Ellen DeGeneres receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, Photo: ABC News / YouTube
President Barack Obama reminded everyone of how far LGBT rights have come on Tuesday. while awarding Ellen DeGeneres the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“It’s easy to forget now, when we’ve come so far, now that marriage is equal under the law,” Obama said, “just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago. Just how important it was.”
The comedian and daytime host was one of 21 people recognized with the nation’s highest civilian honor, including Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Bill and Melinda Gates, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Michael Jordan, among others.
DeGeneres almost didn’t get her award after turning up to the White House without her ID. She posted a photo outside the building with the caption: “They haven’t let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking #PresidentialMedalOfFreedom.”
Thankfully, DeGeneres was able the enter the White House (we presume someone opened Google to confirm that it was her), where she promptly coaxed the other honorees into doing the mannequin challenge:
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned the voluntary manslaughter conviction of a man who killed a Black transgender woman, ruling that a lower court "erred" by preventing him from using the victim's transgender identity in his self-defense claim.
Samuel Ward Jr. fatally shot Paris Lee at her home in Cordova, Tennessee, on June 29, 2022. A Shelby County jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter in May 2025.
In testimony presented at trial, Ward's account was that he had gone to Lee's home and gotten into a verbal altercation with her, during which she asked him to leave. According to the Shelby County District Attorney's Office, he claimed Lee pointed a gun at him while they were at the top of a staircase, causing him to fall backward. He told police that he drew his own weapon and fired upward from the bottom of the stairs, striking Lee.
Joseph LoGiudice, the founder and clinical director of Manhattan's Liberation Psychotherapy, an LGBTQ-centered practice, has been indicted on charges of sexually assaulting two patients, including allegedly raping a man in his 30s in his office.
According to prosecutors, the patient -- who was attending therapy to cope with a sexual assault -- told LoGiudice he did not want to have sex because he was recovering from anal surgery.
At an October 1 bail hearing, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Claudia Khoury-Yacoub alleged that LoGiudice began sexually exploiting the patient shortly after he joined the therapy group in fall 2022.
About 100 members of Taipei's LGBTQ community protested outside a local police station on October 4 after officers raided a gay bar, taking 51 people in for questioning and arresting its owner.
The raid on Commander D, a gay bar in Taipei's Wanhua district, took place on the afternoon of October 3, reports Reuters.
Police precinct spokesman Chen Yu-cheng said officers executed a search warrant for suspected "offenses against public morality." He said the people taken in for questioning were suspected of violating a law prohibiting "wantonly exposing one's naked body or presenting a lascivious posture in a public place or publicly accessible place."
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