National
SPECIAL REPORT: Poverty in the LGBT community
Studies show image of ‘gay affluence’ is a myth
Kadeem Swenson told the Blade in 2010 that his parents kicked him out of the house for being gay. He spent a year living in abandoned buildings in D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Editor’s note: This week, the Blade kicks off a special yearlong focus on poverty in the LGBT community. The occasional series will examine the problem with special reports from D.C. and around the country. To share your ideas or personal story, visit us on Facebook or email [email protected].
As the 50th anniversary of the U.S. war on poverty launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 is commemorated this year, LGBT advocates are pointing to little noticed studies showing that the rate of poverty in the LGBT community is higher than that of the general population.
In a 2013 report analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other data measuring poverty in the United States, the Williams Institute, a research arm at the University of California Law School in Los Angeles that specializes in LGBT issues, concludes that rates of poverty are higher than the general population among gay men and lesbians between the ages of 18-44 and gay men and lesbians living alone.
The report shows that couples – both gay and straight – tend to have a lower rate of poverty than single people and the population as a whole. But it found that the poverty rate for lesbian couples is higher than that of gay male couples and opposite-sex couples and the poverty rate of same-sex African-American couples is higher than it is for opposite-sex African-American couples.
Among the report’s findings that surprised LGBT activists were data showing that bisexual men and women had poverty rates of 25.9 percent and 29.4 percent respectively – higher than gay men (20.5 percent) and lesbians (22.7 percent). The report says the same set of data show that heterosexual men had a poverty rate of 15.3 percent compared to a rate of 21.1 percent for heterosexual women.
“The LGB poverty data help to debunk the persistent stereotype of the affluent gay man or lesbian,” the Williams Institute report says.
“Instead, the poverty data are consistent with the view that LGB people continue to face economic challenges that affect their income and life chances, such as susceptibility to employment discrimination, higher rates of being uninsured, and a lack of access to various tax and other financial benefits via exclusion from the right to marry,” the report says.
The report uses the U.S. Census Bureau definition of poverty for 2012 in its analysis of LGBT poverty levels based on family income. That definition lists the “poverty line” for a single person household as an annual income of $11,815 or less. The poverty line for a two-person household was $15,079, and for a four-person household was $23,684 in 2012.
Researchers with the Williams Institute say this graph summarizes their findings of higher poverty rates among samples of mostly LGB and some LGBT people in the U.S. The bar graph on the left represents data taken from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey (ACS). The chart in the center is taken from data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2010 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). The chart at right is from a 2012 phone survey conducted by the Gallup Poll organization. (Graph courtesy of the Williams Institute)
Trans poverty ‘extraordinarily high’
A separate study prepared jointly by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in 2011, called “Injustice at Every Turn,” shows dramatically higher rates of poverty and homelessness among transgender Americans in each state, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
Kylar Broadus, senior policy counsel and director of the Trans Civil Rights Project for The Task Force, called the poverty rate in the transgender community “extraordinarily high.” He said a key factor leading to economic hardship among transgender people is the persistent problem of employment discrimination.
“There’s double the national rate of unemployment,” he said in discussing the trans community of which he said he’s a member. “And once we’re employed 90 percent of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment and discrimination on the job,” he noted in pointing to the NCTE-Task Force study.
“Forty-seven percent said they experienced adverse outcomes such as being fired, not hired or denied promotions because of being transgender or gender non-conforming,” Broadus said.
He said the respondents reported various forms of housing discrimination that are contributing factors to homelessness in the transgender community. According to the study, 19 percent of respondents reported having been refused a home or an apartment to rent and 11 percent reported being evicted because of their gender identity or expression.
“Nineteen percent experienced homelessness at some point in their lives because they were transgender or didn’t conform as well, and then 55 percent were denied access to shelters,” he said.
Another study released by the Williams Institute last week reports that 2.4 million LGBT adults, or 29 percent, “experienced a time in the last year when they did not have enough money to feed themselves or their family.”
