Free Republic

Several drag queens protested and booed President Donald Trump as he attended a performance of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday. The president’s visit marked his first since the inauguration. Video captured the moment several drag queens stood up in the audience as he appeared: The president has always hailed Les Misérables as his favorite musical. As Consequence recently reported, half the play’s cast decided to boycott the performance due to the president’s visit. Several cast members of Les Misérables will not be performing “One Day More” at their Kennedy Center concert next month — instead, they’ll be...

Several drag queens protested and booed President Donald Trump as he attended a performance of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday. The president’s visit marked his first since the inauguration. Video captured the moment several drag queens stood up in the audience as he appeared: The president has always hailed Les Misérables as his favorite musical. As Consequence recently reported, half the play’s cast decided to boycott the performance due to the president’s visit. Several cast members of Les Misérables will not be performing “One Day More” at their Kennedy Center concert next month — instead, they’ll be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As transgender service members face a deadline to leave the U.S. military, hundreds are taking the financial bonus to depart voluntarily. But others say they will stay and fight.For many, it is a wrenching decision to end a career they love, and leave units they have led or worked with for years. And they are angry they are being forced out by the Trump administration’s renewed ban on transgender troops.Active duty service members had until Friday to identify themselves and begin to leave the military voluntarily, while the National Guard and Reserve have until July 7. Then...

When it comes to merging artistry with activism, nobody does it with quite as much aplomb as Pattie Gonia. The critically acclaimed drag queen, musician, and environmentalist first stepped into her signature high heels in 2018 and never looked back. To date, Pattie’s community is more than a million strong across her social media platforms, where followers can watch her hike, climb, sail and surf, all while in drag.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…. (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)I recently attended a large family event. Seating arrangements are always difficult but for some unknown reason, the hostess banished two of our family members to tables where they knew nary a soul, while...

BOISE, Idaho — The Pride Season Kickoff, initially scheduled for June 6, has been canceled due to insufficient attendance, despite strong online enthusiasm. The event was intended to enhance LGBTQ+ visibility and community connection in June, serving as a precursor to the main Boise Pride celebration in September. Organizers expressed their commitment to expanding Pride in Boise, emphasizing the need for active community participation to bring new events to life. "We know the desire for more Pride programming is real—we hear it constantly," they said. However, they noted that early community buy-in is crucial for the success of events outside...

Pride month celebrations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will not be permitted this June, leadership told agents and directors Thursday. “I’ve received several questions about the FBI’s stance on Pride Month and what related activities FBI divisions and employees should or should not participate in,” FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson said in an email to assistant directors in charge and special agents in charge on Thursday morning. “So, I want to take the opportunity to make FBI leadership’s expectations clear: There should be no official FBI actions, events, or messaging regarding Pride Month.” The email...

The decoration of a Falklands War landing craft in rainbow colours to celebrate Pride has sparked uproar among veterans, who called it “entirely inappropriate” and said, “Our Falklands dead will be turning in their graves.” The Telegraph has more. "Foxtrot 8, which landed Royal Marine and Parachute Regiment soldiers on the South Atlantic archipelago, has been coated in a rainbow vinyl wrap. Portsmouth Historic Quarter, which owns it, commissioned the decoration to mark the 25th anniversary of the ban on homosexuality within the Armed Forces being lifted. But the decoration has been criticised as disrespectful by veterans. A retired senior...

Female fencing star Stephanie Turner declined to face a transgender opponent in a late-March tournament, leading to her disqualification from the tournament and an explosion of a debate about women’s sports online. But while she lost the tournament because she declined to compete, it wasn’t all a loss for Turner: she also won a big award and reward from a pro-women’s sports clothing brand. The match at which the original incident occurred was the USA Fencing tournament on March 30, 2025, during which Turner was slated to compete against transgender competitor Redmond Sullivan. Turner took a knee and refused to...

The amendment declares that children's rights to moral, physical and spiritual development supersede any right other than the right to life, including the right to peaceful assembly. Hungary's parliament has passed an amendment to the constitution that allows the government to ban public events by LGBTQ+ communities, a decision that legal scholars and critics are calling another step toward authoritarianism. The amendment, which required a two-thirds vote, passed along party lines with 140 votes for and 21 against. It was proposed by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The amendment declares that children's rights to moral,...

In Deerfield, Illinois, District 109’s locker room policy sparks fierce debate, with critics decrying the school board meeting as emblematic of ideological conformity and gender dogma. I watched the entire torturous District 109 School Board Meeting about the district’s decision to sexually integrate locker rooms and restrooms in deference to the disordered desires of a confused cross-dressing boy. Judging from the meeting, Deerfield is awash in ideological uniformity, ignorance, intolerance, and hatred—all from leftists, a disproportionate number of whom were bossy, white, leftist women. After announcing their pronouns, speaker after speaker demonized those who believe biological sex has meaning and...

