A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.  Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.  “I wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as ‘Brandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,’” he told Outsports. “I didn’t want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simpl ..read more

Protests have broken out across Argentina in recent weeks after the dismissal of transgender people from their government jobs. President Javier Milei’s action is in stark contract with the progress seen in 2023, where the government’s hiring of trans people increased by 900 percent within the framework of the Trans Labor Quota Law that had been in place since 2021.  Among those affected is Sofia Diaz, a “survivor” who shared her testimony with the Washington Blade hours after she traveled from Chaco Province to Buenos Aires to protest her dismissal. Presentes, an LGBTQ news agency, repor ..read more

In a small Eastern Shore town filled with boutiques, galleries, and the occasional cry of waterfowl from the Chesapeake, Chef Harley Peet is most at home. In his Viennese-inflected, Maryland-sourced fine-dining destination Bas Rouge, Peet draws from his Northern Michigan upbringing, Culinary Institute of America education, and identity as a gay man, for inspiration. And recently, Peet was named a James Beard Finalist for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic – the first “Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic” finalist representing the Eastern Shore. Peet, after graduation from the Culinary Institute of America, took a po ..read more

Like it or not, the next president will be either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. In our system, third-party candidates are simply spoilers, they don’t win. The last time a third-party candidate won was 1856. It has been 36 years since a third-party candidate even got more than 5% of the vote. So, it’s time to face reality and choose; for your future, do you want Biden or Trump?  I was prompted to write this column because I see the media interviewing young people about who they want as their president. I have great respect for the young people of today. In many ways, they are smarter than my ..read more

There was enough commotion in the sky at the Blossom Kite Festival that bees might have been pollinating the Washington Monument. I despaired of quickly finding the Asexuals and Aromantics of the Mid-Atlantic—I couldn’t make out a single asexual flag among the kites up above. I thought to myself that if it had been the Homosexuals of the Mid-Atlantic I would’ve had my gaydar to rely on. Was there even such a thing as ace-dar? As it turned out, the asexual kite the group had meant to fly was a little too pesky to pilot. “Have you ever used a stunt kite?” Bonnie, the event organizer asked me. “I ..read more

President Joe Biden signed an appropriations bill into law on Wednesday that provides multi-billion dollar funding and military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after months of delay and Congressional infighting. A separate bill Biden signed within the aid package contained a bipartisan provision that will ban the popular social media app TikTok from the United States if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell off the American subsidiary. Reacting, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said Wednesday that the Culver City, Calif.-based company would go to court to try to remain online in the Un ..read more

Following his win in the Democratic primary contest on Wednesday, Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who is running for auditor general, is positioned to potentially become the first openly LGBTQ elected official serving the commonwealth. In a statement celebrating his victory, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President Annise Parker said, “Pennsylvanians trust Malcolm Kenyatta to be their watchdog as auditor general because that’s exactly what he’s been as a legislator.” “LGBTQ+ Victory Fund is all in for Malcolm, because we know he has the experience to win this race and carry on his fight for stu ..read more

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget includes a request for $5.25 million in funding to support the June 2025 World Pride celebration, which D.C. will host, and which is expected to bring three million or more visitors to the city. The mayor’s proposed budget, which she presented to the D.C. Council for approval earlier this month, also calls for a 7.6 percent increase in funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, which amounts to an increase of $132,000 and would bring the office’s total funding to $1.7 million. The office, among other things, provides grants to l ..read more

BY MEREDITH COHN | By the end of June, health care providers in Maryland will lose nearly three-quarters of the funding they use to find and treat thousands of people with HIV. Advocates and providers say they had been warned there would be less money by the Maryland Department of Health, but were stunned at the size of the drop — from about $17.9 million this fiscal year to $5.3 million the next. The deep cuts are less than three months away. The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website. The post Health care for Marylanders with HIV is facing huge cuts this summer ap ..read more

BY ERIN REED | On Tuesday, Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed LD 227, a sanctuary bill that protects transgender and abortion providers and patients from out-of-state prosecution, into law. With this action, Maine becomes the 16th state to explicitly protect trans and abortion care in state law from prosecution. This follows several bomb threats targeting state legislators after social media attacks from far-right anti-trans influencers such as Riley Gaines and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. An earlier version of the bill failed in committee after similar a ..read more