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Homophobia, catphobia, and dog park etiquette collided over the weekend when a gay man walking his cat in a local London park got into it with a dog owner offended by the pair’s repeated appearance there.

“It’s 2026. People are gonna walk their cats,” Bengal owner Jerome said in an Instagram reel chronicling the ugly encounter. His cat-centric account boasts 140,000 followers.

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Jerome and his partner Jacques are well known around the neighborhood and the internet for walking their two cats, a Bengal named Rajah and a Russian Blue named Lupin, and offering up “free pet therapy” for those who could use it. The dogwalker in this unfortunate story appears to be someone who might benefit from some counseling.

“Being threatened, sworn at and called slurs because I walked my cat into a public space?” Jerome asked in his post accompanying the video.

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“You f*gg*t. You know this a f*cking dog park,” the dogwalker says in the video, bearing out Jerome’s claims.

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A post shared by Lupin in London | Adventure Cat Family (@lupininlondon)

According to Jerome, “This person is always hostile towards us whenever he sees us here. I chose to stand up for myself after he had already said a few words to me off camera, asking me to leave, all because he thinks his dogs shouldn’t have to be in the same space as our cats.”

“Rajah was completely under my control, on his lead; his dogs were both off lead. I was nowhere near him – his dogs didn’t even seem to react to us. I just simply entered the park and attempted to avoid him like I always do,” Jerome continued.

That didn’t help mitigate the encounter, apparently. But rather than ignore the dog owner’s taunts, Jerome pulled out his phone and filmed the encounter, defending himself and his cat.

“It’s not a dog park. It’s a park for all animals. And I can do what I want with my cat,” Jerome shouts across the grass to the man.

“You can f**k off,” the dog owner replies. “C**t.”

The man’s dachshund mix and pit bull terrier seemed oblivious to the human altercation.

After Jerome wouldn’t back down, the dogwalker added, “I’ll do more than talk if I see you with that f*cking cat.”

The verbal brawl in the park, adjacent to a neighborhood church, then drew in fellow pet owners who had gone out for their own Sunday strolls.

“Keep it down, you stupid motherf**kers,” said one woman fed up with the loud bickering.

“What makes you so entitled, my friend?” Jerome finally shouted to the man as he heads for an exit, clearly unhappy that his intolerance was being recorded.

“Yeah, s**t on me,” the man replied.

In a breakdown of the incident, Jerome lamented the dogwalker’s refusal to change his views on cats in the churchyard.

“I’m respectful. Most people are respectful,” Jerome said of his cats’ interactions with their traditional canine enemies and dog owners.

“I’m gonna walk my cat,” Jerome added. “I give grace and patience to people, but if I’m being bullied over and over again in a public space that I have access to, that I’ve been using, you’ve lost my respect at this point, and I’m not going to tolerate it.

“So to the man who called me a f**got, and had all the profanities in the world to say to me because I for once stood up to them, you’ll be hearing from the police. Trust and believe. No cat owner should ever have to put up with that,” he promised.

“Let’s end dog owner entitlement in 2016,” Jerome closed. “It’s not cute.”

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has a new excuse for why Donald Trump’s hands are bruised again.

People have been noticing for the past year that Trump’s hands are often bruised when he appears in public, wondering whether this is a symptom of a larger medical issue. Leavitt has offered multiple explanations in the past for his bruises, including that he “shakes [Americans’] hands on a daily basis more than any other president in history” and that he has “chronic venous insufficiency,” which Leavitt described as a benign condition.

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And Trump’s doctor, Dr. Sean Barbabella, said last month that the bruising is a result of the large dose of aspirin that Trump takes daily, which, according to at least one medical professor, is usually prescribed in the aftermath of a stroke.

The bruises were even more pronounced this week during Trump’s visit to Davos, Switzerland, and were visible on his left hand, even though it’s usually his right hand that has had them. People on social media are sharing images of those bruises.

