Listen Up Girl

Today on Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman covers Delray Beach, Florida, canceling its 2027 Pride festival and St. Patrick's Day parade under the state's new anti-DEI law, SB 1134. In Turkey, Istanbul prosecutors ask a court to dissolve the LGBTQ+ rights group SPoD, with four members facing up to three years in prison and a first hearing on November 18. A new Human Rights Watch report shows ho...

Victoria Broderick spent less than $100,000 and flipped Tennessee's 4th district, a seat that went Republican by 24 points in 2024. She'll be the first out queer member of Congress from Tennessee. A new election-eve survey finds most voters thought the more than $400 million Republicans spent on anti-trans ads was strange and over the top. In Australia, someone flooded a free Gold Coast Pride Form...

Today on Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman covers a historic ruling from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which unanimously struck down Trinidad and Tobago’s colonial-era laws against same-sex conduct. It’s the first time the court has ruled on whether laws like this are constitutional, and the decision could reach other Commonwealth countries. Then: OutVote, the LGBTQ+ youth group...

Today on Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman covers the Supreme Court's order throwing out a 10th Circuit ruling that protected trans women in jail from strip searches by male officers, sending Darlene Griffith's case back for another look. In Florida, Republican Marshall Rawson wins House District 10 despite reports linking him to posts calling for LGBTQ+ people to be executed and to the 2017 C...

Today on Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman covers a post-midterm White House shake-up: Stephen Miller, founder of America First Legal, takes over as chief of staff, while Harmeet Dhillon resigns as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Maggie Ellis becomes the first woman and first out LGBTQ+ person elected to lead the Texas Supreme Court, and Navy SEAL veteran Brett Jones be...

Today on Listen Up Girl: Scott Wiener wins Nancy Pelosi's seat and becomes the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress, Cait Conley flips New York's 17th District, Janelle Sarauw becomes the U.S. Virgin Islands' first out delegate to Congress, and Amanda Gonzalez is set to become Colorado's first out secretary of state. In Germany, more than half of this year's 299 Pride mar...

Yesterday was the rainbow wave. Today, the other side of election night: anti-trans sports measures passed in Nebraska (Measure 442) and Arizona (Prop 318), and are leading in Washington (I-638) and Colorado (Prop 134), even as Democrats swept those blue states. Also today: the Supreme Court hears St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, where Catholic preschools want Colorado's public funding while turni...

It was a blue wave, and a rainbow one. In this special election edition of Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman breaks down the biggest LGBTQ+ wins of the 2026 midterms. Chris Pappas becomes the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate. JD Ford, JoAnna Mendoza, Marni von Wilpert, and Jeremy Moss help flip and win House seats, while Robert Garcia lines up to chair House Oversight. Sarah McB...

It's Election Day, and Virginia voters decide Question 2, which would remove the state's 2006 same-sex marriage ban from its constitution. Gov. Abigail Spanberger made her closing pitch at Babes of Carytown in Richmond alongside HRC President Kelley Robinson and Equality Virginia's Narissa Rahaman. Also today on Listen Up Girl: India's Special Intensive Revision strikes more than 130 million names...

Today on Listen Up Girl, the day before Election Day: Long Island congressional candidate Chris Gallant turns a tabloid leak of leather photos into his "Make Politics Sexy Again" campaign. Georgia librarian LaVonnia Moore files a federal lawsuit after being fired over a trans-inclusive picture book display. A new Uncloseted Media investigation finds Guy Hammond's Strength in Weakness ministry stil...

Republicans have spent an estimated $183 million on anti-trans TV ads this midterm season, and one ad's narrator has a child endangerment conviction of her own. ICE mocks a deported Malian man's asylum claim with a "Fake & Gay" post. A young gay man in Cameroon is attacked after a dating app setup. Swiss tennis player Mika Brunold says coming out helped his game. A new 3D model lets you walk t...

Five days before the midterms, Listen Up Girl looks at what openly LGBTQ+ lawmakers could do if Democrats take the House, from Robert Garcia potentially leading the House Oversight Committee to Mark Takano on Veterans' Affairs and Tammy Baldwin on Senate appropriations. Also today: Kansas Senate candidate and United Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton goes viral after saying politicians shouldn't bully...

