National
Lesbian attorney elected president of Arizona Bar
Former executive director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, managing attorney for Lambda Legal elevated to lead Arizona lawyers
Lesbian attorney Amelia Craig Cramer, chief deputy attorney for Pima County, which includes Tucson, became president of the 16,900-member State Bar of Arizona on Friday, June 22, making her the first openly gay head of the organization.
The State Bar operates under the supervision of the Arizona Supreme Court. It provides education and development programs for the legal profession as well as investigates ethics related complaints against lawyers, according to bar spokesperson Alberto Rodriguez.
Cramer was born in California and raised in Arizona after movng there with her parents as a child. She has practiced law in Washington, D.C., California, and Massachusetts before returning to Arizona in the 1990s with her wife and daughter to continue her legal career and care for her ill father in what she considers her home state.
While in California she served as managing attorney for the Western Regional Office of the gay litigation group Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Los Angeles.
During her residence in Massachusetts, Cramer served as executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), an LGBT rights litigation group in Boston.
Gay Republican activist and former Arizona State Rep. Steve May called Cramer “a leader in the LGBT community in Pima County” since the 1990s. May said she advocated, among other things, for repeal of the state’s sodomy law and lobbied for state legislation banning discrimination against LGBT Arizonans.
“She’s a very well respected attorney in the state,” May said,
Jonathan Davidson, head attorney for Lambda Legal’s Los Angeles office, said that while Cramer has special knowledge in the area of LGBT rights law, she is a highly regarded attorney in other areas of law.
“This is an important development,” he said. “Arizona remains a conservative state. It’s a sign of progress.”
Arizona Bar spokesperson Rodriguez said bar members and leaders elected Cramer to leadership positions over the past three years with the intention of putting her on a track to advance to the presidency of the organization. For the past year, Rodriguez said, she held the position of president-elect.
National
Queen Jean is Tony’s first transgender winner
Designer/activist wins for work on ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
It was a historic night at the 79th annual Tony Awards on Sunday as Queen Jean won the award for Best Costume Design of a Musical, making her the first out transgender person to win a Tony.
“This experience has been monumental. We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” she said. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm. So I just want to say, thank you all so much for this incredible honor. The world right now is deeply, deeply combating so many ailments, and we know as a society that when we come together, we can make real, permanent change.”
She won the award for her work on “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” and was also nominated for best costume design of a play for “Liberation.”
In addition to her stage work, Queen Jean is the founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization that supports trans and gender-nonconforming people in New York City.
National
Madonna turns Times Square into massive dance floor
Pop icon celebrates Pride month with surprise performance
Pop icon Madonna celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday to the delight of 50,000 fans.
She performed for about 15 minutes high above street level, including several songs from her new album “Confessions II” due on July 3, along with a trio of songs from the first “Confessions on a Dance Floor.”
In addition to the brand new “Love Sensation,” she performed “I Feel So Free” and “Bring Your Love,” plus “Hung Up,” “Get Together” and “I Love New York.” She wished the crowd a happy Pride season; the event was shared with audiences through Grindr’s first-ever livestream.


National
Gallup finds LGBTQ support among Americans is dropping
Marriage equality support lowest since 2016
Gallup, one of the leading organizations in public opinion polling, has found that LGBTQ support among Americans is dropping.
The poll, whose data was collected using Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, was conducted in May and was published on Wednesday. The data was collected through telephone interviews from a sample of more than 1,000 adults living in all 50 states and D.C. using random digit dialing.
It highlights declining attitudes surrounding LGBTQ issues in multiple areas — from support for same-sex marriage to views on gender identity and the morality of one’s sexuality.
One of the most striking findings was that support for marriage equality fell six points from its 2022-2023 high.
The survey also found that 62 percent of Americans view gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable, the lowest level since 2016 just after same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court.
One newer question on the poll found that the perceived morality of changing one’s gender has dropped eight points since 2021, indicating the American public is less supportive of transgender people.

The data attributes much of the decline to shifting Republican views alongside the party itself. Conservative leaders have pushed back against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that were intended to foster greater acceptance of LGBTQ people and other historically disadvantaged groups.
President Donald Trump has been a guiding force behind waves of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, particularly when it comes to trans rights. The president has enacted multiple executive orders, including Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which mandates that gender be defined by one’s sex assigned at birth. He also signed Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which barred qualified trans applicants from joining the military and led to the removal of trans service members already serving in the armed forces.
Additionally, he signed Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which prohibits trans female athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
In February, Gallup found that an estimated 9 percent of Americans identified as part of the LGBTQ community in some form.
The organization also found that 23 percent of adults under age 30 identify as LGBTQ, compared with 10 percent of those ages 30 to 49 and 3 percent or less among those ages 50 and older.
