u/NiConcussions

I work part-time at a movie theater to make ends meet. Recently we've had a coworker on a hateful tear and management has been extremely hesitant to do anything about it. For months people have danced around this employees behavior because he makes us all feel unsafe.

Let me say first off that I understand whiteness is often used to define what you aren't rather than what you are. I have a very Italian first and last name. I'm 4th generation with very loose connections to my heritage.

A coworker told me at my part-time recently that I'm not white because I'm Italian and that information "is biologically important to an honest discussion." He told me I'm not a "heritage American." What the fuck??

I didn't just stand there and take it. I told him he sounds like an 1800s racist and he doubled down. I thought he was fucking with me but it was really clear he wasn't.

It has made future shifts with him awkward as hell because now he refuses to speak to me at all. It's very unprofessional and weird. I've reported him, as have others for similar racist shit (saying the n word on the clock, calling other coworkers the r slur, talking out of pocket about how sexy he thinks Eastern European women are, being a creep to highschool seniors we work with even though he's in his late 40s) but I really needed to get this off my chest here because it's weird.

>Dr. Demetre Daskalakis is one of the foremost LGBTQ health professionals in the U.S. In November 2020, the waning months of Trump’s first term, he was appointed director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through part of his tenure with the Biden administration, he also served as the deputy response coordinator for mpox at the White House as well as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

>While he continued a lot of this work after Biden left office, he didn’t last long under Trump 2.0. In August 2025, Daskalakis resigned from the CDC over the direction that health policy had taken under Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

>In his resignation letter, which garnered widespread attention, he said he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” He cited changes to the CDC’s immunization schedule, a lack of scientific communication from HHS leadership and the growing influence of anti-vaccine sentiments in the department.

>A year after his resignation, we wanted to hear from Daskalakis, who is now serving as chief medical officer of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, an LGBTQ health clinic in New York City. In this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton,” Daskalakis speaks about his time working for the Trump administration, the erosion of scientific rigor under RFK Jr. and the troubling future for HIV and LGBTQ healthcare in the U.S.

>Since 2020, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has made headlines for a series of sweeping decisions that have rolled back rights for women and LGBTQ people. They’ve ruled to allow abortion bans in 13 states and bans on trans athletes in 27 states. And this year, Colorado overturned its ban on conversion therapy for minors.

>What headlines tend to miss, though, is that all of these decisions were won by the same legal group: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Labeled as an anti-LGBTQ hate group and active in over 80 countries, ADF is a conservative Christian legal powerhouse, having fought relentlessly against abortion, gay marriage and trans healthcare since its inception in 1994.

>Boasting alumni and affiliates such as Mike Johnson, Amy Coney Barrett, Josh Hawley and Ken Starr, the group has been involved in at least 80 SCOTUS victories and directly represented parties in 20 of them, including the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

"I topped Lindsey Graham down, and I’m sorry if that sounds vulgar. But like, it just is what it is."

Lindsey Graham, who passed away on July 11 at 71 years old, served in the Senate for 23 years and garnered a reputation for his hawkish views and hardline anti-LGBTQ beliefs.

Years before his death, rumors swirled as allegations surfaced about the Republican senator engaging with male sex workers. The public and the media underscored the hypocrisy of the senator publicly working to roll back LGBTQ rights while allegedly engaging in queer sex behind closed doors.

Taylor Snider, a trans woman and former sex worker, says Graham was a former client. She says Graham’s team threatened her to prevent her from going public in 2020 and calls him the “leader of the circus” when it comes to hypocritical homophobia and transphobia coming from the government. She talks in detail about the sexual exchange between her and Graham, reveals that she’s had other “sitting members of Congress” as clients, and speaks about the broader issue of down-low conservative men in American politics who are “actively working to push anti-LGBT legislation.”

>Reid Rasner, an openly gay Republican running for Wyoming’s lone House of Representatives seat, is suing members of his own party for defamation stemming from homophobia.

>Semafor reports that Rasner is pursuing a case against former Wyoming State Senator Austin “Kit” Jennings, who allegedly pushed rumors that Rasner committed sexual misconduct. The rumors began after Rasner garnered national attention in 2025 for making a personal $47 billion bid to buy the social media site TikTok, and got worse from there.

>Rasner, who came out when he was 20, is also settling a case against an Iowa man who repeatedly called him a “pedophile” under his campaign’s Facebook posts. The man claims that his accusation was based on “multiple social media posts and news articles accusing Reid Rasner of serious sexual misconduct,” but didn’t specify any specific posts.

