The Daily Queer
July 8, 2026
Grindr pushes back on age verification to Google and Apple; It is ‘impossible’ to be born with same-sex attraction, claims GOP Florida congressional candidate; queer Emmy nods & gay for pay in acting.
NEWS & CULTURE
Make app stores verify users’ ages, says boss of gay dating app Grindr
Grindr’s chief executive is calling for age verification to happen at the app-store level — putting the responsibility on Apple and Google rather than on individual apps and websites — a position in line with the company’s endorsement of the Republican-backed App Store Accountability Act, which would create a single, secure verification process and send developers a verified age signal. Grindr argues that one check at the storefront is safer than forcing adults to hand sensitive ID to countless platforms, though privacy advocates warn that age-verification regimes, like the UK’s Online Safety Act, can chill LGBTQ+ expression online.
Source: The Times (UK)
Broward Republican congressional candidate: ‘You cannot be born gay. That’s impossible.’
Rod Joseph, one of four Republicans seeking the nomination in Broward County’s heavily Democratic 20th District — home to Wilton Manors, the unofficial LGBTQ+ capital of South Florida — told the Sun Sentinel editorial board that everyone is born straight, that sexuality is a preference, and that most LGBTQ people are victims of childhood sexual abuse. His fellow Republican candidates disagreed with him, and Elijah Manley, an out gay Democrat running in the same district, called the remarks unfounded, baseless, and shameful.
Source: South Florida Sun Sentinel
Gay teacher, LGBTQ-supportive parent win $1 million in Fairfax County defamation lawsuits
Juries in two civil trials awarded teacher Robert Rigby Jr. $350,000 and parent Vanessa Hall $750,000 in damages from the Virginia Project PAC and its founder David Gordon, who falsely branded the two FCPS Pride advocates a child abduction ring and notorious child sex perverts in social media posts. The defendants plan to appeal on free-speech grounds, but the plaintiffs’ attorney notes the posts were declarative assertions of fact, not opinion — and Rigby says the money matters less than having stood up for teachers, parents, and the LGBTQ community.
Source: Washington Blade
Police in Philadelphia hunt suspect after two men killed and another injured in alleged anti-gay attacks
Philadelphia police have identified 21-year-old Jahylin Melchur as the suspect in three linked shootings of gay men over the course of a month in the Hunting Park area, attacks that killed Martin Higgins, 45, and Sharef Holman, 29, and seriously wounded a 55-year-old survivor. Police have not formally classified the shootings as hate crimes — robbery remains a stated line of inquiry — and the case has renewed attention to Pennsylvania’s lack of LGBTQ+-inclusive hate crime protections after its 2002 law was struck down on procedural grounds.
Source: Scene Magazine
Senegal amends constitution to ban same-sex marriage after landslide vote
Senegal’s National Assembly voted 129-0 to amend the constitution to define marriage exclusively as the union between a man and a woman — a largely symbolic move, since same-sex marriage was never legal there, that observers say signals the ruling PASTEF party’s commitment to an anti-LGBTQ agenda. The change follows a March law doubling the maximum penalty for same-sex relations to ten years in prison and criminalizing advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.
Source: PinkNews
Gay MAGA fan defends Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ work and people can’t cope: ‘Wake up’
A viral Instagram reel shows journalist Walter Masterson and trans youth activist Lorelai Crean interviewing MAGA gays at a Pride-adjacent gathering outside Trump Tower, where one supporter — identified by commenters as pardoned January 6 participant Brandon Straka — dismissed documented attacks on workplace protections and HIV funding as talking points. The internet’s response was withering, with one commenter writing that he may be out of the closet, but he left his brain on the shelf.
