National
National news in brief: April 15
Bryant uses ‘f-word,’ school says anti-gay branding attack was faked and more

Lakers’ Kobe Bryant calls referee ‘faggot’
LOS ANGELES — After receiving a technical foul during a basketball game this week, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant stormed back to the bench and appeared to call referee Bennie Adams a “fucking faggot,” ESPN reported. Bryant’s reaction was caught on camera on TNT’s national telecast of the key Western Conference battle with the San Antonio Spurs. He hit his seat before sitting down, threw a towel and then yelled, “Bennie,” toward the court. Bryant then leaned back and muttered what appeared to be an anti-gay slur. TNT announcer Steve Kerr picked up on Bryant’s outburst and said: “You might wanna take the cameras off of him right now, for the children watching from home.” “The video from Tuesday’s game is under review by the NBA,” league spokesman Tim Frank said to ESPNLosAngeles.com via e-mail. Bryant was not initially available for comment. “We haven’t seen the video, so it would be inappropriate for us to comment on it,” a Lakers spokesperson told ESPNLosAngeles.com on Wednesday.
Anti-gay UNC hate crime was faked: officials
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A gay student who claimed he was attacked and branded in a hate crime wasn’t telling the truth, officials with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Tuesday according to a report from WRAL, a regional news affiliate in the state. Chancellor Holden Thorp said freshman Quinn Matney, who told authorities he was branded with a searing hot object because of his sexual orientation, filed a false police report, according to CBS affiliate WRAL. “The alleged aggravated assault reported to campus last night (Monday) did not occur,” Thorp said in a statement. Matney, who is gay, told authorities that on April 5, a man walked up to him near a foot bridge on campus, called him a derogatory name, told him “here is a taste of hell,” and held a heated object to his skin for several seconds, leaving third- and fourth-degree burns. Randy Young, a spokesman for UNC’s public safety department, said charges of filing a false police report are likely against Matney. University officials initially called the assault a hate crime and pledged to “bring the strongest possible charges against the attacker.
Demographer: U.S. has 4 million gay adults
SAN FRANCISCO — How many gay men and lesbians are there in the United States? Gary Gates has an idea but acknowledges pinpointing a solid figure remains an elusive task, the Associated Press reported this week. Gates is demographer-in-residence at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, a think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles. For the institute’s 10th anniversary this week, he took a scholarly stab at answering the question that has been debated, avoided, parsed and proven both insoluble and political since pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey said in the 1940s that 10 percent of the men he surveyed were “predominantly homosexual.” Gates’ best estimate, derived from five studies that have asked subjects about their sexual orientation, is that the nation has about 4 million adults who identify as being gay or lesbian, representing 1.7 percent of the 18-and-over population. That’s a much lower figure than the 3 to 5 percent that has been the conventional wisdom in the past two decades, based on other isolated studies and attempts to discredit Kinsey. One reason, according to Gates, is that until recently, few surveys tried to differentiate respondents who identified as gay or lesbian from those who sometimes engaged in homosexual acts or were attracted to people of the same sex. All were lumped into the gay category, the AP reported. Gates found, for example, that another 1.8 percent of the adult population, or a little more than 4 million Americans, identifies as bisexual, according to his research brief published Thursday by the Williams Institute. He also estimated that 19 million people, or 8.2 percent of the population, have engaged in sex with a partner of the same sex. That includes all groups, such as gays, bisexuals and heterosexuals who have experimented with same-sex behavior. Another two studies, conducted by state agencies in California and Massachusetts, yielded what Gates thinks is the first credible estimate of the nation’s transgender population. He puts it at about 700,000 adults, or 0.3 percent of the population.
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court to consider bans on trans athletes in school sports
27 states have passed laws limiting participation in athletics programs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear two cases involving transgender youth challenging bans prohibiting them from participating in school sports.
In Little v. Hecox, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU, Legal Voice, and the law firm Cooley are challenging Idaho’s 2020 ban, which requires sex testing to adjudicate questions of an athlete’s eligibility.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described the process in a 2023 decision halting the policy’s enforcement pending an outcome in the litigation. The “sex dispute verification process, whereby any individual can ‘dispute’ the sex of any female student athlete in the state of Idaho,” the court wrote, would “require her to undergo intrusive medical procedures to verify her sex, including gynecological exams.”
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., Lambda Legal, the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, and Cooley are representing a trans middle school student challenging the Mountain State’s 2021 ban on trans athletes.
The plaintiff was participating in cross country when the law was passed, taking puberty blockers that would have significantly reduced the chances that she could have a physiological advantage over cisgender peers.
“Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status,” said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ and HIV Project. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” Block said.
He added, “Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Tara Borelli. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits.”
Borelli continued, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Shortly after taking control of both legislative chambers, Republican members of Congress tried — unsuccessfully — to pass a national ban like those now enforced in 27 states since 2020.
Federal Government
UPenn erases Lia Thomas’s records as part of settlement with White House
University agreed to ban trans women from women’s sports teams

In a settlement with the Trump-Vance administration announced on Tuesday, the University of Pennsylvania will ban transgender athletes from competing and erase swimming records set by transgender former student Lia Thomas.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found the university in violation of Title IX, the federal rights law barring sex based discrimination in educational institutions, by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
The statement issued by University of Pennsylvania President J. Larry Jameson highlighted how the law’s interpretation was changed substantially under President Donald Trump’s second term.
“The Department of Education OCR investigated the participation of one transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swim season,” he wrote. “At that time, Penn was in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted.”
Jameson continued, “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and the applicable policy of the NCAA regarding transgender athletes. NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with Executive Orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to adhere to these new rules.”
Writing that “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules” in place while Thomas was allowed to compete, the university president added, “We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the university for future generations of female athletes.”
Under former President Joe Biden, the department’s Office of Civil Rights sought to protect against anti-LGBTQ discrimination in education, bringing investigations and enforcement actions in cases where school officials might, for example, require trans students to use restrooms and facilities consistent with their birth sex or fail to respond to peer harassment over their gender identity.
Much of the legal reasoning behind the Biden-Harris administration’s positions extended from the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which found that sex-based discrimination includes that which is based on sexual orientation or gender identity under Title VII rules covering employment practices.
The Trump-Vance administration last week put the state of California on notice that its trans athlete policies were, or once were, in violation of Title IX, which comes amid the ongoing battle with Maine over the same issue.
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.”
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