Can Texas Fight HIV In The Trump Era?
“I think that for many years we got comfortable, if I'm honest, because we just knew all the funding was going to come.”
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📊 Democrats Lead Nearly Every Statewide Race in Texas
Plus: Paxton's leaked excuses, a MAGA makeover, and over half a million lost voter registrations.
👺 Banned books and the monster inside
Texas leads the nation in book bans. What makes queer identity so frightening to the far right?
281 or 287
Going back to the place I spent my life trying to leave.
Información para votar 2026
La votación temprana está abierta hasta el Vie. 30 de oct. Día de las Elecciones, de 7 a. m. a 7 p. m. Mar. 3 de nov. Todo lo que necesitas para votar en Texas, en una sola página. Esta guía se imprime en unas dos hojas de papel: imprímela
2026 Voter Information
Early voting is open now through Fri., Oct. 30 Election Day, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tue., Nov. 3 Everything you need to vote in Texas, on one page. This guide prints on two sheets of paper, so print it and take it with you. You can'
Thanks To CDC Cutbacks, 13 Texas Nonprofits Lose Millions In HIV Outreach Funding
Gulf Coast is hardest hit: The CEO of a Houston-area nonprofit estimated that six organizations in the area are losing a total of about $2 million in funds.
🌵 Somebody Finally Wandered Into the Restaurant
Gina Hinojosa is within striking distance of Greg Abbott. Plus: Bo French, and a No. 1 Longhorns team.
🚍 Under the bus, again
💥 Greetings, my queer stars, Welcome back to Big & Bright 🌈 ⭐ 👏, your biweekly newsletter about life in queer Texas … where the ground is always shifting under our feet and this time we can't blame fracking. 💚 Want this as a newsletter as soon as it's published? Sign up
🎨 The Passive-Aggressive Power of Oil Paint
Howdy gang, it’s Brian Gaar with The Barbed Wire. And welcome back to Texas, where the courts have become a judicial choose-your-own-adventure, Greg Abbott is having second thoughts about the surveillance-camera empire his state helped build, Tarrant County is cutting polling places, and Texas is
Trans Teen From Rural Texas Forces High School to Change Transphobic Dress Code
With help from the ACLU of Texas, Groesbeck ISD agreed to drop a dress code that targeted transgender students.
Greg Abbott Is Obsessed with Feet
Our government here in Texas had a busy week finding new things to be mad about
‘Future Legends.’ Despite So-Called ‘Drag Ban,’ Texas’ Queer Showcases Are Launching Pads for Performers.
In Austin, a city with an abundance of drag shows, one monthly showcase offers a unique platform — and launch pad — for emerging talent. “You get to see future legends get their start, and other people just flourish and find their niche.” That’s how “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams,” or BTBD,
Who Gets to Lead the Church? Women and LGBTQ+ Pastors Are Forcing an Answer.
For many Christian women, a woman’s role in the church’s ecosystem has long been fixed. But Beth Allison Barr, a historian and the wife of a pastor, felt compelled to challenge the prevailing narrative surrounding women in North American Christianity using history. This culminated in “The Making of
What It’s Like to Be a Nonbinary Educator in Texas Right Now
Indigo Giles remembers the lonely feeling when they first came out as nonbinary in eighth grade: Neither teachers nor students made much effort to acknowledge their new identity. “I do think that would have made a big difference in my struggle with my mental health and with feeling secure in
Getting on PrEP Shouldn’t Have Been a Quest. Now, It Doesn’t Have to Be.
A decade ago, getting on PrEP in Austin meant a consultation, a round of labs, and a follow-up. Kind Clinic's new Same Day program is trying to collapse all of that into a Friday afternoon walk-in.
At Least 15 LGBTQ+ Businesses Have Quietly Disappeared in Texas
EXCLUSIVE San Antonio’s Turner Hall was constructed more than a century ago as a gathering space to improve its community. Now home to a gay bar called the Bonham Exchange, the storied building survived the Civil War, both World Wars, the 1921 flood, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Today,
Musician Carter St. Hogan Honed His Trans Identity in Texas Honky-Tonks Before Fighting ICE in Minneapolis
Artist Carter St. Hogan starts all of his performances with an unexpected bit: asking the audience to choose between two mustaches. “I’m a trans person who still cannot grow a mustache. It’s not in me. I don’t have the genetics,” Hogan explained during an unofficial SXSW showcase
‘Very Real Barriers.’ Trans Voters in Texas Are Worried About Casting Their Ballots.
In theory, being transgender shouldn’t matter when it comes to voting. But when it comes to transgender rights in Texas, things often don’t go the way they should. “The way that it's supposed to work is that no one is supposed to be denied the opportunity
‘Something’s Different’: LGBTQ+ Texans Are Organizing in Defense of Immigrants
It’s hard to ignore Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when they come crashing into your neighborhood. It’s become the topic of conversation in Austin’s North Loop, Reilly, a 42-year-old transgender resident, told The Barbed Wire one February evening from a graffiti-covered picnic table in
‘Communities Ripped Apart’: On Texas College Campuses, LGBTQ+ Services Have Been Completely Decimated
EXCLUSIVE Dante Stetson recalled getting his first chest binder at the Pride Closet at the University of North Texas in Denton in 2023. He was 18, and it was his freshman year on campus. “My family isn't supportive of people with transgender identities, and I've never
‘Barbecue Saved My Life’: Meet Waco’s Antifascist Transgender Pitmaster
A TikTok video with more than 100,000 views showed Kaleb Blain, a 35-year old trans man and pitmaster, standing at a folding table gesturing to a plate of freshly prepared chickens, ready for the BBQ smoker. The caption read “politics and cooking don’t mix.” But then the
Who Could’ve Guessed I Was Queer? Six ‘Glass Closet’ Letters to Santa
The purest expression of a child’s heart must be the wishes sent to an imaginary man wearing a red coat with white fur. In all my childhood yearnings, I could not have foreseen just how queer my own future would be, full of genderbending shows, vivid parades, and loud
‘Love Is the Only Motherf****** Way’: Big Queer Wedding Party Celebrates LGBTQ+ Joy and Resilience in Texas
At a bustling venue on Sunday, the speakers boomed with a remix of “Stayin’ Alive.” Heather Schenk and Ty Linhardt had traveled from Chickasha, Oklahoma, for the Big Queer Wedding Party in Austin, where ten couples came to get married and renew their vows in the sanctuary of a former