This weekend, the heat wasn’t the only thing taking over Los Angeles. NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists was hosting its convention in Hollywood. This weekend was slated to be the biggest and most attended conference NLGJA has ever seen.

The NLGJA conference is hosted annually in a different city, focusing on uplifting and supporting LGBTQ journalists who have often been overlooked in newsrooms across the U.S. This year it’s in Los Angeles at the Loews Hollywood Hotel, right off the famous Hollywood Boulevard. The conference has an extensive range of events including networking meetings, panel discussions with LGBTQ media giants and workshops, all designed to aid LGBTQ journalists.

The mission of NLGJA is to “advance fair and accurate coverage of LGBTQ+ communities and issues” and “promote diverse and inclusive workplaces.” NLGJA has worked toward this mission since 1990, when Leroy F. Aarons founded the association.

Los Angeles last hosted the conference in 2003, the year discrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity expression became state law. It was held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel that year and attendance included more than 500 journalists from around the nation.

The city has a vibrant gay scene — West Hollywood (often referred to as WeHo) has more than 40 percent of residents identifying within the LGBTQ community, holds the record for the earliest lesbian publication in the U.S. with Vice Versa in 1947, and hosted the first Pride parade in the U.S. (alongside New York and Chicago.)

This year has a long lineup of convention speakers touching on multiple themes. The lineup includes actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Zachary Quinto, who will talk about their upcoming projects; CNN national news correspondent David Culver to discuss accurate social media reporting; Los Angeles Times reporter Tracy Brown to dissect pop culture reporting; and many more.

The conference talks cover a wide variety of topics, but all center around maximizing coverage of LGBTQ communities in traditional and new age media. Other key topics include how and why outlets need to diversify newsrooms as well as how to properly cover the ongoing and nuanced fight for transgender rights in America.

Besides professional talks, the conference offers LGBTQ journalists a way to strengthen their community, much of which is achieved outside the conference halls. One way the conference does this is by hosting a “night OUT” at a local gay bar where discussions of journalist-source relations, how to navigate being the only queer person in the newsroom, and what to say to allies when they begin to encroach on unfriendly rhetoric are just some of the topics that can be heard from attendees.

In addition to talks and community building, the conference is giving out awards to LGBTQ journalists who have made significant contributions to the coverage of LGBTQ issues in the past year. Awardees include popular social media journalist Erin Reed, the Texas Newsroom’s Lauren McGaughy, “Journalist of the Year” Steven Romo and many more.

This conference is crucial for the ongoing professional development of LGBTQ journalists, providing a unique opportunity to connect with peers, share experiences and gain insights from others within their community.

For more information, visit NLGJA’s website at www.nlgja.org.

The effort by the anti-LGBTQ conservative group Protect Kids California, headed by Roseville school board member Jonathan Zachreson, to collect some 550,000 valid signatures to place a transphobic transgender youth proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot has failed.

In a press release on Tuesday, the deadline set by the California secretary of state, the group claimed it had gathered more than 400,000 signatures, falling short of the requisite threshold number for inclusion on the ballot.

Protect Kids California submitted the proposed ballot initiative — presented as the “Protect Kids of California Act of 2024,” last September. The proposed ballot initiative would have:

• Forced outing of transgender youth to their parents, ensuring that trans kids cannot have safety or privacy in schools if they are not ready to come out to family. Often these policies also include violations of privacy for the student when they discuss their gender identity with school counselors.
• Banning of transgender youth from sports that match their gender identity, stigmatizing them and often forcing them out of sports altogether. Notably, these provisions typically fail to differentiate between high-stakes elite competitions and casual middle school teams. They also generally don’t provide for pathways to participation like hormone therapy, a method that has been researched and employed to address concerns of potential “unfair advantages” in competitions. California, which allows youth to access gender affirming care, will have youth who never underwent the puberty of their assigned sex at birth who would also be banned under this provision.
• Banning gender affirming care for trans youth shown to be lifesaving. Gender affirming care is associated with a 73 percent reduction in suicidality and over 50 studies assembled by Cornell University show its benefits. California is one of several states that has recently moved to protect transgender youth and their medical care, and such a restriction would impact a large number of transgender kids in the state.

We want to thank our tens of thousands of supporters and volunteers for this truly historic effort!

