Understand the LGBTQIA+ news: Trump's sweeping executive orders are supposed to make us feel hopeless. We refuse.

What a shit week.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - this is a pivotal moment for the world.  It's an acutely scary one for anyone from an underrepresented background, whether they be LGBTQIA+, Black, migrant or otherwise marginalised.

But that doesn't mean the future is hopeless. Far from it.

I've been proudly pursuing a queer militant agenda ever since I could stick a rainbow badge on my t-shirt. I know, so well, that we're a freakin' bunch who doesn't take no for an answer.

We've always been here, and always will be.

People have tried and failed to erase us from history for millennia. But here we are, queer as f**k as ever.

This week we announced our plans to invest in 20 Trans+ creatives, ahead of a critical pride season in June, to release an array of new Trans+ history stories - with lessons from history that we can use now. If you found us for the first time because of this, welcome.

Trust us when we say, in a new age of misinformation from tech bros, a crisis lack of investment in news about the LGBTQIA+ community from the mainstream press, and parts of the gay media more interested in celebs than quality journalism, we are going to double down on our efforts to:

• Invest in a new generation of LGBTQIA+ journalists to help you understand the queer news
• Deliver quality investigative journalism and analytical explainers so you can hold power to account
• Show you the light in the darkness, so that even when our analysis needs to express urgency, you'll leave this newsletter feeling able to see the joy and resource our community gives and gives.

So let's get stuck into the news this week, which - though it’s tough to bear - we've packaged in a safe, accessible, boundaried way. We promise it’s going to give you at least a glimpse into how the fightback has already begun.

Jamie Wareham, Founder of QueerAF.

Understand the LGBTQIA+ headlines and keep track of the latest queer content and perspectives. The QueerAF newsletter is written by Jamie Wareham and a different queer creative each week.

💬 This week:

• Trump: Wasted no time in his first week delivering on a long-predicted oligarchical, ideological and dictatorial approach to governing. We look at the executive orders from a queer perspective. Boundaried analysis of his first week ahead.
• Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde: In a stunning defiance of Trump, the Bishop made a direct plea for young trans people and immigrants at his inauguration service, showing us all a light in an otherwise dark week. 
• Dad Business: Why is there so much surprise when a Dad turns up in the basic ways that a Mum would go unnoticed for? Logan Blackburn-Issitt unpacks the gender bias of parenting norms in the Queer Gaze. 

Skip the doomscrolling and support queer creatives instead. We are QueerAF – and so are you.

No executive order can truly erase LGBTQIA+ people. We’ve always been here.

TL;DR: In the first hours of President Trump's second term, he used sweeping executive orders to end DEI programs, attack Trans+ rights and demonise immigrants. Within his first week Trans+ people have been banned from the military, Trans+ prisoners will be forced to go to prisons that match their sex assigned at birth, and Trans+ people will no longer be able to have their gender recognised on legal documents.