National
Blade joins Queer Media Collaborative with Google support
Word Is Out to focus on journalism, business sustainability

The Washington Blade this week announced it has joined a new group of LGBTQ media publishers in creating Word Is Out: The Queer Media Collaborative to fund new enterprise journalism projects.
The project is led by the Local Media Foundation with initial funding from the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge.
The Queer Media Collaborative (QMC) will focus on business sustainability and producing great journalism.
Word Is Out marks the sixth news industry collaboration incubated by LMA and LMF. The collaborative will build on the successful model of Word In Black, which is made up of 10 leading Black publishers in America. Word In Black also received funding from GNI.
Six publishers will participate at the outset: Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco); Dallas Voice; Q Voice News (Los Angeles); Tagg Magazine (national); Washington Blade (Washington, D.C.); and Windy City Times (Chicago).
Publishers are in the early stages of planning and setting goals. The group plans to hire a part-time project manager, and will focus on audience listening surveys to better understand the needs of the LGBTQ+ community. Funding from Google News Initiative will cover the initial research and the role of the project manager.
āWe are thrilled to support the work of LGBTQ+ publishers through the Word is Out initiative,ā said Chrissy Towle, Head of News, Americas Partnerships Solutions, Google. āQueer media needs more resources to support their long-term sustainability. This project goes a long way in making that happen. We hope other funders will also step up.ā
The collaborative will launch a national website and newsletter, supported by a membership model; sponsorships; branded content; and journalism funded by philanthropy. The publishers will look to expand the collaboration to include other LGBTQ+ publishers as funding allows, but lessons will be shared with all.
āThis project is extremely important to the sustainability of LGBTQ+ media,ā said Nancy Lane, LMA chief executive officer. āOur goal is to start with this small group of six and quickly expand. Weāll draw heavily on the learnings from Word In Black to guide our strategy.ā
āThe Blade is proud to be part of this promising new venture,ā said Blade publisher Lynne Brown. āThis project has the potential to open up new revenue streams that will fund important editorial projects that keep our community informed.ā
āWe are so excited about this unique collaboration for LGBTQ+ media,ā said Ebone Bell, owner and editor of Tagg Magazine. āThis group of media has often been left out of national partnerships, and is new to the philanthropic side of journalism funding. This provides a great opportunity to uplift and transform legacy and new LGBTQ+ media.ā
Local Media Association brings all media together to share, network, collaborate and more. More than 3,000 newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, digital-only publications, and research and development partners engage with LMA as members or constituents of programs. As a 501(c)(6) trade association, LMA is focused on the business side of local media. Its programs and labs focus on revenue growth and new business models. LMA helps local media companies develop their strategies via cutting-edge programs, conferences, webinars, research and training.
Local Media Foundation serves as the innovation and transformation affiliate of LMA. More than 2,000 local media executives have participated in progressive and innovative LMF programs. Incorporating four strategic pillars ā business transformation, journalism funded by philanthropy, industry collaboration, and sustainability for publishers of color ā LMF helps provide local media companies the strategies and resources for meaningful innovation and impactful journalism projects.
State Department
HIV/AIDS activists protest at State Department, demand full PEPFAR funding restoration
Black coffins placed in front of Harry S. Truman Building

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday gathered in front of the State Department and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
Housing Works CEO Charles King, Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matthew Rose, and others placed 206 black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department before the protest began.
King said more than an estimated 100,000 people with HIV/AIDS will die this year if PEPFAR funding is not fully restored.
“If we continue to not provide the PEPFAR funding to people living in low-income countries who are living with HIV or at risk, we are going to see millions and millions of deaths as well as millions of new infections,” added King.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.
The Trump-Vance administration in January froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the Presidentās Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and other ālife-saving humanitarian assistanceā programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Two South African organizations ā OUT LGBT Well-being and Access Chapter 2 ā that received PEPFAR funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent weeks closed down HIV-prevention programs and other services to men who have sex with men.
Rubio last month said 83 percent of USAID contracts have been cancelled. He noted the State Department will administer those that remain in place “more effectively.”
“PEPFAR represents the best of us, the dignity of our country, of our people, of our shared humanity,” said Rose.
Russell described Rubio as “ignorant and incompetent” and said “he should be fired.”
“What secretary of state in 90 days could dismantle what the brilliance of AIDS activism created side-by-side with George W. Bush? What kind of fool could do that? I’ll tell you who, the boss who sits in the Harry S. Truman Building, Marco Rubio,” said Russell.