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Trump's *left* hand — not the one that is usually disfigured — now has a large bruise and is discolored These pictures are from today in Davos and are via Chip Somodevilla (Getty) and Fabrice Coffrini (AFP)

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-01-22T14:33:16.559Z

“He’s literally rotting,” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote.

Leavitt has a new explanation for the bruising: Trump had an accident.

“At the Board of Peace event today in Davos, President Trump hit his hand on the corner of the signing table, causing it to bruise,” she said in a statement.

Another White House official said that all the aspirin Trump is taking makes him susceptible to bruising.

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The board of Tucson Pride in Arizona recently announced that it has not only cancelled the group’s upcoming Pride Festival but also is dissolving the entire organization amid financial challenges.

“This decision was not made lightly,” the board wrote in a statement on the Tucson Pride website. “We recognize the deep importance Tucson Pride has held in our community since 1977, serving as a space of visibility, advocacy, celebration, and resilience for nearly five decades. We are profoundly grateful to every volunteer, sponsor, artist, activist, and community member who has supported Tucson Pride throughout its history.”

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The note was brief and concluded by thanking the LGBTQ+ community and allies for “unwavering support, passion, and commitment over the years.” It did not explain why the board chose to shutter, but activists in the community told The Arizona Daily Star that Tucson Pride has struggled financially since former president Jimmy West was caught embezzling from the organization in 2017.

Events continued due to fundraising by impassioned supporters, but, according to Rick Morey-Wolfe, who has been involved with Tucson Pride since 2017, the current board has squandered money on things the community doesn’t want.

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“The community has been very steadfast about not hiring high-end, expensive headliners and featuring local talent,” Morey-Wolfe said. “And for some reason, this specific group of people has continued to ignore that year after year, which has created debt year after year, and that’s pretty much the bottom line.”

Morey-Wolfe told the Daily Star he has cried multiple times since hearing about the organization’s closure. Local LGBTQ+ activist Scott Blades added he was “really surprised.”

The announcement of the closure on Facebook has garnered almost 700 comments. “Totally heartbreaking for the community!” someone said. “This visibility is so important.”

Many also communicated their anger at the board for giving up rather than figuring out how to reorganize or explaining to the community what the problems are so they can try to solve them. “I’m deeply disappointed and disgusted by this lack of candor and accountability!” one person wrote.

“The newly appointed Board owes the community an overview of their rationale for this decision,” another added, “especially given the history and longevity of the organization in our community (not to mention our national and global Pride history) as well as what will take its place going forward and when.”

Some folks, however, expressed excitement about the opportunity to build something stronger in its place.

“Let’s start a new organization,” one commenter declared. “Sometimes we have to allow things to go in order to make something bigger and better.”

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Transgender Utahans and their supporters marched through the state Capitol building on Wednesday to protest what one lawmaker called “possibly the most egregious anti-trans bill” yet introduced by Republicans during their years-long campaign attacking the LGBTQ+ community.

“I’m anticipating a big fight” over the bill, state Rep. Sahara Hayes (D) told the Utah News Dispatch at the protest. Hayes is Utah’s only out queer legislator, and she’s married to a trans woman.

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She called H.B. 183 the worst of a slew of new anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced this session.

The sweeping bill replaces the term gender with sex in the state; repeals previous provisions related to gender identity (including protections for housing, employment, and crime); prohibits amendments to the sex designation field of a birth certificate; requires use of the term “biological sex” when referring to gender on state documents; prohibits trans employees from interacting with children in state health care settings; and requires courts to favor parents who disavow a child’s gender identity if it differs from their sex assigned at birth in state custody disputes.

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Salt Lake City state Rep. Jen Dailey-Provost (D) said the “misguided” bill “could not be more mean-spirited.”

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A post shared by Romy Colvin (@colvining_photography)

The demonstration drew more than 60 people who marched through the state capital on the legislature’s second day back in session. The demonstration followed protests the day before against fascist Republican and Trump administration policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the war in Gaza.

