Maryland
As Baltimore Pride ends, Homeland neighborhood sign vandalized with anti-gay slur
Lisa Polyak noticed graffiti on Sunday morning
By Jessica Calefati and John-John Williams IV | Near the end of Baltimore Pride, a joyous, weeklong celebration of the LGBTQ community, the sign at the entrance to the city’s Homeland neighborhood was vandalized with an anti-gay slur.
Resident Lisa Polyak said she noticed the graffiti Sunday morning as she was returning home from brunch with her partner. The two women were at the heart of a 2005 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that preceded marriage equality in Maryland in 2012.
The rest of this article can be found at the Baltimore Banner website.
Maryland
Hate crime charges dropped against most Salisbury students in off-campus attack
Suspects allegedly used Grindr to target victim
BY MIKE HELLGRIN, CHRISTIAN OLANIRAN, AND ELLIE WOLFE | Prosecutors in Wicomico County are dropping felony assault and hate crime charges against at least 12 of the 15 Salisbury University students charged in an off-campus attack in October.
Misdemeanor false imprisonment and second-degree assault charges remain for most of the defendants, and many trials are set for late January.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
Man sentenced for raping trans woman at gunpoint in Baltimore County, filming sexual assault
Jalen Green, 23, pleaded guilty to Feb. 11 attack
BY DYLAN SEGELBAUM | A man who forced his way into a home in Baltimore County, raped at gunpoint a transgender woman and filmed the sexual assault was ordered Wednesday to serve 10 years in prison.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Nancy M. Purpura described the crime that Jalen Green committed as an “absolutely brutal offense.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
At Salisbury University, an alleged hate crime shakes LGBTQ students’ sense of safety
Authorities have charged 12 men in connection with attack
BY ELLIE WOLFE | Gigi Levin said she wasn’t particularly shocked when she heard a group of her classmates had been accused of luring a gay man to an apartment and attacking him.
“This is a problem rooted in our campus culture,” said Levin, a 24-year-old Salisbury University student from Montgomery County. “The administration can help, but ultimately we are responsible for our safety as LGBTQ+ students.”
Levin was one of the first to arrive at a vigil on Monday afternoon, planned by an LGBTQ faculty group after University President Carolyn Ringer Lepre announced in an email to the campus last week that several students been arrested. The Salisbury Police Department charged 12 men, all students between 18 and 21, with first-degree assault, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and associated hate crimes.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Heritage Foundation praises effort to ban transgender healthcare for military families
Mayor, police chief highlight ‘significant’ drop in D.C. crime
Activists: Ghanaian presidential election results will not improve LGBTQ rights
House moves to block gender-affirming care for children of service members
Is Pete Hegseth’s nomination Trump’s sick joke?
Rehoboth Beach’s iconic Purple Parrot is sold
Navigating the holidays while estranged from ultra-religious, abusive parents
Mother wages fight for trans daughter in new book
Jolie delivers diva perfection as ‘Maria’
