. On the House floor, Rep. Arthur L. Miller, a Republican from Nebraska warned that while there were 91 of them dismissed in the State Department, there were 'several thousand" more LGBTQ workers employed by the Federal Government. 'I sometimes wonder how many of these homosexuals have….been in sensitive positions and subject to blackmail,' he asked, asserting that "the Russians are strong believers in homosexuality, and that those same people are able to get into the State Department and get somebody in their embrace.' Miller argued that Russian agents could seduce gay and lesbian federal workers in order to blackmail them, exploiting their fear of being outed to force them to betray the United States. 'These people are dangerous. They will go to any limit," summarized Miller. "They are not to be trusted and when blackmail threatens they are a dangerous group.' Officials across the government and journalists repeated the suggestion that Soviet agents could threaten to out, or blackmail, gay and lesbian government workers if they refused to collaborate. Yet, no evidence ever surfaced that any gay or lesbian government worker had betrayed the U.S. under duress. Nonetheless, in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, declaring 'sexual perversion,' a euphemism for homosexuality, a national security risk. The order authorized invasive investigations, surveillance, and dismissals across federal agencies and the military. By the end of the decade, an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 individuals accused of being homosexual had been fired or forced to resign, often ruining the lives of dedicated civil servants. But the Lavender Scare spread far beyond the federal government. With discrimination being not only encouraged but legal, businesses increasingly refused to hire queer people, stripping them of dignity and opportunity without any legal recourse. Municipal governments and postal authorities cracked down on queer literature. Newspapers, magazines, and tabloids often tied homosexuality to criminality and even equated queer people to pedophiles and murderers. Some newspapers even published the names and addresses of those arrested for consensual same-sex acts, leading to job loss, public shaming, and, in some tragic cases, suicide. Read More: The Miami Museum Showcasing LGBTQ Histories The anti-LGBTQ campaign also reshaped the cultural norms of minority communities. Many working-class Black neighborhoods before the 1950s had a culture of queer acceptance. Harlem's drag ball culture, for example, thrived from the 1920s through the early 1950s. Transgender people, drag queens, and drag kings participated openly in public life. Black newspapers and magazines promoted drag balls as community events in Harlem and other places such as Chicago, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. As the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, however, many Black leaders embraced white, middle-class norms—including heteronormativity—as a strategy for advancing desegregation and civil rights for the larger Black community. Bayard Rustin, an openly gay Civil Rights leader and the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was often sidelined from playing a more prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement because of his sexuality, despite his political talents. Even Martin Luther King, Jr., while hiring Rustin as a close advisor and collaborator, began to publicly distance himself from queer people because, as Rustin observed, it became 'a problem for the movement.' Rustin noted King's other advisors 'felt I was a burden.' To insulate King from critique, Rustin chose to resign from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference although he remained a close collaborator of MLK. The influence of the Lavender Scare on Black leaders' public perception of queer people is evident in an advice column King wrote for Ebony. In 1958, an advice seeker reached out the magazine, writing: 'I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls….Is there any place where I can go for help?' With generally sympathetic words, at least for a national leader during the Lavender Scare era, King responded, 'Your problem is not at all an uncommon one….The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired.' King went on, 'I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you.' He assured the writer, 'You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.' By the mid-1950s, publications like Ebony, as evident with King's advice column, shifted from covering and celebrating Black queer culture to emphasizing Black nuclear families, military service, and economic mobility. During the late 1960s the narratives surrounding the Lavender Scare began to unravel under queer liberation movements. Black and Latino activists played a central role in increasing the visibility of LGBTQ communities, bolstered by advocacy from organizations like the Civil Liberties Union. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that homosexuality could not justify terminating federal employment. Two years later, in 1975, the Senate disbanded its investigative committee targeting LGBTQ federal workers. While LGBTQ rights saw little advancement during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, this changed in 1994 when President Bill Clinton Administration's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy ended the outright ban on LGBTQ military service, even if enforcing silence. The next year, Clinton issued an executive order ending the Lavender Scare-era practice of denying security clearances based on sexual orientation. By 2011, queer people were allowed to openly serve in the military. Finally, in 2017, President Barack Obama entirely nullified Eisenhower's 1953 Executive Order 10450 with his own executive order during his last days in office. The Lavender Scare devastated the lives of queer people and for decades redefined American ideas of citizenship and belonging along narrower parameters. Today's political efforts to purge queer people and curtail their rights are not new—they are part of a longer history of exclusion and marginalization. Understanding that history is essential to confronting the present. Joel Zapata is an Assistant Professor of History and Cairns K. Smith Faculty Scholar at Oregon State University. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

USA Today

3 hours ago

• USA Today

'Shut up and dribble' crowd has no problem mixing sports, politics now

The very people who insisted athletes need to stick to sports sure are making it hard to do that these days. Masked federal agents were spotted outside Dodger Stadium on Thursday morning, and the team later said it had denied ICE's request to use the parking lots as a staging area for its immigrant roundups. (This in Chavez Ravine, of all places.) Also Thursday, Senegal's women's basketball team scrapped a training camp in the United States after multiple players and staff were denied visas. And on Wednesday, President Donald Trump used Timothy Weah, Weston McKennie and their Juventus teammates as props, inserting politics into what was intended to be a photo op for the FIFA Club World Cup. "I was caught by surprise, honestly. It was a bit weird,' Weah, a starter on the U.S. men's national team, said. 'When he started talking about the politics with Iran and everything, it's kind of like, I just want to play football, man.' There was a time when Trump and his faithful claimed that's what they wanted, too. Trump suggested NFL owners fire players who protested police brutality of people of color. Conservative commentators told LeBron James to 'shut up and dribble.' Then-U.S. Senator and Atlanta Dream owner Kelly Loeffler disparaged the WNBA's social justice efforts. And yet, here we are now, politics and sports mixing as if they're the most natural of bedfellows. More: Dodger Stadium becomes flashpoint after team denied entry to masked feds More: 'Immigrant City Football Club' - Angel City sends message amid ICE raids To be clear, it is impossible to separate politics and sports. Always has been. Sports is a prism through which we view society, our thoughts on thorny issues filtered and shaped through the lens of athletes and games. There is a direct link between Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier and the civil rights movement. Billie Jean King was, and still is, instrumental in the fight for equal rights for women. Magic Johnson's announcement that he was HIV positive prompted a seismic shift in attitudes about AIDS and, by extension, the LGBTQ community. And on and on. But whether you think that's a good thing has often depended on how you feel about the politics in question. Military flyovers and singing the national anthem before games? That's either patriotic or jingoistic. Politicians affiliating themselves with sporting events or athletes? It's either what every American does or a shameless co-opt. Team owners donating to politicians and causes that might run counter to the interest of their fans? That's either their own business or a slap in the face to the people who are helping fatten their wallets! Players, particularly Black, brown and LGBTQ ones, protesting or speaking out about injustice? That's either a hell no, athletes ought to know their lane and stay in it, or using their platform to make sure our country is living up to its promises is the ultimate expression of being an American. All of which is fine. One of the greatest things about this country is we're allowed to have different opinions, to see the same thing from different angles. What is not fine is the hypocrisy, the "OK for me but not for thee" attitude that permeates so much of our discourse these days. You cannot howl that athletes need to "shut up and dribble" then turn around and cheer a president who uses sports to burnish his image. You cannot say you just want to enjoy the game and then be OK with politicians inserting themselves into them. And you absolutely cannot cheer individual athletes while at the same time celebrating the harassment, abuse and discrimination of millions of others who look and love like them. You want to keep politics out of sports? Fine. You go first. Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.