The study, written by Williams Institute demographer Gary Gates, found that LGBT people are more likely to rely on the federal food stamp program for assistance than their heterosexual counterparts.
“One in four bisexuals (25 percent) receive food stamps,” the report says, “34 percent of LGBT women were food insecure in the last year; and LGBT African Americans, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians experienced food insecurity in the last year at rates of 37 percent, 55 percent, and 78 percent respectively,” the report says.
LGBT homeless rate high in San Fran
Yet another report released last June found that 29 percent of the homeless population in San Francisco identified as LGBT. The report, which was part of the city’s biennial homeless count, included for the first time a count of the number of homeless people who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Brian Bassinger, director of the San Francisco-based AIDS Housing Alliance, which provides services to the HIV and LGBT communities, said although the finding to some degree reflects the high LGBT population in San Francisco, which is 15 percent, he believes LGBT people make up a sizable percent of the homeless population in other cities throughout the country.
Bassinger said he also believes the 29 percent figure for San Francisco is most likely an under count and that the actual number is higher.
“LGBT people in the shelter system here are regularly targeted for violence, harassment and hate crimes, which are very well documented,” he said.
Since much of the effort to count homeless people in the city takes place at shelters, large numbers of LGBT homeless people are not counted because they generally avoid the shelters out of fear of harassment and violence, Bassinger said.
He said his group also closely monitors a development in San Francisco threatening to push the city’s older LGBT population into poverty and which may be occurring in other cities – the enormous rise in the cost of housing due to gentrification and a booming real estate market. Those who for years have lived in popular gay neighborhoods as tenants are being displaced by the conversion of rental apartment buildings and houses into upscale condominiums, Bassinger said.
“Long-term San Franciscans who have spent decades building the system to deliver access to equal treatment under the law here in San Francisco are getting displaced by all of these people moving into our community,” he said.
And because they can no longer afford to live in San Francisco many are being forced to move to other parts of the state or other states that are less LGBT friendly and don’t have the support community they came to enjoy for so many years, according to Bassinger.
The Williams Institute’s 2013 report, meanwhile, analyzes data from four surveys of the U.S. population with a demographic breakdown that included mostly gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals as well as a smaller, combined “LGBT” sample.
The four surveys were conducted by these organizations or government agencies:
• The 2010 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau with a sample of more than 500,000 and which included data from same-sex couple households.
• The National Survey of Family Growth conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics from 2006-2010 included a sample of more than 19,000 people throughout the country, including people who identified as LGB, the Williams Institute study says.
• The California Health Interview Survey conducted by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research in collaboration with California Department of Public Health surveyed more than 50,000 Californians, including LGB adults from 2007 to 2009.
• A Gallup Daily Tracking Poll conducted between June 1 and Sept. 30, 2012 with a sample of more than 120,000 adults from 18 and older, included people who identified themselves as LGBT in all 50 states and D.C. The poll was conducted by phone.
The report includes these additional findings on the subject of poverty in the LGBT community:
• African-American same-sex couples have poverty rates more than twice the rate of different-sex married African Americans.
• One-third of lesbian couples and 20.1 percent of gay male couples who don’t have a high school diploma are in poverty, compared to 18.8 percent of heterosexual couples.
• Lesbian couples living in rural areas are more likely to be poor (14.1 percent) compared to 4.5 percent of lesbian couples in large cities; 10.2 percent of gay male couples who live in small metropolitan areas are poor compared with just 3.3 percent of gay male couples who live in large metropolitan areas.
• Nearly one in four children living with a male same-sex couple and 19.2 percent of children living with a female same-sex couple is in poverty. This compares with 12.1 percent of children living with married heterosexual couples who are in poverty.
• African-American children in gay male households have the highest poverty rate (52.3 percent) of any children in any household type.