Today on Listen Up Girl: a Republican attack ad in North Carolina uses AI to put Democrat Jamie Ager at a "drag queen barn dance" that never happened, and the real Asheville drag performers in it are fighting back. Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek releases an ad opposing federal funding for gender-affirming care. Two gay British veterans challenge a compensation scheme that recorded them...

A text message promising VIP access to the president, a donation that never arrived, and an investigation inside the White House. Today on Listen Up Girl: White House adviser Alina Habba accuses special envoy Ric Grenell of a pay-for-play scheme tied to the Kennedy Center. Grenell denies it. Also today: a Maryland judge refuses to dismiss teacher Alexa Sciuto's defamation suit against the founder...

Today on Listen Up Girl: two new federal reports on sexual abuse in prisons and jails sort trans victims into an "other" category while naming trans people only as perpetrators, even though the survey asked about trans identity directly. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico tells a town hall audience that "the only minority destroying America is the billionaires." Berlin police raid Casa Kuà, a t...

Today on Listen Up Girl, the Alliance Defending Freedom asks the Supreme Court to fast-track a national trans sports ban through its emergency docket. Military and veteran spouses of trans kids tell Congress that anti-trans policy is pushing experienced service members out. A trans woman sues Tennessee after the state refuses to match her license to her Illinois birth certificate. A married gay co...

Today on Listen Up Girl, the Supreme Court votes 7-2 to keep gender-affirming care in place for trans people in federal prisons. Federal Judge Ana Reyes says her family received death threats after the president called her a "crazed lunatic" over a D.C. golf course case. Russia puts gay journalist Vadim Vaganov on a wanted list. An Arizona man faces terrorism charges after allegedly threatening a...

Alabama's Republican Party chair called two transgender state House candidates "mental disorders." Ally Montgomery and Terri Osborne answered with a question about groceries, gas, and rent. Today on Listen Up Girl: how two trans Democrats are turning anti-trans attacks into an affordability argument ahead of November 3. Also today: St. Pete Pride, Florida's largest Pride celebration, launches a $2...

Elon Musk just put $158 million behind Ken Paxton's Senate campaign in Texas, and in the same week, someone texted Republican voters while posing as a trans rights group. On this Sunday episode of Listen Up Girl, Zach Randles-Friedman breaks down the money and the texts, plus NHS England's new rules for trans patients and staff, a protest at the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child gala in London, a...

Today on Listen Up Girl: two anti-trans measures on Colorado's November ballot that opponents say could reach every kid in the state, a former Texas House speaker admitting his party's anti-trans ads aren't working, Ukraine naming LGBTQ+ people in its new National Human Rights Strategy, the fight over painted-over rainbow crosswalks in Swampscott, Massachusetts, a Florida drag queen turning Miami...

Today on Listen Up Girl: A federal judge orders Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to answer questions under oath about his anti-trans statements in the lawsuit challenging the trans military ban, and warns a deposition is next if he dodges. Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bisexual senator, is reportedly backing Republican Jay Feely, who's campaigning on anti-trans sports politics in Ariz...

Vote for my podcast for the Listeners Choice Award: Everything and Anything and a bit gay: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/lgbtq   James Talarico took nine days off the campaign trail with the flu. A senior administration adviser responded by suggesting he'd had bottom surgery, and the vice president followed with a gay joke at a Texas airport. Today on Listen Up G...

Two trans members of the Ohio Democratic Party's Pride Caucus resign within 24 hours, saying party leaders blocked them from sharing a statement supporting the party's own candidate for governor. Today on Listen Up Girl: what happens when a party asks its Pride Caucus to stay quiet. Also today: Army Reserve Lt. Nic Talbott, lead plaintiff against the trans military ban, receives his separation pap...

Three weeks before the midterms, some Democrats are running ads that echo Republican attacks on trans people. Today on Listen Up Girl, Zach breaks down why HRC president Kelley Robinson says that strategy is "doing too much and getting too little," and what she says candidates should do instead. Also today: the president mocks a New York parentage bill with "hi, gestating." A Tennessee appeals cou...

Today on Listen Up Girl: Sunday was National Coming Out Day, and we look back at how it started and why it still matters. The new White House press secretary holds her first briefing as her old posts pushing Pizzagate and false claims about trans people resurface. A Republican running for California governor airs an AI-generated anti-trans ad that puts words in his opponent's mouth. The BBC blurs...