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Grindr security flaw exposes user location data

the breach put more than three million daily users at risk

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Grindr, social media app, gay news, Washington Blade

(Logo courtesy of Grindr)

More than three million of Grindr’s daily users were temporarily put at risk because of a major security flaw in the app that was exposed by a third-party site.

C*ckblocked, a now-defunct site that allowed Grindr users to view who blocked them by entering a Grindr user name and password, was able to access user information from Grindr’s Application programming interface (API). The information included email addresses, deleted photos, personal messages and the location of users.

Trever Faden, founder of C*ckblocked, told NBC that it would be easy for anyone to access a user’s private information.

“One could, without too much difficulty or even a huge amount of technological skill, easily pinpoint a user’s exact location,” Faden told NBC. 

In a separate security issue, Faden claimed that Grindr users’ location, which must be inputed directly into the app and not via a third-party site, was not encoded and could be accessed by anyone monitoring public online traffic.

Faden emphasized that the ability to find a user’s location was “a feature, not a bug.”

NBC reports that two independent cybersecurity researchers confirmed the security flaw.

After Faden informed Grindr of the security issues, Grindr blocked the flaw that allowed third-party sites like C*ckblocked to receive data.

Grindr released a statement advising users not to use their username and password for other sites.

“Grindr moved quickly to make changes to its platform to resolve this issue. Grindr reminds all users that they should never give away their username and password to any third parties claiming to provide a benefit, as they are not authorized by Grindr and could potentially have malicious intent,” the statement reads.

However, Grindr denied that user location isn’t encoded.

“Grindr is a location-based app. Location is a critical element of our social network platform. This allows our users to feel connected to our community in a world that would seek to isolate us. That said, all information transmitted between a user’s device and our servers is encrypted and communicated in a way that does not reveal your specific location to unknown third parties,” Grindr’s Chief Technology Officer Scott Chen told the Huffington Post. 

The company also released a statement on Twitter to inform users that the problems have been addressed and to be safe using their service.

The flaw is similar to the one in the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, which allegedly exposed the personal data of 50 million users.

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Delaware

Vote to enshrine same-sex marriage in state constitution fails in Delaware

‘General Assembly turned its back on the people of this state’

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State Sen. Russ Huxtable (D-07) introduced the measure to enshrine same-sex and interracial marriage rights in the Delaware Constitution. (Washington Blade file photo by Daniel Truitt)

The Delaware General Assembly on Tuesday failed to pass Senate Bill 100 (SB-100), an amendment that would add protections for same-sex and interracial marriage to the Delaware Constitution. 

In order for the bill to pass, 28 out of 41 members needed to vote ‘yes,’ meaning all 27 Democrats and one Republican needed to vote in favor of the bill. 

Rep. Eric Morrison (D-27) told the Blade that an anonymous Republican member agreed to vote in favor prior to the vote but ultimately did not follow through on that promise.

“It’s a shame,” said Rep. Morrison, who’s gay. He explained the difficult nature of passing this amendment with only three legislative days remaining in this session. 

The bill needs to receive a two-thirds majority vote in two different sessions and the current two-year long session ends on July 1. Thus, if the bill does not pass before July 1, it will take a minimum of three years to pass the amendment. 

The bill was introduced by State Sen. Russ Huxtable (D-07) on June 5, 2025. 

Rep. Josue Ortega (D-03) was one of two Democrats to not vote in favor of the bill, voting ‘no.’ Rep. Ortega has not responded to the Blade’s request for comment. 

Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton (D-27) was the other Democrat missing from the ‘yes’ votes. She did not vote on the bill. 

Sponsor of the measure, Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall (D-14), made a technical decision to reverse her vote from a ‘yes’ to a ‘no’ last-minute in order to keep the bill alive. 

In a Facebook post, Rep. Snyder-Hall said that, “The General Assembly turned its back on the people of this state.”

“When we had the chance to add an extra layer of protection from attempts to turn back the clock and strip our constituents of the rights that Democrats fought for decades to secure, we failed,” said Snyder-Hall. 

However, Snyder-Hall said that the failure to pass this bill is not the end. “There are still three legislative days left in the 153rd General Assembly and I am hopeful that we will be able to get the votes required to pass this incredibly basic — but important — bill.” 

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New York

Judge blocks DOJ from obtaining transgender patients’ medical records

Advocacy groups sued White House

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Protesters pushed for protections for transgender children’s right to healthcare outside the D.C. Attorney General’s office in 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has granted a request from multiple transgender people for a temporary restraining order, blocking the disclosure of plaintiffs’ and class members’ medical information to the Justice Department.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla approved the Temporary Restraining Order and Provisional Class Certification, preventing any further information from being provided to the Trump-led DOJ.

The medical data was requested through subpoenas issued by the Trump-Vance administration’s DOJ to multiple hospitals in New York City — most notably NYU Langone — which halted its Transgender Youth Health Program in May following a federal push to stop providing trans minors with gender-affirming care.

