National
National news in brief: Jan. 21
Teen’s suicide questioned, Facebook co-founder to wed and more

Mystery lingers over Minn. gay high school senior’s death
MILTONA, Minn. — A high school senior who’d lived in Minnesota and was gay appears to have committed suicide, according to KSAX, a regional ABC news affiliate there. But his father said this week he died of a heart condition.
About 10 p.m. on Jan. 15, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office responded to an emergency call at the home of the teen in Miltona, Minn. They found 18-year-old Lance Lundsten in need of emergency medical care. He was taken to Douglas County Hospital where he died, KSAX reported. The sheriff’s office confirmed to KSAX that they believed Lundsten committed suicide but they would not say the nature of the emergency.
According to friends and his Facebook page, Lundsten was openly gay. On a Facebook memorial page, friends said he’d been bullied at school for his sexual orientation. Some students who knew Lundsten believed the bullying may have led to his suicide, KSAX reported.
No other details were available as of press time. An autopsy report will take weeks.
Gay history museum opens in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — A gay history museum, believed to be the first in the U.S. and only the second in the world, has opened in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood.
The GLBT History Museum, a project of the GLBT Historical Society (an archives and research center started in 1985), was slated to open this week at 4127 18th St. near Castro Street. The space includes two galleries, a reception area and a museum shop.
With assistance from Bevan Dufty, former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for the district, the Historical Society negotiated an agreement under which the master tenant for the storefront, Walgreen Company, constructed the 1,600-square-foot space to the society’s specifications. Funding from the City of San Francisco, Castro district merchants and other sponsors and donors covered the cost of custom fixtures and display cases, lighting and multimedia installations.
There are two debut exhibitions. One in the front shows memorabilia the Society has collected in its 25 years. In the main gallery, 450 items give an overview of gay life in San Francisco over nearly 100 years featuring items from the city’s Historical Society, many of which have never been displayed before.
The GLBT History Museum joins the Schwules Museum, the queer museum founded 25 years ago in Berlin, as one of only two stand-alone, full-scale museums devoted to LGBT history. Admission is $5.
New hospital visitation regulations take effect
WASHINGTON — New federal regulations regarding patients’ hospital visitation rights were scheduled to go into effect this week. These new regulations require all hospitals participating in Medicaid and Medicare programs – virtually every hospital in the country – to permit patients to designate visitors of their choosing and prohibit discrimination in visitation based on a number of factors, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
President Obama last April directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop the regulations.
Facebook co-founder to wed his partner
NEW YORK — Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, 27, is planning to marry his long-term boyfriend, Sean Eldridge, the New York Post reported this week.
Hughes, a multi-millionaire, was a roommate of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and served as the social networking site’s spokesman. He’s now the founder and director of jumo.com.
Eldridge is political director for Freedom to Marry, a same-sex marriage advocacy group. They announced their engagement at a Freedom to Marry reception at their SoHo loft.
New York
Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade
One of the victims remains in critical condition

On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.
According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.
The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.
The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.
In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.
The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.
New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.
“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”
New York
Zohran Mamdani participates in NYC Pride parade
Mayoral candidate has detailed LGBTQ rights platform

Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York City who pulled a surprise victory in the primary contest last week, walked in the city’s Pride parade on Sunday.
The Democratic Socialist and New York State Assembly member published photos on social media with New York Attorney General Letitia James, telling followers it was “a joy to march in NYC Pride with the people’s champ” and to “see so many friends on this gorgeous day.”
“Happy Pride NYC,” he wrote, adding a rainbow emoji.
Mamdani’s platform includes a detailed plan for LGBTQ people who “across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.”
His campaign website explains: “New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.
“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”
“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court upholds ACA rule that makes PrEP, other preventative care free
Liberal justices joined three conservatives in majority opinion

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a portion of the Affordable Care Act requiring private health insurers to cover the cost of preventative care including PrEP, which significantly reduces the risk of transmitting HIV.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion in the case, Kennedy v. Braidwood Management. He was joined by two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson.
The court’s decision rejected the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s reliance on the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force to “unilaterally” determine which types of care and services must be covered by payors without cost-sharing.
An independent all-volunteer panel of nationally recognized experts in prevention and primary care, the 16 task force members are selected by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve four-year terms.
They are responsible for evaluating the efficacy of counseling, screenings for diseases like cancer and diabetes, and preventative medicines — like Truvada for PrEP, drugs to reduce heart disease and strokes, and eye ointment for newborns to prevent infections.
Parties bringing the challenge objected especially to the mandatory coverage of PrEP, with some arguing the drugs would “encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior” against their religious beliefs.
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