Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) voted against a $1.2 trillion 5-bill minibus to reopen the government after a nearly four-day partial shutdown. Boebert said the minibus included $1.3 billion for “child transgender surgeries.”

The minibus package, which also included a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until February 13, narrowly passed the U.S. House in a 217-214 vote. Trump signed it into law on February 3.

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However, in an X social media post posted that same day, Boebert wrote that the package included “$1.3 BILLION in earmarks funding woke facilities that provide late-term abortions & child transgender surgeries.”

I voted NO on the 5-bill minibus. Republicans have the trifecta and we should fund DHS at Trump levels for strong border security—not continue the Biden-Schumer budget.

The bill also includes $1.3 BILLION in earmarks funding woke facilities that provide late-term abortions &…

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) February 3, 2026

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It’s not entirely clear which earmarks Boebert is referring to. However, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-NC) claimed that the package included “$3 million to Denver Health & Hospital Authority to provide transgender surgeries… and more than $3 million to Hennepin Healthcare to operate a kids’ gender clinic.”

In a January 22 House floor speech, Rep. Norman told his congressional colleagues, “I don’t know whether you realize it or not, but we’re $39 trillion in debt and counting,” and then claimed that the minibus package provides $1.5 million for an eastern Maine healthcare system that operates a pediatric gender clinic, funding for the The Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation’s children’s hospital of Chicago which provides transgender health care, and funding for the Temple University Hospital of Pennsylvania which provides gender-affirming care for trans adults.

Norman sought to introduce an amendment to remove all earmarks from the bills funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, but his amendment was reportedly voted down.

Despite Boebert and Norman’s claims, it’s possible that the minibus merely contains federal funding for these hospitals in general rather than for their trans programs specifically. While many hospitals nationwide, including Denver Health, have stopped providing gender-affirming care to youth (amid the federal government’s pledge to prosecute and end funding for organizations that provide such care), other hospitals, like Hennepin Healthcare, have continued to offer it.

Heritage Action for America — the sister organization of the massively influential right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation — criticized Republicans who voted for the package, accusing them of “direct[ing] taxpayer funds to entities engaged in practices that most GOP voters find abhorrent.”

The partial government shutdown occurred over Democrats’ opposition to funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid the numerous illegal and lethal actions taken by federal immigration agents. The congressional funding feud is likely to resume as the DHS’ funding nears its end on February 13.

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Claiming a violation of their free speech rights, a group of Democrats is suing the state of Illinois for the right to call themselves Democrats while being transphobic.

Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG) is a nonprofit group of current and former Democrats who think that the party is wrong to support transgender rights. The group coalesced online during the COVID pandemic as a social network of liberal parents whose children had come out as trans.

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DIAG promotes its members as “Liberals guiding our party back to reason and reality” under the banner, “Biology, not ideology,” a mantra similarly embraced by the Trump administration in its crusade against trans people.

DIAG’s staff includes a “GenZ detransitioner” and “a lifelong progressive Democrat/agnostic feminist,” among others listed on its website, and says it supports the LGB community only. The group opposes “efforts to ‘fix’ gay and gender nonconforming youth through gender-medicine interventions” and rejects “clinicians who profit by pathologizing typical adolescent discomfort.”

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Over two years, the group became a nationally registered nonprofit and has solicited donations in 37 states.

Now, an obscure law in Illinois is being used to challenge DIAG’s ability to fundraise and promote their views in the state by denying them use of the word “Democrat” in their name.

In December, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (D) rejected DIAG’s application to incorporate as a nonprofit in Illinois, citing an Illinois law known as the Party Name Provision, which prohibits nonprofits from using names that include words associated with established political parties unless the party consents. 

DIAG is suing the state over the denial, claiming that enforcing the law prevents the group from exercising its First Amendment rights. 

FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan civil liberties group, is representing DIAG in the case, Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender v. Alexi Giannoulias.

“The all-volunteer organization believes it offers a unique voice by explaining that the current Democratic consensus contradicts ‘core liberal values‘ that the party espouses, like protecting women and supporting the scientific process. To advance its mission and political goals, DIAG wants to solicit charitable contributions in Illinois. The Supreme Court has placed charitable solicitation ‘in a category of speech close to the heart of the First Amendment,'” FIRE said in a statement detailing the suit.

DIAG board secretary Jenny Poyer Ackerman asserted the group’s work is rooted in fundamental Democratic values.  

“The surprising thing is that the Democratic Party has come to such different conclusions because we feel that our work reflects the core liberal values,” Ackerman told the National Review. “Critical thinking, freedom from religion, women’s rights, and a hesitancy to lavish the pharmaceutical industry with our money and our trust. So it really feels like we’re not doing anything inconsistent with the principles of our party.”