“We’re here because trans people are continuously being attacked in Utah and across the country. Frankly, we’ve had enough,” said Veronika DaVil, a drag artist who organized the Wednesday event.

Trans people are a “marginalized community that keeps being attacked over and over again to distract from larger issues,” she said, adding that “people need to stand up for the trans community because they can’t do it by themselves.”

“This is such a small community,” DaVil said. “Attacking trans people won’t make rent cheaper. Attacking trans people won’t make our groceries more affordable. It is a smoke screen.”

Kree Arias, a trans man and member of the grassroots activist group Utah March, said LGBTQ+ people are “under attack,” and H.B. 183 is just the latest example.

He hoped that alerting the public to the draconian legislation during the legislature’s first week back in session would increase the community’s visibility.

When asked what he’d say to lawmakers if he had a chance to meet with them, Aria replied, “I would like to just sit down with them and be like, ‘Hey, you know, this is who we are,’” he said.

“I don’t want to talk about our transness or our gayness, or any of that. I want to talk about who we are as people. We’re brothers, we’re sisters, we’re uncles,” he continued.

“‘This is what we’re about,'” he’d say, “being ourselves, being beautiful and proud.”  

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The anti-LGBTQ+ group Turning Point USA has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Candace Owens — a conspiracy theorist — “continuing to cause harm” to the organization by pushing conspiracy theories related to the September 10 murder of its co-founder and CEO, Charlie Kirk.

Since Kirk’s death, Owens has used her massive online platform to spread her beliefs that France, Israel, and Egypt might have had a hand in Kirk’s September 10 murder; that Kirk was “betrayed” by people close to him; and that state and federal law enforcement are covering up a bigger crime in their handling of his murder, CNN reported.

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Turning Point USA, which is now headed by Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk, accused Owens of “violating a non-disparagement clause” which forbids her from criticizing the organization. Owens was hired as a guest speaker during the organization’s cross-country tour.

The letter also tells Owens to stop saying or implying that the organization or any of its employees “played any part in Mr. Kirk’s assassination,” or that they “knew about the assassination beforehand, participated in the assassination day of, or covered up the truth after the fact.”

A federal judge has voided a Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena requiring Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. to hand over private information on young patients receiving gender-affirming care (GAC). The ruling is just the latest roadblock in the DOJ’s quest to end GAC for trans youth; however, the hospital stopped offering GAC last July in response to the current presidential administration’s threats to defund institutions that offer such care.

The case involved eight families that received transition-related healthcare through the hospital’s Gender Development Program between 2020 and 2025. The families said that the DOJ’s subpoena — which demanded their addresses, children’s social security number, medical diagnoses, prescriptions, and all documents affirming parental authorization, among other information — violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and their Fifth Amendment right to privacy in their medical records.

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The DOJ argued that the families lacked legal standing to oppose the subpoena because none of them directly received it — the subpoena was sent to hospital workers — and because the families challenged the subpoena after the DOJ’s deadline for patient information had passed.

But, because the subpoena sought “private medical records containing highly sensitive treatment” about children, U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin wrote in her ruling that the families had legal standing, both because the subpoena put an “undue burden” upon the families and because their children were relying on their parental guardians “to protect [their] interests because [they lack legal] capacity to act in self-protection.”

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“This court joins the district courts around the country in finding that the Government’s Subpoena lacks a proper investigatory purpose under law; serves only to bolster the Executive’s policy objective of terminating access to gender affirming healthcare for adolescents; and has no plausible or coherent tether to its stated purpose,” Rubin wrote.

Last June, the DOJ sent subpoenas to 20 medical providers who offer gender-affirming care to trans youth. Under the pretense of investigating healthcare fraud, the DOJ demanded patients’ Social Security numbers, emails, home addresses, and information about the care they received.

The DOJ said that its subpoenas seek to prevent healthcare fraud and “off-label” use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat youth gender dysphoria, beyond the “on-label” uses approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The blockers and hormone treatments in question have been used safely on children for decades to treat precocious puberty and certain cancers, and off-label uses of these drugs for trans individuals have also occurred safely for decades without any additional federal government oversight.

