Less than a year since out gay former NFL player Carl Nassib announced his retirement, he’s slated to make an appearance at the NFL draft to announce a draft pick for the team that drafted him eight years ago: the Cleveland Browns. Nassib, a former linebacker and defensive end who in 2021 became the first active NFL player to come out as gay, will announce the Browns’ second round draft choice alongside Peggy Rajski, a film director and interim CEO of The Trevor Project, which is a non-profit focusing on suicide prevention among LGBTQ individuals. Nassib has been involved with The Trevor Proje ..read more

Queer couples are more likely to live near coastal areas and urban population centers, which puts them at an elevated risk of experiencing the effects of climate change, according to research conducted by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute combined US Census data with NASA and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) data to extract key takeaways about same-sex couples who live in counties where there are greater risks of environmental, infrastructure, and social problems stemming from climate change. The 15 counties with the greatest share of same-sex coupl ..read more

The explosion of color and exuberance that greets Dorothy when she lands in Oz in the dazzling revival of “The Wiz” now at the Marquis is just one treat in what is easily the happiest musical on Broadway right now. Almost 50 years after the show was a smash — and took home the Tony Award for Best Musical — the show is back in a big way. William F. Brown’s original book has been updated by Amber Ruffin, and the show is sassier and simpler than the original. There’s a pointed comic sensibility — irony bordering on edginess — that contemporary audiences will relate to, making this feel more like ..read more

Despite the gloomy rain on Thursday, April 18, there were sunny smiles abound as Housing Works accepted a $300,000 check from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and cut the ribbon on their newest community health center in East Harlem. The new site at 145 E. 125th Street will be the second in Harlem for the NYC-based nonprofit which has been providing comprehensive services to homeless and low-income New Yorkers since 1990. What started as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York City has grown into an expensive practice providing basic medical care, housing, food, psychiatric care as well as ..read more

A Black transgender man was fatally shot in southern Florida earlier this month in a case that is not currently considered by authorities to be a hate crime, though some advocates are more skeptical of the circumstances surrounding the man’s death. Tee Arnold, 36, was found wounded with a gunshot wound at the 800 Block of Silks Run, which is near The Village at Gulfstream Park shopping plaza in Hallandale Beach. A Hallandale police spokesperson told Gay City News that the case is not being investigated as a hate crime, but would not elaborate on whether there are any suspects, citing the ongoi ..read more

The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration. The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes. The administration original ..read more

Coinciding with National Transgender HIV Testing Day, a coalition of trans health organizations kicked off a bilingual PrEP awareness campaign on April 18 in an effort to spread the word about the HIV prevention medication to more transgender individuals. The campaign, dubbed “My Body. My Life. My PrEP,” features video testimonials and social media graphics featuring trans individuals discussing why they take PrEP and reassuring others who may be skeptical or have concerns about side effects. While some videos are in Spanish, others are in English, and all of them have subtitles on YouTube to ..read more

Nahshon Dion, a Black trans writer and filmmaker living in the Bronx, knows where to find her happy place — one that unexpectedly reminds her of seeing mountains, waterfalls and horses while growing up in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley, Calif. For Dion, walks around Crotona Park and Indian Lake bring her back to her youth in Pasadena and Altadena in Los Angeles County. While Dion, 46, said her early childhood was “tranquil and quiet,” her life since then has seen turmoil. For one, it took a few tries over several years for Dion to get and keep a home in New York City — but her home he ..read more

As the co-chairs of the NYC Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus, it is our duty to uplift our city’s proud legacy as home to world-changing queer movements and longstanding queer communities, and to do our part to help ensure that queer New Yorkers are able to live safe, healthy, joyous lives for generations to come. That’s why we’re fighting for what the policy world calls “social housing” — permanently affordable homes, democratically owned and controlled by the people who live there, in conjunction with the public. That might mean limited equity cooperatives, or maybe community land trusts, or maybe ..read more

Niko Kowell had long given up his dream to spend his life in the depths of the ocean. Then the pandemic happened. The 40-year-old transgender non-profit professional spent his life advocating for the transgender and queer community at San Francisco Community Health’s Trans: Thrive, a drop-in program. After spending 14 years working his way up from program assistant to associate director of health equity — where he managed millions of dollars in city and state contracts — Kowell hit a wall during COVID-19 and quit in September 2021. From there, Kowell pivoted to his other life-long passion: scu ..read more