Queer Women

Trump’s Silence on World AIDS Day Revives a New Lavender Scare

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

Last month, the State Department warned employees not to commemorate World AIDS Day through official work accounts, including social media, nor should they use government funds to mark Tuesday, Dec. 2, as World AIDS Day. The day came and went in a quiet, cold Washington, D.C., without the president marking what it represented—the more than 700,000 Americans who died from HIV/AIDS-related causes in the United States since 1981. 

If his intentions were unclear, Trump’s budget proposed ending all CDC HIV prevention programs this past June, and Congress continues to negotiate next year’s budget, proposing massive cuts to HIV programs. 

For many young people who never lost friends or family, there may be the misconception that the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s was localized and small, but nearly 300,000 men who have sex with men have died from AIDS-related complications, with over 6,000 deaths in 2019 alone. To put this in perspective, this would be as if over half of Wyoming’s population disappeared, or if everyone in Pittsburgh, Penn., vanished overnight. 

Even Madonna criticized Trump’s move, posting on Instagram, “It’s one thing to order federal agents to refrain from commemorating this day, but to ask the general public to pretend it never happened is ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s unthinkable. I bet he’s never watched his best friend die of AIDS, held their hand, and watched the blood drain from their face as they took their last breath at the age of 23.” 

‘Women Here Are Going to Have Access to Abortion’: How Gov. Maura Healey Made Massachusetts into a Beacon for Reproductive Freedom

PUBLISHED 7/22/2025 by

In the second episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward—a Ms. podcast exploring the history of the magazine and the feminist movement—Gov. Maura Healey talked about how Massachusetts prepared for the Trump administration’s attacks on abortion, what other states can do to protect and enshrine abortion access, and how her Title IX story led her to the governor’s mansion.

Listen to the second episode —”Inside the Feminist Fight to Reclaim Our Reproductive Freedom (with Renee Bracey Sherman, Michele Goodwin, Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Susan Frietsche, and Gov. Maura Healey)”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Kaila Adia Story on Why Queer Liberation Must Center Black Feminism

PUBLISHED 6/26/2025 by

The Black Feminist in Public series continues with a conversation with Kaila Adia Story, professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Louisville, co-host of the award-winning podcast Strange Fruit and is the author of the recently published The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf: On the Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity.

“Black feminist thinkers and scholars are the blueprint for not only Black feminist liberation but queer liberation, trans liberation,” said Kaila Adia Story.

A’Lelia Bundles Claims Family History and Black Cultural Legacies With New Book ‘Joy Goddess’

PUBLISHED 6/11/2025 by

“Langston Hughes called [A’Lelia Walker] the ‘Joy Goddess’ of Harlem’s 1920s,” said A’Lelia Bundles, great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker and author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, out June 11.

“Now, her life was not always happy. But I think his idea was that she used her wealth, her influence and her homes to create a joyful space and a welcoming space for a wide range of people.”

This Public School Program Is Grooming Kids to Hate Through Bible Study

PUBLISHED 5/22/2025 by

When you think about Bible study, images might pop into your head of kids learning principles like forgiveness or loving thy neighbor, and that’s just what LifeWise Academy advertises on its website: “a supportive and inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels valued.” But for many parents and LGBTQ kids in at least 591 American public schools with LifeWise programs, that’s far from the truth.

LifeWise Academy is a conservative Christian organization that takes public school students off school property to “integrate a Bible class into their weekly class schedule.” For an hour a week, students from kindergarten through 12th grade learn about religious concepts rooted—in part—in homophobia and transphobia. LifeWise’s growth in the U.S. reflects a trend of politicians and lawmakers attempting to incorporate Christianity in public schools and minimize LGBTQ representation.

Advocates Beat 91% of Last Year’s Anti-LGBTQ Bills. How?

PUBLISHED 4/12/2025 by

While the trans community still faces unprecedented legislative attacks, with 49 bills passing into law in 2024, there are key strategies that activists are using to fight back.

On March 6, Montana State Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell stood up to speak against two of the 527 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures this year. One bill would ban drag performances and pride marches as “hypersexualized shows,” and the other would require “the emergency removal of a child who is transitioning gender with the support of a parent” by state Child Protective Services.

Award-Winning Doc ‘Sally!’ Introduces Sally Gearhart, the Lesbian Activist Who Took on Proposition 6 With Harvey Milk

PUBLISHED 2/3/2025 by

Most people have heard of Harvey Milk. Sally Gearhart—not as much. But in fact, Gearhart sat right beside Milk as his debate partner in 1978 when they disputed—and ultimately defeated—Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative that would have banned lesbian and gay teachers and topics in California’s public schools. When their opponents quoted the Bible, Milk was at a loss. Gearhart, on the other hand, could quote it right back at them.

Born in 1931 into a Christian household in Virginia, Gearhart charted her own unconventional path from a career as a teacher at Christian colleges in Texas until she determined to live her life out in the open and left for San Francisco with no job in the early 1970s. Ultimately, she gained a position at San Francisco State University, where she became the first open lesbian to be tenured at a major university in the U.S. Alongside that, she became a formidable and historic advocate for lesbian and queer rights.

This historic lesbian activist is featured in Deborah Craig’s new award-winning documentary Sally!

Meet the New Feminists in Congress Who Are Fighting Back

PUBLISHED 1/28/2025 by

The progressive women newly elected and sworn into office—including three non-incumbent senators and 16 representatives—offer a glimmer of “bright hope” as the country enters a second Trump administration.

All of these women know that they’re entering a complicated political landscape, one that’s heavily partisan and disheartening to many of their constituents. They’re also experienced and driven, ready to work across the aisle as necessary while remaining dedicated to important causes, from protecting abortion rights and supporting the LGBTQ+ community to advocating for gun control, judicial reform, affordable healthcare and public education. These women come from all walks of life, sectors of the workforce and backgrounds. Some worked retail or food service jobs to pay their way through school. Others have been lifelong public servants or dedicated themselves to volunteering. They’ve been working physicians, engineers, attorneys, climate change activists, CIA analysts, mayors, state representatives and senators, education advocates, executive directors of nonprofits and small-business owners. They are Black, white, Latina and Middle Eastern. Some are proud members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many are from working-class backgrounds. Some are mothers and even grandmothers. Several are first-generation college graduates or the children of immigrants.