Welcome to the latest edition of GLAAD’s Heroes of the Resistance, where we compile heartwarming news about leaders and changemakers who are paving a pathway towards acceptance and inclusion despite a hostile climate for LGBTQ people.
The legislative session has come to an end in most states across the country and the proposal of extreme, anti-LGBTQ bills has ended alongside it. In Florida, advocates defeated every standalone anti-LGBTQ bill introduced in the 2025 session, including an anti-DEI measure, a proposal to ban discussions of LGBTQ people and topics in the workplace, and more. In Georgia, the legislative session concluded with advocates successfully defeating multiple dangerous bills. In all, approximately 93% of all anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in 2025 in the states were defeated. To learn more and track movement in your state, check the ACLU’s interactive map of the proposed legislation.
Importantly in Utah, yet scantly covered so far by media including by the New York Times, a study commissioned by lawmakers shows the multiple benefits of health care for transgender youth, in contrast to a state ban passed in 2023. The Utah research is one of the most comprehensive studies to date, concluding that access to health care leads to “positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes,” and that policies restricting such care cannot be justified by scientific findings or concerns about possible regret. Utah lawmakers are now facing pressure to rescind the baseless ban. Federal judges have already struck down such bans in Arkansas, Florida, and Montana as unconstitutional. While a narrow ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban out of Tennessee at the end of June, it had no impact on the approximately 25 states that can continue providing health care for transgender Americans and youth.
Advocates received another positive outcome for health care in the Kennedy v. Braidwood Management Inc. ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of June, in which the Court upheld a critical piece of the Affordable Care Act that mandates insurance companies cover preventive healthcare services at no out-of-pocket cost, including access to HIV medication. According the the Advocate, a group of Texas employers who had brought the case forward had falsely argued that covering PrEP encourages “homosexual behavior” and allegedly violated their religious freedom. In response to the ruling, GLAAD’s President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said: “The Supreme Court reaffirmed what so many Americans know and believe: preventive health care is a cornerstone of our health system and health decisions should be left to doctors and individuals. The fact that the Supreme Court considered derailing everyone’s access to preventive health care because of a small group of anti-LGBTQ voices reinforces how anti-LGBTQ bias is a danger to public health.”
Candidates speaking up for transgender people continue to score victories at the ballot box. In the spring race for mayor in Omaha, Nebraska, Republican incumbent Jean Stothert lost her reelection campaign after flooding the airwaves and mailboxes with fearmongering anti-trans ads, leading to an unexpected victory for Democratic challenger John Ewing. Ewing also becomes the first Black mayor of Omaha.
In the heated New York City mayoral primary late last month, underdog candidate Zohran Mamdani pledged $65 million in health care for trans people and went on to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers in the most successful grassroots campaign in the city’s history, delivering an unexpected landslide victory despite being outspent by opponents. According to Conde Nast’s them, “Of the three mayoral candidates endorsed by the NYC Stonewall Democrats, Mamdani’s platform presented by far the most comprehensive and wide-ranging plan to protect and expand access to gender-affirming medical care to trans New Yorkers.” A few days later, Mamdani carried a trans flag in the New York City Pride March.
I cannot stress enough how important and radical it is that Mamdani is holding a trans flag at the NYC Pride parade. The bar is on the floor for politicians supporting trans people.
— Liz W Faber (@lizwfab.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Everyday heroes continue making their voices heard on the federal and national levels as well. Hundreds of LGBTQ people and allies in support of the freedom to read and inclusive curriculums in schools gathered for a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day of oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor in April. The “Rally for Inclusive Education” featured a diverse array of more than a dozen speakers and performers. Despite a disappointing narrow ruling in Mahmoud on behalf of a small group of parents seeking to opt their students out of LGBTQ-inclusive books and curricula, the authors and illustrators named in the case released a joint statement as well as several individual statements reaffirming their personal commitment to continue writing stories that tell the stories of underrepresented communities, so all youth can see themselves in books.
Lawyers and legal advocates continue checking off wins chipping away at the federal administration’s executive orders targeting LGBTQ Americans and other marginalized communities. In early June, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction in Lambda Legal’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order to defund LGBTQ and HIV nonprofits, allowing nine nonprofits named in the case, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the New York City LGBTQ Community Center – two of the largest such centers in the world, serving hundreds of thousands of people – to continue providing services.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth recently handed a win to LGBTQ advocates when he ruled that federal law mandates that more than 600 transgender inmates continue receiving medically necessary health care. The judge said that prisons cannot arbitrarily deprive incarcerated transgender people of medications and accommodations that the Bureau of Prisons own staff has deemed appropriate. The ruling is a blow to Trump’s executive order seeking to deny care to transgender people; and indicates that denying this care causes substantial harm. The case was brought forward by Transgender Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Additionally, U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick recently granted a preliminary injunction indicating that, for now, the State Department cannot enforce President Trump’s attempt to deny gender marker changes on passports for transgender Americans or the X marker for nonbinary Americans. The win came after the ACLU sued the Trump administration over an executive order issued in January, arguing that it would ban transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans from obtaining necessary documentation that accurately reflects who they are and allows them to travel safely. The news means that transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans can immediately apply for and/or update their passports to accurately reflect who they are.
LGBTQ Americans and our allies continue to be visible and thrive despite absurd and obscene threats to basic freedoms. By elevating our wins and lifting up those who keep speaking out, we honor LGBTQ history and the truth of LGBTQ people’s right to authentic, safe, and free lives.