DIAG applied to incorporate three times in 2025, but the secretary of state’s office rejected all of the applications, according to the suit. In all three, DIAG chose not to seek the Democratic State Central Committee’s permission, claiming the requirement amounts to an unlawful prior restraint on speech.

“The Democratic and Republican parties don’t have a monopoly on the concepts of what is democratic or republican,” FIRE attorney Daniel Zahn told the Chicago Tribune. “When the government tries to give them that monopoly, it’s absurd and unconstitutional.”

“Illinois can’t get around the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to party bosses,” he added. “No American — Republican, Democrat, or independent — should have to bend the knee before a political party to participate in the political system.”

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Greg Kelly, an anchor on the right-wing Newsmax media outlet, said he will not watch the NFL Super Bowl game this Sunday, and that the game’s logo looks “a little bit LGBT queer-ish” to him.

“The colors, a little bit. I’m sorry. I think it is,” Kelly said in a Thursday broadcast, according to Media Matters. “And that’s whatever. I think it has nothing to do with football. Straight, gay, whatever. Why is that, kind of, in big ways, explicit ways and subliminal ways, it always seems to be a thing?”

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Kelly — who has accused drag queens of harming his constitutional rights — then complained about Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican LGBTQ+ ally, performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. The anti-LGBTQ+ conservative organization Turning Point USA is broadcasting an all-white country rock halftime show as an alternative.

Right-wingers have long claimed that the Super Bowl, its halftime show, and TV ads indoctrinate viewers with subliminal “satanic” and LGBTQ+ content. Our sibling site, Outsports, noted that Super Bowl LX will feature several different LGBTQ-friendly players and coaches from the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots.

Out San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones took a stand on Thursday evening in defense of the LGBTQ+ community, shutting down a homophobic gadfly who disparaged her recent appointment of a gay man to the city’s Ethics Review Board.

“We’re not going to tolerate hate speech here,” she told the religious conservative. “Your time is up. Thank you.”

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Jones was elected as the Texas city’s first out gay mayor last June.

She was reacting to a minutes-long screed from the 73-year-old retiree, Jack M. Finger, who used his public comment time at a City Council meeting to smear Eric Alva, a gay Marine veteran of the Iraq War who was the first seriously injured U.S. combatant in the conflict. He lost a leg after stepping on a land mine.

Alva was among the veterans and lawmakers who stood by President Barack Obama as he signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011, and was active in the campaign to end the anti-LGBTQ+ military policy.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Alva has been an advocate for the homosexual agenda,” Finger told the chamber. “He’s a member of the homosexual community. And by definition, that means you engage in homosexual acts. We have real problems with a person who engages in homosexual acts being part of an ethics committee.”

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Thirty seconds before his time was up, Jones cut him off, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

“Madam mayor, we still don’t want it,” Finger replied to Jones.

“Thank you,” Jones repeated, before looking toward a guard in chambers.

“Security.”

“Thank you,” Finger snapped. He returned to his seat.

It wasn’t the first time Alva has been disparaged at a council meeting.

In 2013, he spoke about an LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination measure under consideration. He was roundly booed by an overflow crowd of religious conservatives.  

“Well, I just left city council chambers and I feel like crying,” Alva posted to Facebook in the aftermath. “Such disrespect as they preach the word of God.”

After Finger took his seat, councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the first out gay man elected to the council, echoed — and amplified — Jones’ sentiments.

“You come up here several times a month,” McKee-Rodriguez said to Finger. “We laugh and we giggle about some of the things that you say that are really hateful in nature. I want you to know that sometimes when people become figures that are routine at City Council, that the day that they pass we remember them and we think about all the great times we had up here.”

“When you pass, I don’t think that will be happening,” he said. “I think we will remember every single hateful thing that you said, every person that you hurt, and that will be your legacy.”

Jones’ stand in defense of Alva and the LGBTQ+ community follows criticism in November of how she handled orders from the Texas Department of Transportation to dismantle a rainbow crosswalk in the city.

While community activists were primed for a fight over the Pride intersection, Jones seemed to have moved on.

“There’s a number of ways we can show our pride, make sure our community feels seen and heard, and we are not inviting unneeded retribution against the most vulnerable in our community,” Jones told an underwhelmed crowd at a celebration designating San Antonio’s gayborhood as a cultural district.

“My pride is not tied to this paint,” she said. “You know why? Because it’s in my heart and in my head. No one is going to take away who we are, what we have contributed to this city, to this state, and to this country. It doesn’t matter what they say. We will move forward. We know our worth. We’ll just figure out a different way.”

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