Free Republic

Apparently, there's an exhibit at the Smithsonian – inside the National Museum of American History – that asks visitors to give their opinions on transgender athletes. Not only that, but the exhibit is sponsored, in part, by sports apparel giant Nike. Jillian Michaels, one of the original "fitness influencers" and a staunch defender of women's sports, brought it up during a segment on CNN, asking why the exhibit exists and why it is promoting a false claim. "[The exhibit]… talks about how it's complex to do gender testing in sports. It's not complex. It's basic science," Michaels said. "Is it...

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – A man is facing charges in Palm Beach County after authorities said he purposely damaged an LGBTQ Pride crosswalk by doing burnouts in his truck. Dylan Brewer, 19, of Clearwater, is accused of damaging the Delray Beach mural on the evening of Feb. 4. Video released by the Delray Beach Police Department shows the driver of a pickup truck, with a large flag on the back, performing burnouts in the intersection, located at Northeast First Street and Second Avenue. Police said in a news release that the “reckless action caused significant damage to the streetscape painting,...

In late 2020, Aubry McMahon applied for a remote customer service job with World Vision, a large evangelical humanitarian organization. Affirming she was aligned with World Vision’s Standards of Conduct, which prohibit, among other things, “sexual conduct outside the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman,” she did well in her interview and was extended a job offer. Before she accepted, however, she had a quick question for them: ‘Hey there, I just have a quick question! My wife and I are expecting our first baby in March and I wanted to see if I would qualify...

Toronto’s oldest gay bookstore kicked off Pride Month by hosting drag queens who romanticized Hamas. This is mental illness on full display. pic.twitter.com/dIBYOqtLfO — Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) August 8, 2025.https://twitter.com/EYakoby/status/1953646714067304570 Toronto’s oldest gay bookstore kicked off Pride Month by hosting drag queens who romanticized Hamas. First of all, what’s a gay bookstore? Second of all, Toronto is so gone, it’s crazy to see. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10172699426040377&id=749800376&set=a.10150283663490377 Nothing to see here, just a drag queen supporting activity.https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-honest-recruiter_nothing-to-see-here-just-a-drag-queen-supporting-activity-7342203455471534080-i5va

New York City has officially opened its first shelter for transgender and gender-nonconforming people who are homeless. Officials say it’s the only city-funded shelter of its kind in the country and will help 150 transgender New Yorkers as the Trump administration has rolled back rights for the trans community, barring access to medical care, military service and federal documents that reflect their gender identity. The city is fully funding the facility in Long Island City, which will cost $65 million to operate through 2030. “ We've watched so many other corporations and foundations and businesses just like completely turn their...

Governor Greg Abbott today filed an emergency petition in the Supreme Court of Texas seeking to remove from office Texas State Representative Gene Wu, the ringleader of the derelict Democrats who fled the state to break quorum. "I made clear in a formal statement on Sunday, August 3, that if the Texas House Democrats were not in attendance when the House reconvened at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, then action would be taken to seek their removal," said Governor Abbott. "They have not returned and have not met the quorum requirements. Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats...

Police have escorted two drag queens from a public library where they had been running a storytelling event for children after angry protesters gathered outside. Drag Queen Story Time at Holywood Arches Library in Belfast featured Lady Portia Di'Monte, known as the 'North Ireland's First Lady of Drag', and Miss Dora Belle. The ticket-only event was advertised as 'suitable for all ages and families' and to 'champion individuality and inclusivity amongst its young audiences, featuring sing-alongs and dancing.' Lady Portia read storybooks to the children, including family favourites such as Dear Zoo, while Miss Dora Belle narrated them with British...

I once considered pitching publishers a book called 101 Things That Are Now Suddenly Gay, cataloguing the increasing number of completely non-gay things that fanatical homos now claim are gay after all, from ball bearings to hovercraft, upon no rational basis whatsoever. Yet I have already been beaten to it by a temporary daily series from the pages of lefty U.K. newspaper The Guardian to celebrate this summer’s annual Gay Pride Month(s). This was called “My Unexpected Pride Icon” and was basically my old proposed book in short serial form—but taken seriously, not as a rainbow-mocking joke. ...

In another display of a double standard, patriotic Americans are being blocked from wearing pro-Trump or conservative gear at public concerts and sporting events. Yet, Pride and trans flags are allowed to be freely displayed. At venues like NFL stadiums, pro-Trump shirts or MAGA hats have been confiscated or banned, with fans told that political attire isn’t allowed. Meanwhile, displays of Pride and trans flags are embraced—often part of official event branding or venue-supported inclusion campaigns. In a video posted to X, a man taped himself being kicked out of a St. Louis City game for wearing a MAGA hat....

