by Elise
The annual Flame Con comics convention was held Aug. 16-17 in New York City. Flame exists to empower the LGBTQ+ geek community and this year expanded their explicit welcome to Trans people and youth. “Resist” was the theme, and resistance to the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda of the Trump presidency was evident through rebellion and art. Dallas Goodbar, a Gay male erotic artist, sold T-shirts with “Mind Your Heterosexual FUCKING Business” on them. Carlo Quispe, founder of Uranus Comics, equated Trump and Lex Luthor in his SuperManual comics. Robbie Ahmed, Trans man, writer, creator, musician and artist, cosplayed Marvel comic universe characters Kraven and Namor from Black Panther. Through his portrayals, he showed his bare chest, his way of resisting Trump’s anti-Trans agenda. There was a free LGBTQ+ literature library, an all-ages campfire and a 21+ Fireball after party. Panels included The Transgender Archives’ “Preserving Queer Lit & History Under Fascism” and “Rebellions Art Built on Hope” by the group Get Free, which explored science fiction’s engagement with fascism. Pop Culture Hero Coalition vendor distributed free copies of the young adult interactive comic Lights, Camera…Identity: Never Alone, raising awareness of the quickly rising rates of suicide among 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
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Raise Your Voice St. Lucia Inc. Facebook page
Raise Your Voice St. Lucia and other activists celebrated the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court’s ruling that the country’s colonial-era anti-gay-sex laws against “buggery” and so-called gross indecency is unconstitutional. Raise Your Voice said the ruling was a “monumental step for human rights in the Eastern Caribbean.” Britain’s Human Dignity Trust helped with the case. Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago (see News & Letters, May 2025, “Queer Notes”) remain the Caribbean countries that still ban gay sex.
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Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs will no longer cover gender-affirming care for federal workers in the U.S. as of January 2026. Those with gender dysphoria will still be covered for counseling services, which must include the pray-the-gay-away therapy that homophobes promote. Insurance companies are banned from listing providers of gender-affirming care. An exceptions process on a case-by-case basis needs to be developed for those already receiving gender-affirming care before 2026. About 14,000 federal workers will be affected by Trump’s illegal policies. Lambda Legal is already strategizing its fight against this anti-Transgender order, which violates the Supreme Court of the U.S.’s 2020 ruling in Bostock vs. Clayton County prohibiting employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, per multiple federal laws including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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United in Pride marches in a past Ottawa Pride Parade. Photo: United in Pride Facebook page
United in Pride is a grassroots organization in Ottawa, Canada, that helps 2SLGBTQ+ refugees by providing care packages and finding resources. Founders Stella Nakitende and Hudson Nampijja, a Lesbian Ugandan-Canadian couple, hope United will expand across Canada. It is a relief to them that in Canada they can be out most of the time. In Dubai, where they met, and Qatar, where they briefly lived, they were used to hiding their relationship. At least 67 countries, including Uganda, have laws oppressing Queer people, according to Human Rights Watch. United will battle stigma around 2SLGBTQ+ people through education meetings in communities and workplaces.
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The UN renewed and extended by three years the term of South African Graeme Reid as the UN’s LGBTQ+ expert scholar and author, after the U.S. withdrew from the UN’s Human Rights Council. Reid is an outspoken critic of Trump’s anti-Trans measures and his obvious admiration for authoritarian leaders. Pakistan, representing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, claimed Graeme promoted “controversial views.”