Together, we collected over 400,000 signatures – an unprecedented achievement for a 100% grassroots effort. You really are amazing! 🙏

While it is unfortunate we did not have… pic.twitter.com/DdRJinW2uY

— Protect Kids CA (@ProtectKidsCA) May 28, 2024

“We are relieved that anti-LGBTQ+ extremists have failed to reach the required signature threshold to qualify their anti-transgender ballot initiatives to the November 2024 ballot. Equality California will continue to advocate for the rights of LGBTQ+ youth everywhere, and push back against any and all efforts by extremist groups who seek to discriminate against them,” said Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang. “To every LGBTQ+ youth in California: Know that you are loved and valued.”

The anti-LGBTQ group placed partial blame for the failure on California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who the group had sued over the title and summary he assigned to its ballot measure that would strip rights from trans minors.

The Bay Area Reporter noted the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on Feb. 13 in Sacramento County Superior Court on behalf of Protect Kids California that alleged Bonta’s personal beliefs led to a biased title and summary. Therefore, the center contended the ballot measure proponents should be given 180 additional days for signature gathering without discounting signatures already collected.

“Respondent [Bonta] has demonstrated that he personally, and in his official capacity, is opposed to any kind of notification by a public school to a parent or guardian that his or her child is exhibiting signs of gender dysphoria when the child asks the school to publicly treat him or her as the opposite sex with a new name or pronouns, and to allow the child to use the sex-segregated facilities of the opposite sex,” claimed the groups in their lawsuit.

But a Sacramento Superior Court judge sided with Bonta in a ruling that was first issued tentatively on April 19 and was made final on April 22. Judge Stephen Acquisto ruled that Bonta’s title and summary are accurate.

“Under current law, minor students have express statutory rights with respect to their gender identity,” Acquisto stated. “A substantial portion of the proposed measure is dedicated to eliminating or restricting these statutory rights … The proposed measure would eliminate express statutory rights and place a condition of parental consent on accommodations that are currently available without such condition.”

“The proposed measure objectively ‘restricts rights’ of transgender youth by preventing the exercise of their existing rights. ‘Restricts rights of transgender youth’ is an accurate and impartial description of the proposed measure,” Acquisto added.

The attorney general’s office has some leeway when it comes to determining ballot titles, the judge noted.

In a statement provided to the Bay Area Reporter on April 24, after news that the decision had been made permanent, Protect Kids California attorney Nicole Pearson stated, “The mental gymnastics used to justify this prejudicial title and summary are not only an egregious abuse of discretion that entitles our clients to an appeal, but a chilling interpretation of law that jeopardizes the very foundation of our constitutional republic. We are reviewing our options for an appeal of these clear errors and will announce a decision shortly.”

Additional reporting by the Bay Area Reporter.

In her remarks Saturday to the people attending the Human Rights Campaign’s 2024 Los Angeles Dinner at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel, first lady Jill Biden took direct aim at what she labeled as MAGA extremists attempting to instill fear in the LGBTQ community by legislative attacks on the marginalized community’s rights.

Biden, in reference to the federal budget package passed by Congress on Friday to avert a government shutdown, told the audience:

“Today, this community is under attack. Rights are being stripped away. Freedoms are eroding. More and more state laws are being passed targeting this community. Just last night, we had to fend off more than 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to force into the government funding bill.”

She added: “These were extreme measures aimed directly at this community — measures that would have limited healthcare, eroded protections for same-sex couples and more. And they served only one purpose: To spread hate and fear.”

Cautioning that history showed that “democracies don’t disappear overnight,” Biden warned, “They disappear slowly. Subtly. Silently. A book ban. A court decision. A ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. One group of people loses their rights. And then another, and another. Until one morning you wake up — and you no longer live in a democracy.”

The first lady also made mention of Nex Benedict, the 16-year-old transgender Oklahoma high school student whose death last month was ruled a suicide and had garnered national attention:

“Laws and attitudes can lead to devastating consequences — harm that can’t be undone, that leaves parents torn by grief. Parents and grandparents like Sue Benedict — may Nex rest in peace — and the countless others who have lost LGBTQ children to suicide, bullying and hate. Parents who have stood by their kids, loved them, learned from them, but who will never have another tomorrow with them. This is our chapter of history — and it’s up to us how it ends,” she said.

“Yes, the MAGA extremists are seeking to erase these hard-fought gains, trying to unwind all the progress we’ve made. They want us to be afraid,” she stressed.

Biden then assured the audience: “They want to take our victories away, but we won’t let them. Your president won’t let them. I won’t let them. We’re going to fight. And we will win.”

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