>Meanwhile, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who is running against Rasner in the Republican primary, piled on and issued a poll telling respondents that Rasner “married his gay husband in New York.” That poll showed Rasner initially behind Gray by single digits, but losing support after voters were told about his sexuality.

>On July 4, 2025, over a dozen people held a protest outside of the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, around 40 miles away from Dallas. It was a noise demonstration, a type of protest that uses loud noisemakers—which in this case included fireworks—as a form of civil disruption. As the night went on, tensions escalated as some protestors broke off and committed several acts of vandalism, eventually leading police officers to arrive on the scene. Soon after that, unknown assailants fired several shots at the officers, with the Justice Department reporting that one of them was struck non-fatally in the neck area. Authorities later argued that the shot that hit the officer was fired by a protester named Champagne Song.

>Autumn Hill attended the protest but says she left hours before shots were fired. But that didn’t stop the police from raiding her home and arresting her for alleged involvement with the protest, identifying her as a suspect on the charges of terrorism.

>Then, in October, the Trump administration got involved, accusing Hill and eight other defendants—three of whom, including Hill, are trans—of being “Antifa terrorists” and “Antifa Cell operatives.”

>Hill and her co-defendants were charged with providing material support for terrorists. In a press release, the DOJ wrote that “This is the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa.” This comes after Trump signed an executive order in September 2025 declaring antifa as a terrorist organization.

>Despite the administration’s claims, there is no unified organization called antifa, a name which refers to a decentralized movement based on militant opposition to fascism. And despite no evidence suggesting trans people are disproportionately likely to commit acts of terrorism, the Trump administration in May unveiled a new counterterrorism strategy to highlight “radically pro-transgender” people as a threat.

>Hill was convicted for riot, providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to use and carry an explosive—namely the fireworks used at the protest. She has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. That’s more than double the sentences of former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes, who were key leaders in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. While Hill and her co-defendants are appealing the case, legal experts are sounding the alarm that these unusually harsh sentences could set a precedent for strict crackdowns on freedom of speech and assembly.

>Since her arrest, Hill has been incarcerated in men’s facilities. Now, staring down half a century in prison, she gives her first on-camera interview from the Johnson County Jail in Texas, where she maintains that the federal government’s narrative about her is false and that she believes she is a “political prisoner.”

Initial reporting by Uncloseted Media:

>On July 4, 2025, over a dozen people held a protest outside of the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, around 40 miles away from Dallas. It was a noise demonstration, a type of protest that uses loud noisemakers—which in this case included fireworks—as a form of civil disruption. As the night went on, tensions escalated as some protestors broke off and committed several acts of vandalism, eventually leading police officers to arrive on the scene. Soon after that, unknown assailants fired several shots at the officers, with the Justice Department reporting that one of them was struck non-fatally in the neck area. Authorities later argued that the shot that hit the officer was fired by a protester named Champagne Song.

>Autumn Hill attended the protest but says she left hours before shots were fired. But that didn’t stop the police from raiding her home and arresting her for alleged involvement with the protest, identifying her as a suspect on the charges of terrorism.

>Then, in October, the Trump administration got involved, accusing Hill and eight other defendants—three of whom, including Hill, are trans—of being “Antifa terrorists” and “Antifa Cell operatives.”

>Hill and her co-defendants were charged with providing material support for terrorists. In a press release, the DOJ wrote that “This is the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa.” This comes after Trump signed an executive order in September 2025 declaring antifa as a terrorist organization.

>Despite the administration’s claims, there is no unified organization called antifa, a name which refers to a decentralized movement based on militant opposition to fascism. And despite no evidence suggesting trans people are disproportionately likely to commit acts of terrorism, the Trump administration in May unveiled a new counterterrorism strategy to highlight “radically pro-transgender” people as a threat.

>Hill was convicted for riot, providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to use and carry an explosive—namely the fireworks used at the protest. She has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. That’s more than double the sentences of former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes, who were key leaders in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. While Hill and her co-defendants are appealing the case, legal experts are sounding the alarm that these unusually harsh sentences could set a precedent for strict crackdowns on freedom of speech and assembly.

>Since her arrest, Hill has been incarcerated in men’s facilities. Now, staring down half a century in prison, she gives her first on-camera interview from the Johnson County Jail in Texas, where she maintains that the federal government’s narrative about her is false and that she believes she is a “political prisoner.”

>In October 2025, Amanda Hunt remembers watching as countless books at Oak Run Middle School in New Braunfels, Texas, were removed from her library. Students walked in and saw more empty shelves and fewer stories they had once been able to check out.