• 14 percent of lesbian couples and 7.7 percent of gay male couples received food stamps, compared to 6.5 percent of straight married couples. In addition, 2.2 percent of same-sex female couples received government cash assistance compared to 0.8 percent of women in different-sex couples. And 1.2 percent of men in same-sex couples received cash assistance compared to 0.6 percent of men in different-sex couple relationships who received cash assistance.
The report’s co-author Lee Badgett, a Williams Institute senior fellow and professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said it’s difficult to draw a conclusion from the Williams Institute and other studies as to why there are higher poverty levels in the LGBT community.
“The people that I know who worked with LGBT people in poverty talk about the reasons being very complex,” she said.
“I suspect that there are lots of disadvantages that people face, whether it’s in the labor market or in schools and that maybe somehow they kind of come together, that they are sort of cumulative over time and make people more vulnerable to poverty. But I think we don’t really know exactly why that happens,” Badgett told the Blade.
In the Williams Institute report, she and co-authors Laura Durso and Alyssa Schneebaum call for further studies to explore the factors that contribute both to “poverty and economic resilience” within the LGBT community.
“Our analyses highlight different demographic subpopulations that may be particularly at-risk; however, we are unable to take a more fine-grained approach to identifying factors that contribute to poverty in these different communities,” the report says.
“Identifying the conditions under which individuals and families descend into and escape from poverty will aid service organizations and government agencies in designing interventions to address this significant social problem,” the report concludes.
Broadus of the Task Force said discrimination and bias make up at least some of the conditions that force LGBT people into poverty.
“We are less economically secure as a community due to suffering at the hands of discrimination in employment, marriage, insurance and less familial and societal support,” he said. “The LGBT community as a whole lives at the margins and some at the margins of the margins such as women, people of color and children. When some of our community is vulnerable we are all vulnerable.”
National
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
Pushback against community members who support Trump is not unusual
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 18.
This story was written in partnership with Gay Times Magazine.
By EMMA PAIDRA | When Evan decided it was time to tell his boyfriend that he voted for Trump, he couldn’t get the words out. “I was stuttering for 20 minutes straight on the phone,” he told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Once he finally worked up the courage, he was met with pushback: “He made fun of me. … He called me a racist and a white supremacist,” says Evan, a 21-year-old math major who lives in Long Island, N.Y.
That pushback isn’t unusual: According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 83 percent of queer men typically vote Democrat. One key reason gay men swing left in 2026 is because of the Trump administration and MAGA-aligned politicians’ track record on LGBTQ issues. Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research, removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument and shut down the LGBTQ-specific option on the 988 youth suicide hotline.
Because of this, many of the fewer than one in five LGBTQ men who cast their ballot for Trump in 2024 face judgment for their political affiliation.
“People think that I hate myself for being gay, and that I’m a gay traitor. … I wish there were more gay conservatives or moderates,” says Evan, who requested to use a pseudonym due to fears over retaliation for his political views.
Navigating dating and relationships as a gay Trumper
Nick Duncan, 43, can relate to Evan’s fears about being an open Trump supporter: “I mostly get hatred. I’ve never lost a conservative friend because I’m gay, but I’ve lost all of my gay friends because I’m conservative,” says Duncan, a hospitality executive who lives in Miami. “I’ve divorced myself from what I refer to as the Alphabet Mafia.”
Duncan says he feels so unwelcome by the LGBTQ community that he’s hesitant to attend certain queer events. “Nowadays, I would never go to a Pride event,” Duncan told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “I don’t feel that I would be safe.”
Despite these concerns, Duncan doesn’t hide his political views when looking for love. “I’m in a long-term relationship now, and when I have been on the dating market, I’m very open and upfront about [my political views]. So I think it just weeds out most people who would have an issue.”
For Evan, political differences have been a source of tension in his relationship even before he told his boyfriend who he voted for. “When I first met him, he asked me if I liked Trump. … He was kind of scaring me. So I said, ‘I don’t know,’” Evan recalls. “He said, ‘Good answer, because if you said yes, I couldn’t even talk to you.’”
