Coverage of LGBTQ+ activism, laws, and cultural debates in the U.S. The Daily Signal offers conservative news, opinion, and commentary on these topics.
While major banks downgrade Anheuser-Busch’s stock and Bud Light becomes a corporate punch line, a quartet of CEOs seems all too happy to join them. As the beer company implodes under the weight of a national boycott, its cautionary tale seems lost on four companies who’ve decided to follow transgender advocacy straight to financial insolvency. Who are…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Fifteen Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health Tuesday, demanding answers about a study on experimental medical interventions for youth who claim to identify as transgender. Two of the study participants committed suicide, 11 experienced suicidal ideation, and the drugs participants took…
Graphic designer Lori Smith believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. She also wants to create wedding websites. Under Colorado's discrimination laws, if she were to create wedding websites, she would be compelled to do so for same-sex weddings. Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, she has taken her case to the…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A large number of pro-transgender medical interest groups have supported a legal challenge to Florida's rule barring use of Medicaid funds to pay for controversial transgender medical interventions, after most of the same organizations fought in court to hide documents that Florida says are relevant to the case. The American Academy…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Sixteen state attorneys general weighed in on Florida's rule blocking Medicaid funds from transgender medical interventions on the grounds that they are experimental. "From the Founding, states have exercised their authority to enact health and safety measures—regulating the medical profession, restricting access to potentially dangerous medicines, banning unsafe or unproven treatments,"…
I attended The Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala on April 21, a sprawling and swanky affair featuring many fine presentations, a surprise Dierks Bentley mini-concert for the country music enthusiasts (yours truly among them), and an extravagant post-dinner fireworks show over the Potomac River. But the highlight of the evening, bar none, was former Fox…
Montana recently passed a bill banning transgender treatments on minors. “It’s very important that we protect our children, especially physically, from these treatments that are permanent,” Montana state Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe says. “There’s not been a lot of studies done on the long-term effects of these [treatments],” the Republican lawmaker said, adding “but we also…
As a young woman, author Mary Harrington went by “Sebastian” online. Now she argues that the ability of young adults to be whoever they want in the non-physical confines of the internet is affecting how they view reality. “If you look at the prevalence of cross-sex identification in young people and the arrival of the…
The American Library Association released a list Monday of the 13 most “challenged” books aimed at teens during 2022, blaming anti-LGBT prejudice for what it calls censorship even though each book contains sexually explicit content. The ALA encourages readers to “show your commitment to the freedom to read” by protecting the 13 books, all marketed to teenagers…
George Orwell said, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” Never has this seemed more true than when observing the way a university treated a female researcher who discovered that other female academics were censored, smeared, and silenced when they questioned “gender identity theory” and…
Update: Gov. Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state, has signed into law Senate Bill 5599. According to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Marko Liias, a Democrat, SB 5599 “allows licensed shelters to contact the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) in lieu of parents in certain additional instances, like when a young…
In the dark of night on the last day of the legislative session in Washington state, Senate Democrats passed Senate Bill 5599, a breathtaking evisceration of parental rights. The bill would allow the state to legally hide runaway children from their parents if the parents don’t consent to their child’s “gender transition” or abortion. No…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency regulation Thursday restricting the use of experimental transgender interventions on minors. An organization of doctors, nurses, and health care professionals supported Bailey's order, despite pro-transgender activist groups condemning it as based on "debunked claims" that ignore "medical evidence" and threatening a lawsuit to…
As I spoke in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol late last month to a crowd of Kentucky lawmakers and supporters of pro-family policy, a large group of transgender activists quietly observed from the second- and third-floor mezzanines, holding various signs and flags. I called on Kentucky legislators to override the governor’s veto of…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—If a federal court upholds LGBT activists' claims against a Florida health agency's Medicaid rule on transgender interventions, that decision would have devastating consequences for civil rights law, health care providers, and public health, experts warn. LGBT activist groups led by Lambda Legal and representing four young people who identify as…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Three "detransitioners"—men who underwent surgeries in pursuit of a female gender identity but later rejected that identity—filed a legal brief supporting a Florida health agency's rule preventing Medicaid from reimbursing for transgender medical interventions. Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration finalized the rule in August 2022, declaring that Medicaid would not…
The state of Oregon refused to allow a Christian mother of five to adopt two children after she said her religion would not let her take a young minor to receive cross-hormone injections—a policy that could prevent up to 78% of Americans from adopting children. Requiring adoptive parents to facilitate transgender procedures acts as a form of…
Last week, hundreds or thousands of left-wing protesters entered Capitol buildings in four separate states, disrupting legislative chambers holding session in at least two of them. In three out of four incidents, the protesters explicitly opposed legislation to defend children, families, and women from the harmful effects of transgender ideology; in the other incident, a…
A State Department initiative offers $5 million in taxpayer funds to be divided among qualifying LGBT organizations across the world. The State Department’s $25 million Global Equality Fund invited projects led or supported by LGBT organizations and communities to apply by March 1 to win awards between $750,000 and $1.5 million. The agency will allocate a total of…
As March and Women’s History Month draw to a close, it’s worth taking a moment to ponder a rhetorical question posed earlier this month by the website SelfRelianceCentral.com: “Why Do Democrats Despise Women?” That’s not political hyperbole. It’s a serious—and legitimate—question. How else can one explain why elected Democrats nearly unanimously oppose efforts at…