Source: PinkNews
Frank Ribaudo, Club Café founder who helped bring Boston’s LGBTQ+ community into the light, dies
Frank Ribaudo, the Navy veteran and entrepreneur who helped open Club Café on Columbus Avenue in 1983 and turned it into a home base for generations of Boston’s LGBTQ+ community, has died after a two-and-a-half-year battle with glioblastoma. In an era when same-sex couples could rarely sit openly at a restaurant window, Ribaudo opened his windows deliberately — an act of radical visibility — and the club he built remains open today, where a memorial service will be held.
Source: Bay Windows
Opinion: What we owe older LGBTQ+ New Yorkers
SAGE CEO Lynn Faria and NYC Aging Commissioner Dr. Lisa Scott-McKenzie argue that aging policy must reckon with the distinct realities of LGBTQ+ elders, who are more likely to live alone, less likely to have children, and often depend on chosen family and community services — a quarter of SAGE’s older adults report having no one to call in an emergency. The authors point to the city’s Commission on LGBTQIA+ Older Adults and targeted investments in affirming senior centers as models, noting that today’s LGBTQ+ elders built networks of mutual care through the AIDS epidemic that the rest of society now benefits from.
Source: City Limits
Electric Forest is the ultimate gay festival to experience queer joy
Out’s Ricky Cornish reports from the Rothbury, Michigan woods, where the iconic music festival closed out Pride Month with headliners including ILLENIUM, Galantis, and out singer Cain Culto — and where The Brainery’s LGBTQ+ workshop offered words of wisdom to anyone struggling with identity. Cornish describes his third year in the forest as healing, writing that safe spaces like this are needed for the soul in a divisive time.
Source: Out Magazine
44 straight celebrities who played gay roles
PinkNews assembles a sweeping roster of stars who have played across the orientation line — from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, who has since said a straight actor couldn’t (and rightly shouldn’t) take that role today. The list works both directions, also cataloguing out actors like Jodie Foster, Jim Parsons, Neil Patrick Harris, and Luke Evans who built careers playing straight.
Source: PinkNews
Nikki Hiltz criticizes US Supreme Court ruling on trans athletes
Fresh off their upset mile win at the Prefontaine Classic, trans and nonbinary Olympian Nikki Hiltz said they were not surprised but deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling upholding West Virginia and Idaho laws barring trans athletes from girls’ and women’s school sports. Hiltz told The Athletic they want to show that trans people can be in sport and be affirmed in their gender — we’re not these big, scary things — calling it a really weird time for trans communities in America.
Source: Scene Magazine
2026 Emmy nominations: All of the snubs, surprises & LGBTQ+ nominees
Queerty’s Cameron Scheetz sorts through the 78th Emmy nominations, where Hacks dominated with nods for Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, and a first-ever nomination for Meg Stalter, The Pitt swept the drama categories, and Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie snuck in via his Saturday Night Live hosting gig after the Canadian production was ruled ineligible. Snubs include Bowen Yang’s final SNL season and The Comeback’s farewell run, though Lisa Kudrow did land a Lead Actress nod — could this finally be Valerie Cherish’s year?
Source: Queerty
Meet the five Black queer designers serving everything on Project Runway Season 22
As Project Runway returns July 9 on Freeform with its biggest and most diverse cast ever, Gaye Magazine spotlights five Black designers to watch — returning contestant JosephMcRae, 53-year-old former Olympic track hopeful Octavius Terry, Parsons-trained A.POTTS founder Aaron Potts, disabled Air Force veteran LRÉ the Artist, and the season’s youngest designer, Naheim Muhammad. No Black designer has won in the show’s 21 seasons, a fact this group is determined to change; as Terry puts it, age isn’t a deadline, and visibility is a legacy game.
Source: Gaye Magazine
Elton John ends retirement for two new shows three years after farewell tour
Three years after closing his 330-date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour at Glastonbury, Elton John announced he will play Mexico City’s Banorte Stadium on October 2 and 3 — a return he called especially meaningful because the pandemic kept him from touring Latin America during the farewell run. The announcement comes days after his High Court privacy loss against the Daily Mail’s publisher and amid his public struggles with vision loss.
Source: PinkNews