Since revealing his conservative identity, Evan has had multiple arguments with his boyfriend about politics. “This guy, who I’ve been dating for almost a year, he’s way too far left. … The first proof is he thinks there’s more than two genders,” says Evan. “I tried telling him there were only two genders, and he got mad at me.”
Though Evan believes there are only two genders, research suggests that gender is a spectrum allowing for multiple gender identities.
Proud gay Trump supporters
According to a 2025 report from Pew Research Center, 71 percent of LGBTQ adults view the Republican Party as unfriendly towards LGBTQ Americans. Duncan thinks these critiques are unreasonable: “The Republican Party is not nearly as anti-gay as [leftists] believe,” he says. “The Trump administration has plenty of openly gay people in the administration, and Trump actually supported gay marriage before it was cool.”
Gay members of the Trump administration include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as Tony Fabrizio, a pollster and strategist. Additionally, Trump did tell the Advocate in a 2000 interview that though “the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman,” he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
But since then, Trump has appointed Supreme Court Justices who have denounced marriage equality and Cabinet members with anti-LGBTQ track records, including Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Pam Bondi.
Duncan says part of the reason he isn’t worried about Trump’s anti-LGBTQ track record is because he doesn’t view being gay as the most important part of his identity: “The most important part of who I am is as a father.”
Duncan is not alone: A 2020 report from the UCLA Williams Institute School of Law found that Republican lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely to feel connected to other parts of their identities than their sexual orientations.
Evan doesn’t identify with the community at large and does not like to be referred to as “LGBTQ” or “queer.”
“I realized I’m normal. I’m not LGBTQ,” he says. “I’m just gay.”
Evan’s desire to be seen as “normal” rings of Vice President JD Vance’s 2024 comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he said Trump could win the “normal gay” vote. During this same interview, Vance suggested that parents of genderqueer children use their children’s identities as a rejection of having white privilege. Vance received significant backlash for these comments, with the Human Rights Campaign responding to the vice president’s remarks over X.
Some gay Republicans see the GOP as more friendly
For Chris Doane, 56, voting Republican is the only choice that makes sense, as he believes voting for a Democrat goes directly against his interests as a queer man. “Conservatives don’t want to murder gays. They want them saved,” he says. “Muslims vote Democrat, because if the Democrats win, they get to stay [in the U.S.], they get to take power, and they will murder gays brutally with a smile on their face,” says Doane.
Doane’s comments are unfounded and display racist stereotypes peddled by far-right American media: One study from the Brennan Center for Justice compiled data from 1984 to 2020 and found that racial resentment is more prevalent on the right than on the left.
Doane was raised in a conservative family in Bryan, Texas, and isn’t out to his family because he fears that they won’t accept him. For him, voting Republican is part of his heritage. “I was told, ‘Don’t ever let Democrats in control. They’ll ruin our country,’” he says. “That’s pretty much what they did, and that’s why President Trump is working overtime to straighten it all back out.”
Trans rights and gay Republican men
Though Doane and other gay Republicans hold a range of views, a common thread is a hesitancy around trans rights. So, they align more with the Trump administration, which has railed against the trans community with Trump’s policies and rhetoric.
For example, Doane sees being able to transition as a matter of personal freedom but thinks gender-affirming care for trans kids is a step too far.
“When it comes to transgender, I have nothing against that. I just believe that when you make that transition, it should be at a point where your brain is fully developed … and you’re actually going to enjoy that transition,” he says.
He also holds the view that for a trans person to be accepted as their correct gender, they must fully physically transition. “If you’re gonna transgender, transgender all the way. If you’ve still got male parts on you, you don’t belong in the women’s dress room.” However, research suggests otherwise, with a 2025 study indicating that policing bathroom access can lead to mental distress in trans youth.
Duncan has his own doubts.
“I disagree with the integration of gender ideology and radical wokeism into the LGBT community. You are free to live under any delusion you so desire. You’re not free to require me to live under your delusion as well,” he says. “But if somebody wants to live as a man or a woman, however it is, I firmly believe they have the right to do that. I would never get in the way of it.”