Trump administration restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary youth violate the Constitution and undermine state laws that require equal access to medical treatment, according to a lawsuit filed today by Attorney General Rob Bonta and 14 other states and the District of Columbia. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, targets a January executive order that makes it U.S. policy not to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender transition for people under 19. The order threatens to pull federal funding from medical institutions that provide this type of care.

World Athletics is now standing up to transgender insanity, insisting on a test to prove an individual’s DNA is female before competing against other women. On July 30, the World Athletics Council announced its new rules effective September 2025, meaning that the rules apply to the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. The Member Federations are now required to test athletes to ensure biological males are not competing in the women’s categories. There is an exception for biological males with certain extremely rare sexual development disorders, however, which could potentially cause problems later. In its press release, World Athletics explained the...

When I was a college freshman studying broadcast journalism in 1978, I watched a show on PBS that made me contemplate something that I’d never thought about before: What would I do if one day the government took control of the media, rewarding those who spread the leaders’ propaganda and silencing dissenting voices?

In the weeks surrounding Trump’s inauguration, the left-wing media insisted the administration’s effort to remove trans troops from the military would weaken the force — some outlets fearmongered that up to 15,000 service members would be booted. But numbers recently obtained by journalist Chris Bray from the Department of Defense indicate that only four “transgender servicemembers” have been “removed from the military so far under the new Trump administration policy.” In May, the Department of Defense released a memo laying out how “Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria may...

A widely circulated video showcasing a gay couple’s “surrogacy journey” has revealed that a baby boy is currently in the custody of a registered child sex offender. The couple, Logan Riley and Brandon Mitchell, gained viral attention after posting a video introducing their newborn son. It has since emerged that Mitchell is a convicted pedophile.

The Republican’s transphobic policies are sparking panic among LGBTQ+ people, triggering a 10-fold increase in asylum applications so far this year. “In the first 24 hours after Trump’s re-election, we received 1,177 requests for assistance from the United States. Fifty-one percent of these requests were from trans people: 35% from trans women, 16% from trans men,” says Timothy Chan, spokesperson for Rainbow Railroad, an NGO with offices in Canada and the U.S. that helps LGBTQ+ people experiencing persecution and violence start a life in another country. Panicked by a government that threatens their civil rights, many LGBTQ+ Americans, especially trans...

Multiple leftist media outlets attacked Swedish pastor Håkan Persson, the parish priest of Markaryd, after a recent social media post in which he criticized the new rainbow-colored, LGBT-friendly vestments designed to be the symbol of the progressivism of the Church of Sweden. In his Facebook post, Persson stated that the rainbow-colored chasuble and stole, designed at the initiative of the Västerås diocese, “will not enter Markaryd’s church as long as I am vicar.” While the media paints him as acting from “a hidden minority-intolerant agenda” and accuses him of discriminating against the LGBT community in his parish, the priest insists...

Louisiana is one of 30 states with criminal penalties related to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the laws were passed in the 1980s during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, several states have amended their laws to make them less punitive or repealed them outright, including Maryland and North Dakota this year. But Louisiana’s law remains among the harshest. The state is one of five that may require people such as Smith to register as a sex offender if convicted, a label that can follow them for over a decade. And state lawmakers considered a bill to...

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year. The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,”...

The founder of a Pride group, who raped an 'extremely vulnerable' boy who he met on Grindr, has been jailed for 13 years. Stephen Ireland, 42, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, raped the child at the flat he shared with his then partner and co-defendant David Sutton, 27, in Addlestone on April 19, 2024. Ireland had arranged for the 12-year-old boy, referred to in court as Child A, to meet him at his flat after messaging on dating app Grindr, the court heard. The boy, who had been reported missing at the time, told police they had sex...

As June comes to an end, so do many events associated with Pride Month, a month-long celebration of sexual diversity and gender variance — often geared towards increasing the visibility of the LGBTQIA community, as well as combatting stigma and advocating for equal rights. But the battle to eliminate stigma and achieve these rights will certainly continue, as recent debates about which bathrooms transgender men and women should use illustrate all too well. For years here at 13.7, Barbara J. King has been writing about what she calls the spectrum of gender expression, and "the fact that gender identity isn't...