It's a sports-heavy week, between the Winter Olympics and the Superb Owl, so LGBTQ+ people in sports again are news.
Also again--or rather, still--trans individuals find themselves in the crosshairs in the U.S. and U.K. The U.S. is making things worse for LGBTQ+ people worldwide, according to a watchdog's report.
There's also some good news and think pieces, the best of them clustered towards the end of this.
But I'd like to start with a moment of remembrance for the life and character of Renee Macklin Good, needlessly killed by an ICE agent one month ago. An example of the solidarity that has grown strong between different ethnic communities in Minneapolis, yesterday
MPR News:
Indigenous civic and spiritual leaders held a public memorial for Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis on Saturday, exactly one month after a federal agent shot and killed her.
The event was titled “Wokiksuye” — a Dakota and Lakota word meaning “to remember” or “to call someone back into presence,” according to an event handout.…
"This is a generational burden that we carry, and we're seeing that burden again today,” [Gaby Strong, vice president of the South Dakota-based, indigenous-led NDN Collective] said, is adding that Good was “the example of what it means to be a good relative, to be a good neighbor, to stand up for people beside you.”
Although ICE is supposed to be targeting undocumented immigrants, particularly any with records of violent crime, the agency has detained a number of Native people, even rejecting official IDs that showed they are Native.
Renee Good's wife, Becca Good, released this statement on Friday:
"Minneapolis has shown me that even in the middle of grief and fear, people still show up for each other. For that, I want to say thank you. Thank you to this incredible community for showing up again and again — organizing food and rides, making sure our kids get to school, checking in on neighbors, and standing together in the cold. I am so proud to call Minneapolis my home.
Renee was not the first person killed, and she was not the last. You know my wife’s name and you know Alex’s name, but there are many others in this city being harmed that you don’t know — their families are hurting just like mine, even if they don’t look like mine. They are neighbors, friends, coworkers, classmates. And we must also know their names. Because this shouldn’t happen to anyone.
Renee always showed up — as a volunteer, a teacher, a mom, a friend — always helping out, making things a little better for others. Seeing the world now celebrate the parts of her that I’ve always known — the kindness, the humor, the warmth — reminds me of her spirit. Renee and I believed that if we lived every day in the world as we wanted it to be, we could build toward making that world a reality. So I am doing that every day — and every night, as I kiss my son at bedtime and tell him things are going to get better. “
Meanwhile, unfortunately, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports that in spite of claims regarding a drawdown, ICE activity in the area remains as frequent and aggressive as ever.
In semi-positive news, the state of Florida has temporarily backed off a plan to sharply cut its AIDS Drug Assistance Program providing HIV medication to lower-income individuals.
Nikki Fried, the state Democratic party chair had called the planned cutback a potential death sentence for tens of thousands. The not-so-good side is that after admitting it hadn't followed required procedures, the state plans to try again via formal rukemaking.
While there's now what almost amounts to an AIDS vaccine, in the form of a preventative injection only needed every 6 months, medical research also continues towards a true cure.
Nine people so far have been determined cured, though all had special medical circumstances that wouldn't generally apply; but there are other promising lines of inquiry.
Onward to....the Epstein files.
Commentary on Bluesky like this:
While last year
.
Gee, it's almost like making a national issue out of a few trans people just trying to live their lives in peace might be about distracting from abuse of children by a rather large club, and we're not in it, of Very Important homophobic, transphobic, woman-hating cis white men.
This turned up also:
Horrendous.
Abused children who don't get timely help can end up several ways; one is identifying with and imitating the abuser.
A report from Human Rights Watch suggests that 2025 may come to be seen as a historic tipping point and Trump is heavily responsible.
Systematic attacks on LGBTQ people are not an accidental aspect of this.
LGBTQ Nation:
[Executive Director Philippe] Bolopion says: “72% of the world’s population now living under autocracy. Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States....Where democracy is undermined, so too are human rights,” he says.…
Both at home and abroad, the Trump administration and its allies are advancing an agenda that rolls back or eliminates protections for LGBTQ+ people....
“LGBTQ rights are not just a casualty of the Trump foreign policy,” Human Rights Watch Washington Director Sarah Yager [added] during the press conference. “It is the intent of the Trump foreign policy.”
Text of the Human Rights Watch World Report 2026. Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit organization based in New York.
In response, a post by one of my go-tos on Bluesky; but she doesn't authorize embedding her posts elsewhere, but here is the text:
The nazis raided and burned the first gender clinic. The Reagan revolution closed down most of the gender clinics in the US and left coverage uninsurable for decades. We've been here before. We'll get through just as we always have. With strength and resilience in community. They can't eradicate us.
Multiple billionaires, including the world's richest man, have made it their mission to eliminate trans people from society. They've poured their entire wealth and influence into this. They have tilted entire social media networks and news organizations towards their narrative.
What's remarkable is how much money and effort they've had to put into it. Over a billion dollars in campaign spending, thousands of legislative bills, dozens of think tanks, an entire political party, and the federal government dead going after trans people. We're still here.
Even if they strip us of our rights, our healthcare, our dignity, and our ability to participate in society, we will still be here. We will cling on and survive. They are stuck with us. We will stay just out of spite for their pathetic attempts to eliminate us. We will still be here.