Duncan also believes that education about LGBTQ people should be limited in schools. He sees adolescence as a fundamentally confusing time, and believes an education about LGBTQ communities would “add on layers of confusion.” This belief seems to be in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which has banned education on gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida’s classrooms from pre-kindergarten until the end of eighth grade, though there are exceptions for health lessons.
“It’s okay to tell kids that some boys like boys, some girls like girls, some people like both. But it just needs to be kept vague and general,” Duncan says. “However you are is okay. We don’t need to expose children to gay media because if you’re gay, you’re going to know.”
Duncan does not believe heteronormative bias in mainstream media is a problem, though a study published in Equity & Excellence in Education found heteronormative biases in schools may harm queer students. “The vast majority of people are heterosexual, and a functioning society is built on a heteronormative bias,” he says. “It is important to understand that we are the extreme minority and society is not responsible for conforming to us.”
They approve of Trump and don’t see him as a threat
While LGBTQ Americans see the Republican party as unfriendly towards queer people, Duncan and Doane aren’t worried about being stripped of their rights. Duncan says the 2015 passage of gay marriage solidified his equal rights. “We have marriage as gay men. I have every right that a straight man does,” he says.
Doane also feels that his rights are secure under Trump 2.0 and approves of the president so far. “I voted for that great, big, beautiful wall because we were being overrun by illegals,” he says. Doane also approves of U.S. interventions in Iran and Venezuela, though he criticizes Trump for “leaving [Venezuela] way too soon.”
Similarly, Duncan is generally approving of Trump’s handling of immigration. “I don’t love what we’re doing as far as deportations, but we had to get some control over the illegal population,” says Duncan. “I wish there was another way, but I can’t think of it.”
Duncan and Doane are certainly in the minority as queer men who approve of Trump, but as far as they’re concerned, Trump is delivering on his promises. “Overall, I’m happy,” says Duncan. “I’m getting pretty much exactly what I voted for.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated that Trump told the Advocate in 2000 that legalizing gay marriage was “only fair.” That was incorrect. He told the publication that he thinks amending the Civil Rights Act to grant the same protection to gay people that we give to other Americans is “only fair.”
National
LGBTQ Catholic groups slam Trump over pope criticism
‘Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate’
LGBTQ Catholic groups have sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.
Leo on April 13 told reporters while traveling to Algeria that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” after the president described him as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” in response to his opposition to the Iran war. (Trump on the same day posted to Truth Social an image that appeared to show him as Jesus Christ. He removed it on April 13 amid backlash from religious leaders.)
Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, during a Fox News Channel interview on the same day said “in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on with the Catholic church, and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” Vance on April 14 once again discussed Leo during an appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga., saying he should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Miguel Díaz; and Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are among those who have criticized Trump over his comments. The president, for his part, has said he will not apologize to Leo.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” said Leo on Thursday at a cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon.
Francis DeBernardo is the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization. He told the Washington Blade on Thursday that Trump’s comments about Leo “are one more example of the ridiculous hubris of this leader (Trump) whose entire record shows that he is nothing more than a middle-school bully.”
“LGBTQ+ adults were often bullied as children, and they have learned the lesson that bullies act when they feel frightened or threatened,” said DeBernardo. “But secular power does not threaten the Vicar of Christ, and Pope Leo’s response illustrates this truth perfectly.”
DeBernardo added Trump “is obviously frightened that Pope Leo, an American, has more power and influence than the president on the world stage.”
“Like most Trumpian bullying, this strategy will backfire,” DeBernardo told the Blade. “Moral truth and compassion always overcome ignorant hate. Trump’s actions are not an example of his power, but of his impotence.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an LGBTQ Catholic organization, echoed DeBernardo.
“He [Trump] has demonstrated throughout both presidencies that he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of any faith system that is founded on the dignity of human beings, the importance of common good,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade on Thursday during a telephone interview. “It’s just appalling.”
