Tensions flared and the debate turned personal as Republicans said their bill empowered parents and denied predictions that the ban will endanger children.

Critics say House Bill 229, which has gone to the governor, discriminates against trans people, but the full effect remains to be seen.

A leaked draft of the Trump administration’s proposed federal budget reveals plans to eliminate all funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services.

Students are concerned the legislation could silence supportive teachers, dismantle safe spaces, lead to overenforcement and prevent honest conversations about identity.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority is signaling support for the religious rights of Maryland parents who want to remove their children from elementary school classes using storybooks with LGBTQ characters.

Some parents in a suburban Maryland county want to pull their children from elementary school classes that use books featuring LGBTQ characters.

The Senate voted Wednesday to give initial approval to a bill that would require buildings, including public schools and universities, among others to segregate private facilities, like bathrooms, by sex.

Paxton’s office launched an investigation into the district’s policy after an administrator was caught on tape discussing a possible loophole in the state’s ban.

Judge Lee H. Rosenthal said the student group that organizes Draggieland, the Queer Empowerment Council, was likely to succeed in showing the ban violates the First Amendment.

The move comes a few weeks after the Texas A&M System issued a similar ban, which is being challenged in court.

The move sparked a new First Amendment fight between students and university administrators.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from parents in suburban Washington who want to pull their children from elementary school classes that use books featuring LGBTQ characters.

Republicans accused Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of supporting gender transitions for children throughout the 2024 election cycle, which he said took a political toll.

Hector Granados, one of two pediatric endocrinologists in El Paso, said he stopped providing gender-affirming care after it was outlawed in Texas in 2023.

The attorney general is accusing the organization of misleading fans by allowing transgender college athletes in women’s sports.

Donald Trump won Ector County, which includes Odessa, with more than 70 percent of the vote.

The FBI Houston Field Office has launched a federal civil rights investigation to seek more victims of a Houston park ranger accused targeting members of the LGBTQ community by demanding money or sexual favors in exchange for not being arrested at Cullen Park.

As limitations on trans teens increase, doctors have left the state, weakening an already threadbare system for trans adults.

Emboldened by the recent election, some Texas lawmakers are already filing bills that would dictate bathroom use, limit gender identity markers on documents and restrict funding for surgeries.

After conservative criticism over the LGBTQ+ minor, university officials started looking at all its programs. Faculty say they were excluded from the process.

These are the first cases under a law prohibiting doctors from providing puberty blockers or hormone therapy to help minors transition.

A second high court has ruled that the Japanese government’s policy against same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

LGBTQ+ advocates called the ban one of the most extreme measures enacted by a local government.

In the first test of Senate Bill 14, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has accused Dr. May Lau of providing testosterone to at least 21 teens.

A federal judge has blocked a Biden-era rule that said providing foster children with “safe and proper care” required placing them in gender-affirming homes.

Under Javier Joven’s leadership, his critics say, the Odessa City Council has lost focus on municipal issues like roads and water infrastructure.

The Houston Democrat lost her seat amid backlash from primary voters over her support for a GOP bill barring transition-related care for minors.

The Texas Department of Public Safety rule change surfaced in an internal email that also asks driver license staff to compile the names of people seeking a gender marker change.

The Houston Democrat lost her seat after backlash for voting with Republicans to ban transition-related care for minors.

The students saw the move as part of a political environment that has become increasingly hostile against LGBTQ+ people in Texas.

The request came from a local pastor who is part of a group that trains people to “defend their freedom and liberty.” Other faith leaders have pushed back.

Alex Chadwell, who worked for the congressman in Washington and Texas, said he was pushed out of Nehls’ office because of his sexual orientation.

The Texas Attorney General is following his familiar playbook by taking the case to a federal judge with a record of rulings against the Biden administration’s agenda.

The City Council did approve $5,000 for security, about one-fifth of the money it withheld over last month.

The decision in the case brought by the Texas Attorney General preempts any future Title IX regulations that extend federal protections to LGBTQ students.

The arts center that organizes the monthly art walk, which draws 20,000 to downtown Lubbock, said the drag show happened at an off-site location and had no association with it.

A doctor says the government wants to punish him for calling attention to wrongdoing. Advocates say the families of trans kids are the ones at risk.

