The Associated Press reports: A teenage suspect who allegedly made derogatory remarks about LGBTQ+ people before opening fire at a backyard punk rock show faces seven felony charges for a shooting that killed one person and injured six others in Minneapolis. The document charging Dominic James Burris and another man says the shooting was motivated by bias against the victims’ gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. “Witnesses identified the gathering as a LGBTQ+ friendly community and the victims included people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender ..read more

Denver’s NBC affiliate reports: The Colorado Supreme Court is allowing a local group to collect signatures for a ballot initiative that opponents believe would target LGBTQ+ students. The measure would require a public school representative to notify a student’s parents if they are experiencing gender incongruence. Opponents believe the measure could potentially “out” transgender students to their parents. “We believe this measure is so supportive of our kiddos that do identify as LGBT,” Lori Gimelshteyn [photo], executive director of the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, said. Gimelshteyn h ..read more

Florida Politics reports: Florida’s Governor is setting the stage with yet another showdown with the Democratic White House. This one is about new language from the Joe Biden administration reconfiguring Title IX to protect students on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, the latter of which Florida Republicans don’t believe is up for debate. “We will not comply and we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents and we are not going to let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florid ..read more

The Guardian reports: The actor and rightwing activist Laurence Fox has been ordered to pay £90,000 each in damages to two people he libeled by referring to them as “paedophiles” on social media. A high court judge made the order in London on Thursday. Fox lost his high court libel battle in January, after Mrs Justice Collins Rice ruled that he had defamed two men by calling them paedophiles after they labelled him a racist. The Reclaim party founder was sued by Simon Blake, a former Stonewall trustee, and Crystal, a drag artist, over a dispute on X, formerly known as Twitter, in October 202 ..read more

AL.com reports: The Alabama House of Representatives has passed a bill to expand a ban on teachers providing instruction or classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. HB130 by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, would expand the ban that now applies from kindergarten through fifth grade to apply through 8th grade. The ban was first passed in 2022 and was similar to a law passed in Florida that opponents called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The House approved Butler’s bill 74-25 after a long discussion Tuesday, with Republicans voting in favor of it and Dem ..read more

The Associated Press reports: A top court in the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica has struck down colonial-era laws criminalizing gay sex. It’s the latest nation to repeal such laws in the socially conservative region, joining Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda. While the laws stemmed from the British colonial period, they were strengthened in 1998, with punishment of up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Courts in Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have upheld such laws in recent years, with the rulings under appeal. Read the full ar ..read more

The Associated Press reports: Maine’s Democratic governor has signed a bill designed to protect providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from legal action brought by other states. Gov. Janet Mills signed the proposal after the Democratic-controlled Maine Legislature approved it earlier in the month. The state joins more than a dozen others that protect medical providers from out-of-state investigations about abortions. The proposal created a disagreement between Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey and attorneys general in several other states, including Tennessee. The out-of-state attor ..read more

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: Louisiana’s top education official advised school districts Monday not to change their policies to comply with new federal rules that extend civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students, setting up a potential showdown with the Biden administration. The new rules, released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education, say discrimination against students based on sexual orientation and gender identity is prohibited under Title IX. The 1972 law bans sex-based discrimination in schools and colleges that receive federal funding. Schools must respond “promptly ..read more

Reuters reports: Gay dating app Grindr is facing a mass data protection lawsuit in London from hundreds of users who allegedly had their private information, including HIV status, shared with third parties without consent, a law firm said on Monday. Austen Hays, which said the lawsuit is being filed at London’s High Court, said thousands of Grindr users in the United Kingdom may have been affected. The firm alleges users’ highly sensitive information, including HIV status and the date of their latest HIV test, were provided to third parties for commercial purposes. A spokesperson for Grindr ..read more

Roll Call reports: The Biden administration on Friday finalized new rules designed to bolster legal protections at colleges and universities for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students and victims of sexual misconduct. The new rules do not address the politically contentious issue of transgender athletes competing on women’s sports teams, however. The rules released Friday update Title IX, the 1972 law that outlawed discrimination in education based on sex, to include protections for gay and transgender students. The expansion of Title IX protections to cover LGBTQ+ students was denounced by Republican ..read more