Duddy-Burke praised Leo and the American cardinals who have publicly criticized Trump.
“The pope’s popularity — given how much more respect Pope Leo has than the man sitting in the White House — is a blow to his ego,” Duddy-Burke told the Blade. “That seems to be a sore sport for him.”
“It’s such an imperialistic world view,” she added.
Leo ‘is the real peacemaker’
The College of Cardinals last May elected Leo to succeed Pope Francis after his death.
Leo, who was born in Chicago, is the first American pope. He was the bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015-2023.
Francis made him a cardinal in 2023.
Juan Carlos Cruz — a gay Chilean man and clergy sex abuse survivor who Francis appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — has traveled to Ukraine several times with Dominican Sister Lucía Caram since Russia launched its war against the country in 2022. Cruz on Thursday responded to Trump’s criticism of Leo in a text message he sent to the Blade from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“I am in Ukraine under many attacks,” said Cruz. “Trump is an asshole and has zero right to criticize the Pope who is the real peacemaker.”
Tennessee
Charlie Kirk Act advances in Tenn.
Bill would limit protests, protects speakers opposing ‘transgender’ identities
The Tennessee legislature has passed Senate Bill 1741 / House Bill 1476, dubbed the “Charlie Kirk Act,” which, if signed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee, would reshape how public colleges and universities regulate speech on campus.
The measure targets all public higher education institutions and requires them to adopt a “free expression” policy modeled on the University of Chicago’s framework. That framework emphasizes that universities should not shield students from controversial or offensive ideas and requires state schools to formally embrace institutional neutrality — meaning they do not publicly take a stance on political or social issues.
Under the legislation, publicly funded schools cannot disinvite or cancel invited speakers based on their viewpoints or in response to protests from students or faculty. Student organizations, however — like Turning Point USA, an American nonprofit that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses, founded by Charlie Kirk, and often lack widely represented liberal counterparts — would retain broad authority to bring speakers to campus regardless of controversy.
The law includes broad protections for individuals and organizations expressing religious or ideological beliefs, including opposition to abortion, homosexuality, or transgender identity, regardless of whether those views are rooted in religious or secular beliefs. It further prohibits public institutions from retaliating against faculty for protected speech or scholarly work.
The bill, which has been hailed by supporters as an effort to “preserve campus free speech,” ironically also limits protest activity. Shouting down speakers, blocking sightlines, staging disruptive walkouts, or physically preventing entry to events are now considered “substantial interference” under the legislation, making those who engage in such actions subject to discipline.
Some of those disciplinary consequences include probation, suspension, and even expulsion for students, while faculty who protest in ways deemed to violate the policy could face unpaid suspensions and termination after repeated violations.
Supporters of the bill argue it strengthens free expression on campus. State Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), the bill’s sponsor, said it reinforces a commitment to “civil and robust” debate at public universities.
“The Charlie Kirk Act creates critical safeguards for students and faculty and renews the idea that our higher education institutions should be centers of intellectual debate,” Bulso told Fox 17. “This legislation honors the legacy of Charlie Kirk by promoting thoughtful engagement and defending religious freedom.”
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have raised concerns that the legislation effectively elevates certain ideological viewpoints — particularly those tied to religious objections to LGBTQ identities — while exposing students and faculty to punishment for protest or dissent.
“It’s ironic that this body is talking about free speech when we had professors in Tennessee schools expelled and suspended when they did not mourn the death of Charlie Kirk — when they said that his statements were problematic and that the way he died did not redeem the way he lived,” state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) told WKRN.
Kirk, the right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, for whom the bill is named, was assassinated in September 2025 at a public event at Utah Valley University. His legacy and rhetoric remain deeply polarizing, particularly among LGBTQ advocates, who have cited his history of anti-LGBTQ statements in opposing his campus appearances.
The bill now heads to Lee’s desk for his signature.
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‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
Science said stop; the Supreme Court said no
Response to a personal attack against me
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Charlie Kirk Act advances in Tenn.
