Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz mocked the recent increase in anti-LGBTQ book bans during a speech for the Human Rights Campaign.

Delivering the keynote Saturday evening at the HRC’s National Dinner, Walz made fun of recent attempts to ban children’s books like And Tango Makes Three, according to LGBTQ Nation. That beloved kid’s book is based on the true story of two gay penguins in a zoo who raised a chick on their own.

“[In Minnesota], we banned banning books, especially banning LGBTQ books,” Walz said. “This is what these folks are focusing on, spending all their time. Like reading about two male penguins who love each other is somehow going to turn your children gay, and that’s what you should worry about.

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“But here’s what I’ll tell you, it’s a fact of life: Some people are gay. But you know what’s not a fact of life? That our children need to be be shot dead in schools. That’s not a fact of life. Folks are banning books, but they’re okay with weapons of war being in our schools.”

On Thursday, Ohio Senator JD Vance addressed the September 4 shooting at the Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Walz’s opponent in the vice presidential race was criticized for characterizing school shootings as a “fact of life.”

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said, according to the Associated Press. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”

Attempts to block children from accessing LGBTQ-themed children’s books have ramped up in the last few years. In July, a law went into effect in Idaho that bans “obscene materials” from being seen by people under 18. While that may sound on its face to be unobjectionable, the law defines the term broadly. One of the types of content flagged as “obscene” is portrayals of “homosexuality.” There is no additional clarification to determine if this means sex acts, or the mere existence of gay people. If a library violates this law, it is hit with a $250 mandatory fine. If a patron should sue, there is no cap to the amount of money a judge could award them in damages, according to LGBTQ Nation.

LGBTQ-themed books are also frequently challenged and banned. In 2022, over half of the top 13 most-challenged books had queer themes or characters, LGBTQ Nation reported.

Walz has not made a secret of his support for the LGBTQ community. When he was a teacher, he was the advisor to his school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, according to the New York Times.

When it comes to trans kids playing team sports, anti-LGBTQ activists and politicians have been trying to block them from joining teams with other players of the gender they identify with. But two recent rulings have brought good news — and hopefully a signal that things are changing.

An 11-year-old girl identified as “Janie Doe” sued the Hanover County, Virginia school district after the school board tried to block her from playing on the girls’ tennis team. On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck issued an injunction forcing the school district to let her try out for the team, according to the Hill.

The injunction isn’t a final ruling — Judge Lauck is yet to hear the full case. But the injunction is a sign that Lauck may rule that the Hanover County board went against Title IX, the law banning sex-based discrimination in schools, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, according to the ACLU, who filed the lawsuit on Doe’s behalf.

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“Janie has established that the Board excluded her, on the basis of sex, from participating in an education program when it denied her application to try out for (and if selected, to participate on) her school’s girls’ tennis team,” wrote the U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck. She added the school board’s ban of trans kids on gendered teams “contravene[s] the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds, including on the basis of gender identity.”

In a separate case, two transgender teens filed suit against New Hampshire over H.B. 1205, a law banning trans women and girls from joining women’s teams at public schools and colleges. The two teens, Parker Tirrell, 15, and Iris Turmelle, 14, make similar arguments as in the Doe case, that the law violates Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

The law was due to go into effect on Sunday, but on Monday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Landya McCafferty issued an emergency injunction against the law while the case is decided.

Tirrell attended court Monday in her soccer uniform, according to LGBTQ Nation, and headed directly to her team’s soccer practice.

“We’re there for each other, win or lose,” Tirrell said in a press release. “Not being allowed to play on my team with the other girls would disconnect me from so many of my friends and make school so much harder. I just want to be myself and to learn, play, and support my teammates like I did last year.”

Like the Doe case, the ruling is just a pause on H.B. 1205 while the case is decided, but the willingness of the judge to issue the injunction could be seen as a good sign for the future of the case.

President Joe Biden said he was using his clemency authority to pardon LGBTQ service members who were convicted of violating the military policy against homosexuality. This comes less than a week after a magistrate judge ruled a lawsuit against the Department of Defense over the discharges of gay veterans could move forward.

Biden issued a statement on X Wednesday morning announcing the decision.

Despite courage and sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

I'm using my clemency authority to pardon certain former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves. pic.twitter.com/KquoMizp1V

— President Biden (@POTUS) June 26, 2024

“Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted for simply being themselves,” the statement read. “Despite their courage and great sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

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In this case, clemency only applies to those who were convicted or court-martialed.

While in 1993, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy went into effect, LGBTQ service members could serve while in the closet. Their superiors could not ask if they were gay, but they could not disclose it themselves, either. Those who came out would be discharged, usually with other-than-honorable discharges.

However, sodomy was still criminalized in the U.S. military, meaning that service members could be court-martialed and convicted if they had homosexual sex. Biden’s order affects these service members.

The order will also apply to service members who have since died, according to NBC News.

This follows the ruling on Friday from Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero that a lawsuit filed by five LGBTQ veterans against the DOD could proceed. The five veterans were suing to upgrade their discharges to honorable and remove all references to sexual orientation from their discharge paperwork.

Veterans who were given other-than-honorable discharges face a number of hurdles. They are unable to re-enlist, even now that the rule they violated is no longer in effect. They are also blocked from accessing services from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In February, the DOD said it was working to upgrade LGBTQ veterans’ discharges to honorable. However, it didn’t provide a timeline. Up until that point, veterans had to explicitly petition the government to have their discharge paperwork updated. The update process was described in the suit as “burdensome, opaque, expensive, and for many veterans virtually inaccessible.”

In 2011, the year “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was lifted, the memorandum doing so said that it was unnecessary to automatically update discharge paperwork for vets thrown out by the policy. However, it was only two years later when the Uniform Code of Military Justice was updated to remove its ban on sodomy.

Biden’s statement did not reveal a number of service members who would be affected by his order. According to the lawsuit, over 35,000 members of the U.S. military had been discharged under the ban on homosexuality between 1980 and 2011.

Biden’s clemency order falls on the 9th anniversary of the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States.