After HERO Defeat in Houston, Dallas Lawmakers Strengthen Transgender Protections
Council Votes Unanimously To Amend Nondiscrimination Ordinance
Take that, Houston. Â Â
Just one week after voters overwhelmingly repealed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, the Dallas City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to strengthen their city’s nondiscrimination law.Â
HERO was defeated largely due to opponents’ false claims that transgender protections in public accommodations would allow men to enter women’s restrooms and prey on victims. But in Dallas, the council actually voted to clarify transgender protections that have been in place since 2002.Â
When the Dallas ordinance was approved, “gender identity†was erroneously included under the definition of “sexual orientation.†The ordinance prohibits discrimination citywide in employment, housing and public accommodations. On Tuesday, the council voted to list “gender identity and expression†separately alongside sexual orientation, and more clearly define the terms.
“This is very near and dear to us,” Rafael McDonnell, a spokesman for the city’s LGBT community center, told the council prior to the vote. “Words have meaning, and your vote today will give life to those words, and be seen not only in Dallas but around the country as support for the LGBT community.â€Â
The 15-member council approved the changes with little discussion.Â
Councilman Adam Medrano, who heads the city’s LGBT Task Force, which proposed the changes, thanked members for their work. Mayor Mike Rawlings thanked Medrano.Â
“We’re a very diverse city,” Rawlings said. “We want to make sure everyone’s protected.”
Oliver Blumer, a transgender man who serves on the city’s LGBT Task Force, told the council the amendments will help local employers recruit and retain talented workers.Â
“It’s good business,” he said.Â
Omar Narvaez, another member of the Task Force, which proposed the new language, noted that in 2014, 77 percent of Dallas voters approved an amendment to the city’s charter protecting LGBT city employees against discrimination. The amended citywide nondiscrimination ordinance mirrors the language in the charter.Â
“We’ve always been a leader when it comes to LGBT rights, not just in the state of Texas but across the nation,” Narvaez said. “Let’s keep Dallas a state leader on equality.â€
Patti Fink, another member of the Task Force, said although the 2002 ordinance legally protected transgender people, the language wasn’t clear.Â
“The transgender community believes they’re not included, because the definition of gender identity is stuffed into the definition of sexual orientation,” she said. Â
Minutes prior to Tuesday’s vote, the anti-LGBT hate group Texas Values notified its followers on Facebook. Texas Values was among the groups that helped defeat HERO in Houston.Â
“Breaking: City of Dallas is trying to fast track a bathroom bill similar to the one defeated last week in Houston,” Texas Values wrote. “Spread the word.”Â
Phillip Jones, CEO of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau, said last week he feared the repeal of HERO in Houston could hurt the entire state when it comes to booking national conventions. But Jones also said HERO’s defeat could allow Dallas — which recently launched an LGBT tourism campaign called “All Love is Big Loveâ€Â — to lure conventions away from Houston. Jones even joked that the city’s new slogan should be, “Dallas: Aren’t You Glad We’re Not Houston.â€Â
Under Dallas’ amended ordinance, gender identity and expression are defined as “an individual’s real or perceived gender identity as male, female, both, or neither.†Sexual orientation is defined as “the actual or perceived status of an individual with respect to the individual’s sexuality,†including heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual.”
In addition, the council added a declaration saying the city of Dallas encourages all entities to recognize the rights of all individuals, regardless of whether they’re exempt from the nondiscrimination ordinance. For example, the ordinance exempts religious organizations and companies with fewer than 15 employees, as well as state and federal government agencies.
Violations of the Dallas ordinance are a class-C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, but the city strives to resolve complaints through mediation. In 2014, officials reported that none of the 61 complaints received since the ordinance took effect 13 years ago led to a prosecution.
Read the changes to Dallas’ amended citywide nondiscrimination ordinance below.Â
Image by City of Dallas/Twitter
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