Parents and medical providers of transgender adolescents sued Texas, challenging the constitutionality of a restriction on puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Before Chief Meteorologist Frank Billingsley does his final forecast on KPRC 2, he's chatting with Houston Life's Derrick Shore about his impressive career. From where he got his outgoing personality to the way viewers reacted to his 2012 marriage to his longtime partner Kevin, Frank looks back on some of the defining milestones that shaped his life.

Several hundred LGBTQ Ukrainian servicemen and their supporters have marched in central Kyiv to demand more rights and highlight their service to their country in its war with Russia.

A local volunteer died by suicide ahead of the center’s grand opening, reminding the West Texas community why such spaces are important.

Lawmakers have approved legislation that would rename a New York City subway station in honor of the Stonewall riots.

Katy ISD’s board voted this past fall to require staff to notify parents if their child wants to use a different pronoun or identifies as a different gender.

United Methodist delegates have repealed their church’s longstanding ban on the celebrations of same-sex marriages or unions by its clergy.

For the past 52 years, the United Methodist Church had officially declared “the practice of homosexuality.

United Methodist delegates have repealed their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate.

The new Title IX rules expanded the definition of sex-based harassment. Paxton said the change distorted the original intent of the law.

As Kayden Asher tumbled through several foster placements, Texas leaders intensified their efforts to regulate the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

Abbott made the remarks as he recounted the story of a male teacher in North Texas who wore a pink dress for his school’s spirit day earlier this year.

Support once afforded LGBTQ+ foster kids has vanished and a culture of silence has blanketed the agency tasked with raising children growing up in the system.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suspected the hospital was helping Texas kids access puberty blockers or hormone treatments that are outlawed for juveniles.

In the staunchly conservative Panhandle, LGBTQ+ Texans say political and legal battles overlook their humanity.

The decision means university President Walter Wendler could cancel an on-campus drag show next week. He canceled a previous show last year.

Legal experts say a 5th Circuit decision to uphold part of a Texas law regulating adult entertainment websites conflicts with U.S. Supreme Court precedent regarding minors’ access to obscene material online.

The Houston Democrat voted for three anti-LGBTQ bills last year, which could make her more vulnerable as she fights for reelection.

Recent state and local legal maneuvers signal that Texas’ conservative movement could be wading into a complicated Constitutional morass the country hasn’t dealt with since before the Civil War.

Are you in a dangerous relationship and need help? Do you know someone who needs help? In part of our effort to help people in the community, our team put together a list of groups in our area that can help victims of domestic violence.

A fight over allowing transgender children to access puberty blockers and hormone therapies could hinge on justices’ interpretation of parental rights.

This is at least the second time Ken Paxton’s office has sought such records from an out-of-state provider since Texas banned transition-related care for kids.

Texas photojournalists fanned the state, capturing historic news and intimate moments.

A new law dismantling the state’s diversity, equity and inclusion offices at publicly-funded universities and colleges will go into effect in 2024.

Suspecting the Washington-based hospital of providing gender-affirming care to Texas children, which is now banned in Texas, AG Ken Paxton issued investigative subpoenas demanding medical information.

Pope Francis formally approved for priests to bless same-sex couples, according to a document from the Vatican’s doctrine office that was released on Monday.

The Sherman school board also temporarily ended the superintendent oversight of its fine arts programs pending the results of the investigation.

After Max Hightower scored a role in the seminal American musical, administrators changed their policy on performers’ gender. After backlash, the school board directed the school to produce the original version “Oklahoma!” — not a youth version that cut Hightower’s solo.

Rights groups and lawyers in Nigeria say the West African nation's law enforcement authorities are using the country’s same-sex prohibition law to target the LGBTQ+ community while ignoring abuses against them.

Texas Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday in the case of a Waco judge who refused to marry same-sex couples. It is unclear when the high court will issue a ruling.

The new clinic met resistance from a vocal group of parents who raised concerns the district was overstepping its authority in caring for students.

Home to the University of North Texas, organizers say Denton acts as a liberal enclave in the sprawling conservative suburbs in the Dallas-Fort Worth region.

Senate Bill 12 would have prohibited performers from dancing suggestively or wearing certain prosthetics in front of children. Critics sued the state, saying it violated the First Amendment.

