National
Gay men, ketamine, and trauma. A therapy or a trap?
For many, the escape doesn’t last
Uncloseted Media published this article on Jan. 24.
This story was produced with the support of MISTR, a telehealth platform offering free online access to PrEP, DoxyPEP, STI testing, Hepatitis C testing and treatment and long-term HIV care across the U.S. MISTR did not have any editorial input into the content of this story.
This story talks about addiction and substance use. If you or someone you know needs help, resources can be found here.
By SAM DONNDELINGER | In 2015, on the patio of Nowhere Bar, a queer nightclub in Louisville, Ky., music pulsed and bodies pressed as 23-year-old Lucas Pearson moved through the flashing lights and a blur of grinding limbs.
“I just randomly started talking to this guy,” he recalls. “He had this little spoon on a necklace, scooped out a hit of white powder, and handed it to me.”
Pearson sniffed it. Euphoria washed over him, time began to slow and the dancing bodies faded into a soft haze. For more than 10 minutes, Pearson felt “entirely present.” His social anxiety, depression, and any sadness he was feeling melted away.
While Pearson wouldn’t use ketamine again for the next five years, he says the feeling of ease the drug gave him was always “in the back of [his] mind.” So when he tried it for a second time in 2020 at a farm in upstate Kentucky, he liked the way it felt to disassociate from his childhood trauma.
“We got really messed up that night on it, and I was like, ‘I love this. I’ve missed this,’” Pearson told Uncloseted Media. “‘And I’m ready for some more.’”
Over the next three years, Pearson began using every day. Working remotely in the health care industry, no one checked in on him as long as he got his work done. He used ketamine at nightclubs, social events, game nights with friends and, eventually, at home alone.
“I was actively hooked on it,” he says. “I didn’t wanna do much of anything other than find that dissociating feeling. I just kept chasing it.”
While evidence suggests that most psychedelics have a lower risk of addiction than other drugs, ketamine is an exception, in part because it affects dopamine levels. In a 2007 bulletin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, one researcher noted that after ketamine was invented in 1962, it developed a “reputation for insidiously trapping those who really knew better.” As a dissociative drug, ketamine induces a sense of detachment from one’s body, producing a trance-like state marked by pain relief, amnesia, euphoria, and a distortion of reality.
Despite declines in the use of other recreational drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and nitrous oxide, ketamine use continues to rise, with one study finding that use increased by 81.8 percent from 2015 to 2019 and rose another 40 percent from 2021 to 2022. That increase is driven in part by ketamine’s growing legitimacy as a treatment for depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma, and even addiction.
As a result, ketamine clinics have proliferated across the U.S. with relatively few guardrails. At least a thousand clinics now offer off-label ketamine treatments outside of FDA-approved protections. Many commercial providers advertise same-day appointments and “almost immediate results.”
Alex Belser, a psychologist who studies psychedelic use in the queer community, says ketamine use has become pervasive among gay men. A 2025 study found that gay and lesbian adults in the U.S. are almost four times more likely to use ketamine than their heterosexual counterparts, and a 2011 study from the U.K. found that queer men were over three times more likely than queer women to use the drug.
Belser thinks ketamine use is so popular among gay men in part because of the high rates of loneliness, rejection, and trauma they experience. “Ketamine is not inherently good or bad. When used thoughtfully with integrity, with good protocols, it can be a really helpful medicine. But if left unregulated, with the amount of access and normalization we have, it can lead to addiction, harm, isolation, and bad outcomes,” he says.
Belser believes health misinformation is fueling a misunderstanding among gay men about the actual harm the drug can cause. “The medical and clinical communities have failed people by not adequately telling them that ketamine can lead to addiction and problematic outcomes,” he says. “It can serve people, but it can also damage people.”
‘Happy people don’t do ketamine’
Part of the appeal of ketamine is that dissociative feelings can relieve depressive symptoms, making it alluring to those who have trauma or mental health disorders. While properly regulated treatment works for some people, psychiatrist Owen Bowden-Jones says that he senses “the vast majority [of those addicted] are using it to self-medicate for emotional distress.”
“I always wanted to numb out my past,” says Pearson. “For the longest time, I saw ketamine as a possible way out.”
Pearson, now 33, was raised in a conservative and religious family. When he came out as gay to his mom at 16, he cried so much that he couldn’t speak and had to write it on a piece of paper and hand it to her.
“She stormed out of the house and ended up calling every member of the family and outing me. So that was really painful,” he says. “My whole childhood, I did not feel like I could be who I knew I was.”
“So when I picked up drugs, it was definitely a thought in my mind: This life that I lived as a child, I don’t want to feel it anymore,” he says. “I just want to numb it.”
One study shows that gay men are over three times as likely to develop PTSD compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Trauma can be one event or a “long string of daily hurts, such as … homophobia, bullying, and time spent in the closet,” according to Chris Tompkins, a licensed family therapist who works with gay men. Research shows that people who experience trauma are more likely to have addiction issues.
J, a 33-year-old marketing researcher based in Los Angeles, says his ketamine use began casually in his early 20s in New York’s queer nightlife scene, where the drug circulated freely. What started as an occasional escape intensified during the pandemic, when isolation, depression, and easy access turned ketamine into a daily habit.
“There’s a pretty fair connection between feelings of not being normal and my ketamine addiction,” J told Uncloseted Media. “I was bullied for being more feminine. My sexuality was a subject of speculation and that forced me to close down. So something like a dissociative drug is appealing because it either allows me to continue those blocks or to bring down the barriers.”
