Free Republic

The Toronto Tempo debuted a new “non-binary” mascot ahead of their WNBA matchup with the Indiana Fever in an apparent swipe at controversial star Sophie Cunningham. The Tempo revealed Dez, a butch, non-binary Borealis Blue Snapping Turtle who uses she/they pronouns and “has a fondness for soft shell tacos,” the team said in an Tuesday announcement unveiling the new mascot. Dez also has a partner in crime, anthropomorphic arctic hare named Dot who uses standard she/her pronouns.

United Methodist Church Pastor Adam Hamilton catapulted onto the national stage after his Democratic primary win last month in the race to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate. Hamilton, who secured the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, says he's reaching out to conservative Evangelical voters as part of his “Leading From the Middle” statewide tour. The founding pastor of Resurrection Church in Leawood, Hamilton has positioned himself as an alternative to Marshall, who also identifies as a Christian and was elected to the Senate in 2020. In a 2014 interview with Jonathan Merritt to promote...

Portland, Oregon, mother Allison Roberts filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Portland Public Schools and her children’s elementary school after allegedly facing retaliation over her opposition to their gender curriculum. According to the Liberty Justice Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Roberts, she initially expressed concern last year over Meriwether Lewis Elementary School’s decision to repaint its traditional rainbow pride flag into an “Intersex-Inclusive Progress” variant to include support for racial and transgender ideology. Though Roberts supported “being immersed” in Portland’s gay community, she felt that the new flag was “an overtly political symbol that promotes values contradictory...

An American transgender refugee is back in the United States after spending a period inside a dangerous Islamic asylum center in the Netherlands, but she's still not happy with the US. Jane-Michelle Arc, 48, fled to Ter Apel, the Netherlands' largest refugee camp, after Trump was re-elected in 2024 - saying that she feared for her safety as a trans woman living in America. She claimed asylum in the European country - and while she endured tough conditions in the sqaulid camp where stabbings and attacks are commonplace, she came to the realization that she actually wanted to return to...

Even as a fixture in California cuisine and a sizable industry for the state’s farmers, avocados have presented an ongoing mystery for scientists: How do they easily flip sexes? In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, California researchers have finally answered that question by tracing the process in avocado trees back to a single gene. “Even for a plant that is so familiar to us, there’s been this great mystery for so long,” Jeffrey Groh, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and first author of the study, told SFGATE. “It’s super exciting...

After Finland’s Supreme Court found Päivi Räsänen guilty of “crimes against humanity” for sharing an online Christian pamphlet, Britain canceled her travel authorization, escalating concerns about the future of religious liberty in Europe. [UPDATE] The U.K. is a nation that now allows rapists, murderers, and terrorists to pour across its borders and live permanently in taxpayer-funded homes, but there is one thing that can get someone banned from even setting foot on British soil: “insulting” homosexuals. That’s a lesson that Päivi Räsänen, a member of Finland’s Parliament, recently learned when the U.K. denied her travel visa application.

Street preachers Richard Penkoski and David Grisham allege Fort Worth police officers violated their First Amendment rights during Trinity Pride Fest on June 27 by preventing them from preaching on public streets and sidewalks surrounding the event and later issuing one of them a citation for disorderly conduct related to noise. ... Video of the encounter spread quickly on X after Carlos Turcios of The Dallas Express posted footage from the event. By Monday morning, the post appeared as the No. 2 item in X’s News category, according to a screenshot reviewed by The Dallas Express. Elon Musk replied to...

A man who routinely boasted about being the first open drag queen to be elected to a school board in the United States was arrested last week for disturbing sex crimes involving children as young as 18 months. Travis J. Longo, 46, who is the vice president of the Cazenovia Central School District’s board of education in New York state, was initially charged over a “pattern” of sending explicit communications to a child under 12 years old. Once authorities seized and searched Longo’s phone, child pornography was discovered. Tyler Toomey, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office in the...

Portland Press Herald Maine official recommends transgender athlete referendum be invalidated Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien says that supporters fell roughly 500 valid signatures short of qualifying for the November ballot. May 21, 2026 Billy Kobin, Staff Writer A Maine official is recommending that a proposed referendum seeking to ban transgender athletes from competing in a way that aligns with their gender identity not appear on the November ballot. The rebuke Thursday came from Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien, the designated hearing officer in a case that has pitted supporters of the referendum against opponents. McBrien...

Undeterred by the shocking, last-minute cancellation of the city’s annual Pride Festival, Long Beach’s Pride Parade roared forward Sunday.