However, Judge Rubin said that DOJ lawyers “failed to place before the court any information, record, or evidence” — such as an affidavit, complaint, or whistleblower statement — “supporting or pertaining to the investigation of the hospital for any health care offense.”

“The Government seeks to investigate how the Hospital treats its patients; specifically, in the context of gender-affirming patient care,” the judge wrote. But the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) that the DOJ cited in its investigatory subpoena “regulates commerce, not patient care,” the judge added. As such, the DOJ shouldn’t need such sensitive private medical information in order to investigate alleged healthcare fraud, the judge ruled.

“The court concludes the Subpoena was not issued for a legitimate governmental purpose, is not limited in scope to any legitimate purpose, and is oppressive in its breadth,” Judge Rubin wrote. “The court finds the Subpoena is a pretext to fulfill the Executive’s well-publicized policy objective to terminate and block gender affirming healthcare.”

“The Subpoena bears no credible connection to an investigation of any statutory violation by the Hospital,” Judge Rubin continued. “Rather, the Subpoena appears to have no purpose other than to intimidate and harass the Hospital and [the families], and those similarly situated. The Government seeks to fulfill its policy agenda through compliance born of fear. Moreover, in the view of the court, the Subpoena is the classic impermissible fishing expedition.”

While the judge applied her ruling only to the eight families that sued, her mention of the DOJ’s “fishing expedition” echoes a federal judge’s ruling last September that reached the same conclusion, as well as a similar ruling issued by another federal judge in November.

“Today’s ruling is a crucial victory for families and for the fundamental right to medical privacy,” said Donovan Bendana, Liman Law Fellow at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) and counsel for the families. “The court saw through the government’s attempt to use its investigative powers as a weapon against families who are simply trying to access healthcare for their children. These families should never have been forced to go to court to protect their children’s private medical information from government intrusion. This decision makes clear the federal government does not have the authority to intimidate patients and doctors or to insert itself into private medical decisions. We are grateful the court stood up for these families and for the principle that all Americans have a right to make healthcare decisions without fear of government harassment.”

“When families fear their private health information could be exposed or used against them, they may delay or avoid seeking necessary medical care – putting children’s health and wellbeing at risk. The court’s decision protects not only the families who brought the case, but reinforces fundamental principles of medical privacy and limitations on government power that benefit all Americans,” said Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights at GLAD Law. 

“Parents of transgender adolescents want what every parent wants: to ensure their children get the medical care they need to be healthy and thrive,” said Eve Hill, Partner at Brown, Goldstein & Levy. “This ruling affirms that the government cannot intrude into the exam room or second-guess the medical decisions families make with their doctors.”

The administration’s “toxic” war on gender-affirming care

Though there is no federal law banning gender-affirming care, the current presidential administration has sought to eradicate the practice through a January executive order (that has since been blocked by several courts). The order instructed the DOJ to extend the time that patients and parents can sue gender-affirming doctors and to use laws against false advertising to prosecute any entity that may be misleading the public about the long-term effects of gender-affirming care.

In April, Bondi issued a memo to DOJ employees, telling them to investigate and prosecute cases of minors accessing gender-affirming care as female genital mutilation (FGM), even though hospitals don’t conduct such female genital surgeries. The memo threatened to jail doctors for 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to young trans people.

Additionally, the DOJ sought information about the providers’ employees and their correspondence with pharmaceutical manufacturers, marketing departments, and sales representatives, as well as other sensitive information dating back to January 2020.

Fewer than 3,000 teens nationwide receive puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy, according to a 2025 JAMA analysis of private insurance data. Gender-affirming care is supported by all major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as safe and life-saving for young people with gender dysphoria.

One doctor interviewed by The Washington Post called the federal government’s crusade against gender-affirming care a “toxic plan” that will force some patients to detransition, potentially forcing them into adverse psychological and physical effects, including increased anxiety, depression, and the development of unwanted physical changes.

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