Lawyers criticize a provision they say erodes the separation of powers between Texas’ executive branch and its courts. It’s been used repeatedly this year as Texans try to block new state laws from going into effect

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the student fundraiser featuring drag performers was not protected, raising the stakes for a battle over First Amendment rights and drag shows.

The guidance asks universities in the system to avoid using the acronym DEI on their websites and walk a fine line between organizing events that “support diversity in a general way” but don’t “promote preferential treatment of any particular group.”

U.S. District Judge David Hittner heard from LGBTQ+ groups, businesses and a drag performer in a hearing this week, who argued Senate Bill 12 violated their First Amendment rights.

Public colleges and universities statewide will need to comply with Senate Bill 17 in the coming months or lose state funding. The law requires public universities to close their diversity, equity, and inclusion offices. It also bans faculty diversity training and restricts the use of diversity statements.

LGBTQ+ groups and drag performers suing the state argued Monday that Senate Bill 12 violates constitutionally-protected rights. The new law is set to go into effect on Friday unless a federal judge blocks it.

The state attorney general’s office appealed a state district court injunction that said the new prohibitions deprive trans kids of “necessary, safe, and effective medical treatment.”

Some queer Texans may fear disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity to neighbors or the government. The lack of accurate numbers makes it more difficult to provide appropriate health care, especially in rural areas.

The draft of the policy centers around four topics: parent authority, safeguarding biological females and males, and preferred pronouns.

West Texas residents are organizing over their love — or concern — for books. Meanwhile, from Lubbock to Midland and Odessa, librarians are trying to reaffirm libraries’ role as community hubs.

The announcement confronted students with the impact of a new law that will require all state-funded colleges and universities to close their diversity, equity and inclusion offices.

The university had asked the federal agency to dismiss sexual harassment complaints by LGBTQ+ students, arguing that the claims infringed on the school’s religious tenets.

State officials backing Senate Bill 12 have said they want to protect children from seeing sexually explicit performances. But new legal challenges say the law is so broad and vague that it criminalizes constitutionally protected expression.

Two Texas bookstores and three national bookseller associations file suit over House Bill 900, which requires private booksellers to rate books on appropriateness, and bans “sexually explicit” material from libraries.

Senate Bill 14, which is set to take effect on Sept. 1, bans transition-related care for minors. Parents of transgender kids say it blocks their ability to support their children.

Texas doctors fear a new era of government intrusion into medicine as lawmakers ban transition care for kids following prohibitions on abortion.

The Texas Department of Agriculture’s elected leader, Sid Miller, has fought protections for trans workers.

The families argue the new law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, violates their parental rights by stopping them from providing medical care for their children and discriminates against transgender teens.

From a block party in New York City to a movie screening outside of Denver, groups across the U.S. have found ways to merge Pride month and Juneteenth celebrations.

In the conservative High Plains city, LGBTQ leaders and activists say they feel unseen and unsupported by their elected officials.

According to a June 13 letter, all Texas A&M universities must provide details on a wide range of programs, trainings and presentations that touch on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campus, including faculty organizations and mission statements.

The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for major civil rights victories for queer Americans in the 2003 decision that decriminalized homosexuality. But progress for LGBTQ+ people has been uneven.

Organizers across Texas are balancing a focus on security and a celebration of community after state lawmakers pushed scores of bills that threatened to upend the lives of LGBTQ+ Texans.

A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in New Orleans heard oral arguments Wednesday for an appeal to overturn a judge’s order that Llano County officials return to shelves books they had removed. It was not clear how or when the appellate panel would rule.

“Abbott Elementary” actor Tyler James Williams marked the start of Pride Month by speaking out against speculation of his sexuality, saying the “conversation is bigger than me.”

Texas joins 17 other states restricting transgender minors from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Opposing legal groups have vowed to sue to stop the new law from taking effect.

Originally pitched as an effort to restrict children from seeing certain drag shows, the House and Senate agreed on a version of the bill that could still ensnare LGBTQ performers.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said he would support legislation prohibiting transgender men from competing on men’s college sports teams and transgender women from joining women’s college athletic teams.

Approved by both chambers, the bill is now on its way to the governor. Unless he vetoes it, the bill will become law, which means book vendors will have to assign ratings to books based on depictions or references to sex.

The defections have sparked feelings of betrayal and promises of retribution, particularly as Republicans in the Legislature have presented a unified front.