“There was a night when I had done K for the first time in a while, and the next couple of days, I felt so good,” he says. “I felt like my depression had lifted, and that feeling of doubt and fear I’d had throughout my life was totally gone.”
After that night, J, who asked to use a first initial to protect his identity, started using ketamine daily to chase the feeling of euphoria and relief. He got a prescription for ketamine treatment therapy, but he says it wasn’t enough.
“There were days when I would go do an infusion of ketamine and I would do more at home on my own. If I have the ability to escape feelings, to numb feelings, I will go after that.”
Many ketamine clinics in the U.S. advertise ketamine therapy as a cure-all. For example, the online clinic Better U promises that ketamine therapy will help you say goodbye to “Trauma,” “Chronic Stress,” “Depression and Anxiety,” “OCD,” “PTSD” and “Grief.”
What the clinic doesn’t note on its landing page is the possibility of addiction, which is what happened to J. While a common dose of ketamine is between 30-75 mg, J began using multiple grams a day. He spent thousands of dollars a month on ketamine and began structuring his life around the drug. “It stopped being about going out or having fun,” he says. “It just became what I did day in and day out.”
“Happy people don’t do ketamine,” Tasha, who is in recovery from a six-year-long addiction, told Uncloseted Media. She first tried the drug for fun at 17, but it became a problem after her father died when she was 26. At her peak, she was taking six to nine grams every day and up to 24 grams over the weekends.
“The wheels just fell off,” she says. “It’s an escapism drug — of course people with more trauma will do it more. You want to forget about everything so you take it and then it stops becoming fun and you don’t want to see your friends anymore. You just stay in your home behind closed doors sniffing K to get out of your head.”
The physical consequences of ketamine
Tasha didn’t know that chronic ketamine use can cause inflammation, ulceration, and damage or scarring to the bladder, liver, kidneys, and gallbladder. After using it for six years, she checked herself into the intensive care unit.
“I was just writhing in pain from K cramps, like a sharp stabbing pain under your ribs,” she says. “The trouble is, nothing works to fix them. The only thing that helps is doing more K. I had no idea it was so painful,” says Tasha, adding that she’s seen four people die from ketamine addiction in the last three years.
“There were times in my use where I would be screaming in bed in the worst agony I’ve ever felt in my life,” J says. “The only thing that made the pain better was using more drugs. It got to the point that I needed to have some amount of K in my system to function.”
“There is a massive explosion of ketamine use and addiction,” Mo Belal, a consultant urological surgeon and an expert on the severe bladder and kidney damage caused by chronic ketamine abuse, told Uncloseted Media. “The trouble is, it’s impossible to treat bladder and kidney damage when people are still using.”
Belal says that for those seeking treatment, there are no specific ketamine rehabilitation programs in the U.S. “Addiction and pain management services need to be involved in healing from ketamine abuse, because the drug’s effects often require specialized support.”
Belal says that during a one-hour rehab session, someone experiencing severe ketamine-related bladder pain might need to leave every 20 minutes, making it difficult for the patient to stay engaged.
“We need more awareness,” he says. “We need more centers for ketamine rehabilitation.”
Education and awareness
While there is some research about the effects of ketamine, Belser could not point to any studies that focus on how the drug intersects with gay men experiencing trauma. “The community of ketamine researchers and prescribers has been naive historically in understanding the habit-forming properties of ketamine,” he says. “What are the effects of ketamine use, good or bad, for gay men experiencing trauma, lifelong discrimination, and family rejection? We don’t know, because critical research hasn’t been funded.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies ketamine’s abuse potential as moderate to low, a designation that may contribute to limited public education about its risks, including dependence and long-term side effects. Many people who encounter ketamine on the dance floor think it’s a healthy alternative to alcohol because they believe it’s non-addictive and it doesn’t give you a hangover.
“I did think that it was pretty safe when I was using and I didn’t think it was going to be addictive,” Pearson says.
Pearson, who has been clean for two years, says it wasn’t until he reached out to a friend who had recovered from ketamine use that he began getting clean. “I saw how happy my friend was in recovery, how normal his life felt. … And I knew that was the life I wanted.”
Similarly, for J, he felt alone in his ketamine addiction. It wasn’t until he found a queer-centered substance rehab program in LA that he felt some hope.
“It helped patch some of the missing pieces to my experiences in treatment before,” he says. “I think that relapse is a part of every addict’s story and every recovery story. But I think my relapses indicated that I still had some unresolved trauma and deep wounds that I hadn’t been aware of yet. And I think being around queer people in recovery has been helpful for me to feel a lot more comfortable with myself.”
Today, J is in therapy, continuing to break down the walls of his childhood trauma. Pearson is in a 12-step program after doing intensive therapy in his first few months of sobriety to help “clear up a lot of traumatic things that happened” in his past.
“I finally realized how far I’d drifted from everyone in my life — my friends, my family, even myself,” Pearson says. “I was chasing this feeling of disappearance, and it almost cost me everything. If I hadn’t stopped when I did, I don’t think I’d still be here. Getting sober gave me my life back, and I don’t ever want to lose that again.”
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.
Australia lifts additional restrictions on LGBTQ blood donors
Top EU court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law
Tennessee’s Charlie Kirk Act is harmful
Victory Fund brunch draws top LGBTQ officials, 2028 hopeful Andy Beshear
Inside the lonely world of MAGA gay men
Calendar: April 17-23
Team DC’s annual gala set for this weekend
The latest Supreme Court case erasing LGBTQ identity
Judge rescinds stay-away order in Capital Pride anti-stalking case