U.S. Military/Pentagon
Pentagon urged to reverse Naval Academy book ban
Hundreds of titles discussing race, gender, and sexuality pulled from library shelves

Lambda Legal and the Legal Defense Fund issued a letter on Tuesday urging U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reverse course on a policy that led to the removal of 381 books from the Nimitz Library of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the institution screened 900 titles to identify works promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” removing those that concerned or touched upon “topics pertaining to the experiences of people of color, especially Black people, and/or LGBTQ people,” according to a press release from the civil rights organizations.
These included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsā by Maya Angelou, āStone Fruitā by Lee Lai,Ā āThe Hate U Giveā by Angie Thomas, āLies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrongā by James W. Loewen, āGender Queer: A Memoirā by Maia Kobabe, and āDemocracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soulā by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.Ā
The groups further noted that “the collection retained other books with messages and themes that privilege certain races and religions over others, including ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ by Thomas Dixon, Jr., ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.
In their letter, Lambda Legal and LDF argued the books must be returned to circulation to preserve the “constitutional rights” of cadets at the institution, warning of the “danger” that comes with “censoring materials based on viewpoints disfavored by the current administration.”
“Such censorship is especially dangerous in an educational setting, where critical inquiry, intellectual diversity, and exposure to a wide array of perspectives are necessary to educate future citizen-leaders,”Ā Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. PizerĀ andĀ LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee said in the press release.
Federal Government
White House sues Maine for refusing to comply with trans athlete ban
Lawsuit follows months-long conflict over school sports in state

The Justice Department is suing the state of Maine for refusing to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday.
DOJ’s lawsuit accuses the state of violating Title IX rules barring sex discrimination, arguing that girls and women are disadvantaged in sports and deprived of opportunities like scholarships when they must compete against natal males, an interpretation of the statute that reverses course from how the law was enforced under the Biden-Harris administration.
āWe tried to get Maine to comply” before filing the complaint, Bondi said during a news conference. She added the department is asking the court to āhave the titles return to the young women who rightfully won these sports” and may also retroactively pull federal funding to the state for refusing to comply with the ban in the past.
Earlier this year, the attorney general sent letters to Maine, California, and Minnesota warning the blue states that the department “does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law.ā
According to the Maine Principals’ Association, only two trans high school-aged girls are competing statewide this year. Conclusions from research on the athletic performance of trans athletes vis-a-vis their cisgender counterparts have been mixed.
Trump critics and LGBTQ advocates maintain that efforts to enforce the ban can facilitate invasive gender policing to settle questions about an individual athlete’s birth sex, which puts all girls and women at risk. Others believe determinations about eligibility should be made not by the federal government but by school districts, states, and athletics associations.
Bondi’s announcement marked the latest escalation of a months-long feud between Trump and Maine, which began in February when the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, declined to say she would enforce the ban.
Also on Wednesday, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the findings from her department’s Title IX investigation into Maine schools ā which, likewise, concerned their inclusion of trans student-athletes in competitive sports ā was referred to DOJ.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department pulled $1.5 million in grants for Maine’s Department of Corrections because a trans woman was placed in a women’s correctional facility in violation of a different anti-trans executive order, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture paused the disbursement of funds supporting education programs in the state over its failure to comply with Title IX rules.
A federal court last week ordered USDA to unfreeze the money in a ruling that prohibits the agency from āterminating, freezing, or otherwise interfering with the stateās access to federal funds based on alleged Title IX violations without following the process required by federal statute.āĀ
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