The question before the court

Donald Trump’s return to the White House promises to shake up Washington in ways not seen even during the norm-shattering Trump 1.0 years: on the table are blueprints for radically reforming the federal civil service into a more partisan institution where loyalty is prized at the expense of expertise and competence; off the table, among other things, are anti-discrimination protections that had long bolstered the rights and welfare of LGBTQ federal government employees.

Defining Male and Female Act of 2024” seeks to enshrine gender-specific definitions of various words into law, including the terms “girl,” “boy,” “father,” “mother,” “female,” and “male.”The bill defines sex as fixed at birth and binary, and defines gender, in certain contexts, as a synonym for sex, while expressly not including gender identity or gender expression.Under the bill, “male” and “female” are defined as individuals who naturally have — or would have, but for a congenital anomaly — a reproductive system that produces, respectively, sperm or eggs for fertilization.The bill states that “rare disorders of sexual development are not exceptions to the binary nature of sex,” and that “in no case is an individual’s sex determined by stipulation or self-identification.”Marshall, an OB/GYN by trade, argues that due to recent “confusion” surrounding the definition of sex — which he defines as a “biological truth” — the bill is needed to codify those meanings permanently into law.The bill also states that maintaining sex-segregated facilities or sports leagues based on physical differences between the sexes shall not be considered “unequal treatment under the law,” which appears to be an effort to protect against lawsuits brought by transgender advocates.Marshall said in a news release that the bill would push back against the Biden administration’s attempt to “replace biological sex with dangerous radical gender ideology,” would ban transgender athletes from female sports, and would ensure that restrooms, locker and dorm rooms, prisons, and shelters for victims of sexual assault continue to be separated by sex.“As a physician who has delivered over 5,000 babies, I can confidently say that politicizing children’s gender to use them as pawns in their radical woke agenda is not only wrong, it is extremely dangerous,” Marshall said in a statement.

Supreme Court on Tuesday began hearing a case over the definition of "woman."The case, initiated by women's rights campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), centers on whether a transgender person with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) that recognizes them as a female, can qualify as a woman under equality laws.While the case, in which five judges at Britain's highest court will hear arguments, centers on Scottish laws, FWS has said its outcomes could have U.K.-wide consequences for sex-based rights as well as everyday single-sex services.The case stems from Scotland's Gender Representation on Public Boards Act 2018, which mandates that 50 percent of board members on public bodies be women, including transgender women.While this law aimed to promote inclusivity, FWS challenged the interpretation, arguing Scottish Parliament's redefinition of "woman" went beyond parliament's powers.Scottish officials then issued guidance stating that the definition of "woman" included a transgender woman who has a gender recognition certificate. FWS is seeking to overturn that decision.After an initial legal defeat in 2022, FWS escalated the matter to the U.K.

Khalid has responded to “frustrating” allegations after being outed as gay on social media.The Grammy-nominated R&B singer came out as gay earlier this week following a series of posts from X user Hugo Almonte, who took to the platform to outline his alleged experiences of being offered drugs by “one of your favourite gay R&B singers”, who “tried to set me up and lie that I broke into his house”. He later posted a photo of himself with Khalid.Responding to the claims, Khalid posted an emoji of the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag and wrote: “There yall go, next topic please lol”.A later reply to a fan further confirmed that he was coming out as gay, stating: “I am! And that’s okay”.In another post, he added: “I got outted and the world still continues to turn.

The Binding veers into heart-pounding thriller territory, which the first trailer makes clear, with Avinoam practicing “binding” in frightening and quite literal ways.But who really holds the power here? As the film leans into the tense, constantly shifting dynamics between these two men from different walks of life, it explores the intersections of faith and identity, love and obsession, trauma and true freedom.From writer-director Eyal Kantor, The Binding is the second of a planned trilogy exploring intimacy and loss through a gay lens.Kantor’s previous film, Like Me, also happened to star Yoav Keren as a young man trying to find his way through the world, falling into the dangerous orbit of an older man. Interestingly, in that story, Keren’s protagonist is an amateur model, and it seems he’s posed for some photos in The Binding, too.