>“Every day, they’re like, ‘More boxes? More books to get rid of? More books to pull?’” Hunt, who was the lead librarian at the time, told Uncloseted Media.

>That month, Hunt says the New Braunfels Independent School District (ISD) had temporarily closed all four of its secondary-school libraries to audit its collections and assess whether they were in accordance with Senate Bill 13 (SB13), a Texas censorship law that took effect in September 2025. Thousands of books were moved, restricted or removed.

>For Hunt, who had spent more than 14 years helping students find books, the assignment felt like a betrayal of everything a librarian was supposed to do. “What kind of librarian takes books out of kids’ hands?” says Hunt, who attended Oak Run Middle School as a student and whose dad worked there as a sixth-grade reading teacher.

>SB13 prohibits “indecent content” and content that portrays “sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive.” But the vagueness of the bill’s language, according to advocates, has led to the banning of many LGBTQ books, including “Boy Erased,” which is about a gay man’s challenges in conversion therapy, “Juneteenth” and “The Art of Drag,” a picture book about the history of drag. As of February 2026, New Braunfels ISD has removed over 600 books from its high schools and aged up over 800 books from middle schools, according to public information requests obtained from the Texas Freedom to Read Project.

That's it. Why does it keep popping up in conversations surrounding the Rochester case? Why can't you racist idiots keep that shit to yourself? And don't say you're not racist if you use that word, you are.

Why should anyone show you respect if you use that sort of language and why would you expect any? Everyone wants to defend her first amendment right to free speech (which I see as entirely harassment in this case) but nobody wants to say what she did was still wrong and bad. It's gross.

I love the vibes this channel gives, it's got this public access feeling that's very nostalgic. It's positive, silly and it feels like Seattle. I wanted to share this with you all as I think it's niche but entertaining!

"If you asked me 'Could you ever envision a homosexual crime of any nature being visited with the death penalty?' Yes, I could."

That's Doug Wilson, Pastor at Christchurch in Moscow, Idaho. Wilson spoke at the Pentagon as part of Pete Hegseth's monthly Christian worship service.

Wilson's views are as controversial as they come: He believes the United States should become a Christian theocracy, that married women should not have the right to vote and that gay sex should be illegal. He estimates that 10 to 20 people in the top levels of government are aligned with his radical ideology. He explains that he thinks trans people are “sad,” certain elements of his idea of “homosexual behavior” should be punished by execution and in certain cases of marital rape, both parties should be disciplined.

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% of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 90% 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.

>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 trans 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% of her campaign funds. So on July 10, Korgood suspended her campaign.

>After spending the first 82 years of her life keeping her trans identity a secret, Sandra Kaye finally came out last year. But it wasn’t long before Kaye—a lifelong Republican who lives in Texas—found herself dealing with tension between her gender and her political views. A conversation with a left-leaning friend led Kaye to feel confused and unsure about her longstanding affiliation with the GOP.

>“[My friend] has always been a little bit left, and I’ve always been a little bit right. So she asked me a question one day: How can I be trans and a Republican?” Kaye told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I was not prepared for that question.”

>Since this conversation, Kaye has moved further towards the center and now considers herself an independent. However, she is still proudly conservative, and voted in Texas’ Republican primary on March 3.

>Kaye is in the small minority of trans people who hold conservative views.

>According to a 2022 survey conducted by KFF and The Washington Post, 10% of trans U.S. adults identify as Republican. These numbers are likely continuing to dwindle as the Republican party pushes transphobic rhetoric and policies. During the 2024 presidential election, Trump and the GOP spent more than $215 million on anti-trans ads. And as president, he has eliminated the federal recognition of transgender identities and introduced a counterterrorism strategy that vows to crack down on “radically pro-transgender” extremists.

>Still, some trans Americans stand by their conservative beliefs.

>“When you get right down to it, I don’t think the Republican Party itself is anti-trans. I think the anti-trans comes from Donny Boy,” says Kaye, referring to Trump.

>For These Trans Women, Voting Conservative Makes Sense, somehow...

We've all heard the news about our most closeted senator dying suddenly, and I wanted to share a quick story I have involving his office.

I went to college in South Carolina and needed a passport for a study abroad trip. The passport office spelled my name wrong and I needed it fixed asap, I had about 2 weeks before my trip. The school had a program with our state senators and said we could send it to their office and get it expedited. Well, mine was Graham. So off it went with a check. His office paid for it themselves and sent the check back along with the fixed ID 3 days later and I got to take my trip to Norway.

After the fact, the school asked me to write his office a thank you letter. I never did for obvious reasons. Thanks for fixing my passport, now go suck all the oxygen out of hell.