Seguimos aquí.
On to the Olympics!
From Them.us:
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics are shaping up to be extremely gay. Amber Glenn became the first out Olympic women’s figure skater, and sapphic athlete couples like hockey stars Anna Kjellbin and Ronja Savolainen or skeleton pros Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira are preparing to face off on the world stage, Heated Rivalry-style.
But this year’s Olympics also mark a major milestone in trans sports with 23-year-old Swedish skier Elis Lundholm set to make history as the first openly trans athlete to compete at a Winter Olympics event.
Another person on Bluesky notes:
Fox News chumming the water for outrage and clicks despite the fact this is literally what they want, trans men not on HRT competing with women.
Note: Not On Hormone Therapy
I notice, however, that the official Olympics page for Lindholm as of this evening lists him as female. It doesn't yet show a schedule for him in the competitions.
Upbeat
.
Meanwhile decisions by the Olympic committee in recent years have virtually excluded trans women and intersex people from competing in the women's divisions. But
.
So who knows how this will turn out.
Intersex and/or trans:
(parts of a conversation that can't entirely be embedded)
x
Yeah. Us inters have dysphoria because of that. My trans friends also for example are told their reduced mental health is due to being trans being a mental illness. But both intersex and trans people get it; it comes from trauma from abuse and mismatch. Bigots even presume I'm trans for being inter.
— MelodyFoxes Ⓥ🎨🏳️🌈 (@melodyfoxes.bsky.social) 2026-02-07T07:18:41.854Z
x
According to the Trevor Project, up to 75% of inter identify as trans/enby. Pretty interesting since the types of intersex that do so, also make up a large number of trans people who pursue surgery and have genital phantoms but care less for gendered clothing
www.thetrevorproject.org/research-bri...
— MelodyFoxes Ⓥ🎨🏳️🌈 (@melodyfoxes.bsky.social) 2026-02-07T07:28:36.224Z
UK:
A lesser-known friend of Steven Miller:
Care for trans youth gets setback when detransitioner wins legal case.
She had top surgery.
.
The American Medical Association has walked back some of its guidance for trans youth, but not re puberty blockers.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons went first.
x
et tu?
Signs this is political:
- Removing support for trans teens only, not cis
- The phrase, "in the absence of clear evidence", a reference to the Cass review
Just a few years ago the AMA touted decades of clear evidence based on solid science & medicine.
www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/a-se...
— Frances Larina (@franceslarina.bsky.social) 2026-02-05T19:54:56.498Z
Legislation:
This guy
…
Beano is a British humor magazine
Graham Linehan is a well-known Irish comedy writer who was criticised for something in a show that was transphobic. Since then, he has been passionate on the subject.
So of course he was called to testify before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the subjects of social media regulation, free speech, and international relations. In addition
...Linehan told the congressional hearing in Washington that US authorities should put pressure on the Irish Government to open a debate on provisions of the Gender Recognition Act introduced in Ireland in 2015..…
"The consequences are visible across Irish life: men in women’s prisons, men in women’s sport, children taught lies in their schools. Ireland is the country of my birth. Its women and girls deserve the debate they were denied.”
...He was cleared of harassing a teenage trans activist at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in September but convicted of damaging their phone.
Again a favorite Blueskyer reacts:
Graham Linehan is testifying in the Judiciary Committee on "free speech." Naturally, he argues that in order to have "free speech," society must get rid of trans people.
"I want everyone to understand that gender ideology and free speech cannot coexist."
He means trans people when he says "gender ideology." He's casting trans people existing as an inherent threat to free speech. What he really means is, he wants to bully and harass a minority group without pushback or social ostracization, which he views as impinging on his right to monologue.
The Judiciary Committee also debated H.R. 1028, the “Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.”
The Pink News:
Wyoming Republican Representative Harriet Hageman declared the term cisgender to be a “made-up word”.
"...That means nothing,” Hageman said. “Do not call me cisgender. I am a woman.”
Rep. Hageman went on the declare that the term “epitomises the Left’s ongoing effort to rewrite the English language in order to change the debate and destroy civil order”.
.
All languages continually evolve and change and adopt new words, of course.
And we know very well who's actually destroying the "civil order."
And so it goes:
x
Some of UT GOP goals:
-forbid Utahns from changing gender on their birth certificate
-bar employing transgender Utahns in some positions working with children
-require judges overseeing battles for custody of transgender children to favor parents who refuse to support the child’s gender identity.
— AltStateGov (@altstategov.altgov.info) 2026-02-05T18:53:25.972Z
Adventures in pettiness:
There's this lovely, natural public swimming hole in England, called the "Ladies' Pond," which has been in use for generations, and all of a sudden it's a huge national issue whether trans women should be excluded.
Well,
Last Thursday, anti-trans group Sex Matters, which raised more than £65,000 to try and force the pond to ban trans people, was denied permission to take the City of London to court over the matter. The same day, the City published its public consultation in which more than 32,000 people said they wanted the ponds to remain trans inclusive – 86 per cent of respondents.
If you have a moment to read the whole story about the pond, it's really heartwarming.
History:
Corrected
.
and history rescued from oblivion
Fantastic long read below:
And families
Coda
click through to view the motion
How are things with you?