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten presents Karina Ødegård, a Norwegian politician representing the Green Party (MDG). She might become Norway’s first transgender member of parliament. Ødegård highlights the challenges faced by sexual minorities in the United States, comparing their situation to the persecution experienced by marginalized groups in 1930s Germany. She advocates for Norway to offer asylum to transgender individuals from the U.S., emphasizing the importance of taking action in light of political and legal discrimination against them. ...

Community organizations and county services have lost funding after the federal government began to cut $11 billion from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On Tuesday, the Trump administration eliminated multiple agencies and laid off 10,000 workers with HHS, according to The Associated Press. These cuts have affected several programs in the region, including the Sacramento LGBT Community Center and county programs.

The Center for Innovative Public Health Research uses taxpayer dollars for deviant projects. For nearly a decade, the federal government has funded a nonprofit group that works to educate minors about sex toys, while discouraging them from telling their parents about it. The Center for Innovative Public Health Research has received more than $22 million in federal money since 2016. According to its website, the group creates “health education programs” that “promote positive human development.” But the content of those programs—and the comments of the organization’s CEO, Michele Ybarra—suggest that CIPHR’s “human development” goals are anything but positive. Take Girl2Girl....

Miami Beach's annual Pride Parade celebrates the LGBTQ community's impact in South Florida, but attendees said that this year feels different with government policies they feel roll back some protections... Since Jan. 20, the Trump administration has rolled back DEI programs in the federal government and frozen grants. The president also signed an executive order declaring that the U.S. government will only recognize two genders: male and female. "We have had to go back into our federal contracts," said Daniel Molloy of Pridelines, an LGBTQ community center. "We've had to go back into our state contracts. And redact any mention...

Piers Morgan has slammed the Ultimate Pool Group after two transgender women contested the final of a professional women's event in Wigan on Sunday night, calling the situation 'preposterous' and accusing the sport of 'cheating bulls***'. The broadcaster's comments came after Harriet Haynes defeated Lucy Smith 8-6 in the final of a Women's Pro Series event, one of eight events on the Ultimate Pool Group's 2025 women's circuit. Both players are transgender, resulting in a wave of criticism on social media - most notably from former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who described the event as 'b****y ridiculous and grossly wrong...

California state lawmakers have rejected a change to state policies that would have required male student athletes identifying as transgender to compete on sports teams consistent with their sex.On April 1, Democratic lawmakers on the state Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism rejected two bills introduced by Republican lawmakers—AB 89 and AB 844. Democrats hold a supermajority on the committee.AB 89 would have required the California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports, to follow rules banning male students from playing on girls’ sports teams at school.AB 844 would have effectively repealed the 2013 California School Success and...

A lawmaker in Washington on Thursday likened legislation aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in the state to racial segregation in the United States, arguing that those across the aisle are "making a lot of the same arguments today." Washington Democratic state Rep. Kristine Reeves spoke during an executive session of the House Education Committee on Thursday morning where members of the committee introduced SB 5123, a bill that aimed to expand protections for students, including gender expression and gender identity. "I recall a time in our country’s history not that long ago … where people...

A British online retailer has pulled a line of LGBTQ merch mocking Christians after receiving a wave of complaints and backlash. Former brick-and-mortar mainstay and now online-only retailer Debenhams decided to carry a line of merchandise from Grindcore, an alternative clothing brand. Late last week, one of their shirts went viral online, drawing enough complaints from Christian and conservative groups that the retailer pulled the shirt from its digital shelves. The purple shirt, which retailed for around $50, had the caption “A Gay in a Manger’ and featured LGBTQ-themed rainbow lights emitting from baby Jesus, suggesting the Lord was queer...

"This is France!" France unveiled a decidedly family-unfriendly spectacle last Saturday for over 28.6 million viewers worldwide as the four-hour opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics, which unfolded along a 4.5 mile stretch of the River Seine in Paris, turned into the world’s most-watched Pride Parade.Because Western cultural elites today are overwhelmingly cultural Marxists, the organizers of the 2800-year-old athletic competition decided to jettison any connection with sports, athletic excellence, or national pride, and instead promote the normalization of sexual perversion, gender ideology, and anti-Christian bigotry.As always with Pride parades, the celebration of sexual libertinism, masked as “love” and “tolerance,”...