In May 2026, NYU Langone Hospitals received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Fort Worth, Texas, demanding that the hospitals turn over the identities and sensitive health information of any patient who had received medical treatment for gender dysphoria while under the age of 18 at NYU Langone between January 2020 and May 2026.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit, “Coe, et al. v. Blanche, et al.,” against the Trump-Vance administration on behalf of three families with trans youth and two trans young adults who were minors when they began care, in June 2026.

The lawsuit requests a temporary restraining order blocking the DOJ from violating the patients’ constitutional privacy rights by obtaining identifying and sensitive health information as part of its investigation into unspecified health offenses. The DOJ issued subpoenas to NYU Langone and other similar healthcare institutions in New York City, including Mount Sinai, that provide or have provided gender-affirming medical care to trans minors. All plaintiffs have filed under pseudonyms to maintain their privacy and anonymity.

Multiple leaders of organizations that helped push for the restraining order provided quotes about the ongoing situation and what it means for the fight for trans children’s access to healthcare in the U.S.

“Today’s order from the court is a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City. It is no secret that this administration will use every lever in its power to attack transgender people and fulfill its misguided goal to ‘end’ gender-affirming medical care — care that is legal and protected in New York State. Using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people to effectuate such goals should send chills down the spine of every American. Our laws and our Constitution recognize that we all have a right to confidentiality about the most intimate and private information about ourselves,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at Lambda Legal. “Whether a young person receives any type of medical care is a decision for that patient, their family, and their doctor, not for political appointees to decide, interfere with, or know. The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families. It is an enormous relief for these families that the court has stopped them from doing so as this case proceeds.”

“We’re thankful the court has granted our emergency request to protect the privacy interests of transgender New Yorkers and their families,” said Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Patients and families trust their doctors with their most intimate, private information and should trust in turn that this information will be protected from impermissible and harassing demands for disclosure from the federal government or anyone else. For the past year, the Trump administration has not only decided that it knows better than these families and their doctors what their medical needs are, but has also sought to obtain troves of sensitive information about patients in New York. We will continue to fight on behalf of these families and the fundamental liberty of all transgender New Yorkers and those who come here to seek needed medical care.”

“New York’s laws recognize that transgender youth deserve fundamental privacy protections for their sensitive medical records and unobstructed access to the care they need,” said Bobby Hodgson, deputy legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “As the Trump administration tries to bully transgender youth, scare families, and intimidate healthcare providers into dropping their patients, we’re thankful the court found these tactics are likely unconstitutional and put a stop to them here in New York.”

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Federal Government

Trump holds housing bill hostage to anti-trans SAVE Act

President’s SAVE Act failed in the Senate

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People protesting the restrictive and anti-trans SAVE Act in March. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

President Donald Trump is refusing to sign a new bipartisan housing bill unless his SAVE Act is approved by the legislative branch.

The bill being prevented from being enacted into law is the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.” The legislation is an attempt by Congress to make buying a home in the U.S. Senate more affordable in response to various factors — including housing shortages and regulatory constraints — that have made homeownership increasingly difficult. The total number of homeowners has nearly stopped growing, with high interest rates and surging home prices pushing more Americans toward renting.

The housing bill was considered highly bipartisan, something that is rare in this Congress. The House voted to pass the bill 358-32 on Tuesday after the Senate approved the measure 85-5 a day earlier. The legislation was led by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate and U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and French Hill (R-Ark.) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Some of the highlights of the legislation are aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing while making homeownership more accessible. The bill would streamline environmental reviews and direct the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide guidance to communities on reforming zoning and land-use policies that can create barriers to housing development.

The legislation would also expand the definition of “manufactured housing,” making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce homes built in factories before being transported to their sites. To encourage additional development, the bill would provide grants and loans for the construction of new housing, the rehabilitation of aging properties, and the conversion of vacant buildings into residential units. It would also increase certain banks’ Public Welfare Investment cap, allowing them to direct more capital toward low-income and affordable housing projects.

In an effort to help more Americans purchase homes, the legislation would create a program to expand access to small-dollar mortgages, which are often used to finance lower-cost homes, while also seeking to improve housing opportunities for veterans. The bill would further promote homeownership by limiting the number of single-family homes that large institutional investors can own and requiring them to disclose how many such properties they control, a measure intended to prioritize American families over corporate buyers.

The bill the president wants enacted — the SAVE Act — is a restrictive and anti-transgender piece of proposed legislation.

The bill would impose a number of new limitations on voter registration across the country by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections. The bill would also limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not possess — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.

Trump pushed for the SAVE Act to include a provision that would ban gender-affirming medical care for trans minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

Trump also pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to eliminate the filibuster so the Republican-controlled Congress could pass the SAVE Act, saying Republicans will never win another election without it.

It is expected that Congress will override the president’s veto and pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, as it requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — a threshold the legislation currently exceeds.

It is not expected that the SAVE Act will pass the Senate in its current form. It passed the House, but every Democrat and four Republicans voted against it in the Senate.

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