Photo Essay: Celebrating Joy at NAYA’s Queer Prom
Underscore NewsThe Native American Youth and Family Center invited students from all over Portland to show up authentically at Queer Prom.
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A disturbing rise in discriminatory legislation has prompted the Human Rights Campaign to declare a National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans. But in communities across the country—from Portland to Kansas City to Sheboygan—there’s no shortage of pushback: Improved representation on city councils, new nonprofits devoted to marginalized communities, and protests that highlight the creativity and initiative of a new generation of activists. It’s not a panacea, but these stories plant seeds of hope for how even seemingly small actions can add up to serious change.
The Native American Youth and Family Center invited students from all over Portland to show up authentically at Queer Prom.
“If Montana bars [Scarlet van Garderen] from accessing medical care that has helped her live as the girl she knows herself to be, she struggles to imagine how she could continue to live here.”
“The LGBTQ community crosses race, class, ethnicities and wards, so it’s exciting to be part of a City Council that reflects that.”
Amid a rash of legislation attacking trans health care and the appointment of a new police chief, Kansas City trans women of color need more say in shaping policies regarding their community.
A 2023 law banning transgender girls from competing in girls sporting events breaks with the state’s 46-year tradition of defeating bills to restrict LGBTQ civil rights.
Emiliana Edwards joked and laughed with her friends as they inflated rainbow-colored balloons to help prepare for the Sun City Pride Youth Prom, knowing that her future in the community she became a part of is uncertain as a transgender teenager in Texas.
Many taxpayer-funded ‘choice’ schools in Wisconsin have anti-LGBTQ+ policies, often justified by Christian beliefs. And there’s little the state can do about it.
At least 35 of 201 members of next year’s Minnesota Senate and House are people of color. The Legislature will also see its first non-binary and transgender legislators, and the first lawmaker from Generation Z.
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