Mark Smith for BuzzFeed News

My eyes landed on a digital alarm clock on Bryan’s nightstand. It read 3:12 a.m. in big block numbers. Bryan whispered in my ear, his breath hot on my neck: “Stay there.” My head still spinning from the club, I tried to focus on the clock’s numbers, and only on the clock’s numbers. I added them up to six. I rearranged them in order: 1, 2, 3.

A month earlier, I had come out to a friend over the phone, pacing in the backyard of my parents’ house in rural Oklahoma. I was 20. My feet crunched on dead yellow grass as I walked back and forth in front of a barbed wire fence out by the cows. “I think I’m gay,” I said. With those magic words, a place opened up for me — one where I was no longer hiding, but one where I was utterly alone. Until Bryan.

I randomly added him on Facebook shortly after I came out. He was tagged in one of my straight friend’s pics at a party, and I saw he had listed himself as “interested in men” on his profile. I thought he was cute, and I was desperate to meet other gay people. He accepted my request, and we started chatting.

Bryan went to school in Stillwater but was in Oklahoma City for the summer. He was the first guy to express interest in me. He was nice, and he was attractive, and he knew all these things I didn’t know. We decided to meet up.

He was nice, and he was attractive, and he knew all these things I didn’t know.

Bryan knew where it was safe to hold hands, and where it wasn’t. He knew all these back roads where we could park and smoke and not get caught. He knew how to sneak me into the gay bars up in the city. He took me to one, a watering hole called Tramps, and he showed me this spot in the backyard, a concrete bench where I could stand and peek over into the neighboring hotel. “They’re cruising,” he said one night of the men who were pacing the corridors with trucker caps tilted over their eyes and hands jammed in their pockets.

Gay life was shadowed in mystery back then: a seedy, boozy underworld where people hid their faces and talked in code. But Bryan knew just about everything there was to know about it. Bartenders would call him “sugar” and wink at him when he walked in. Drag queens would dance on his lap. He got invited to all the parties, and he’d take me with him. Every day, he’d pull back a curtain and show me something new. He’d explain it. He’d guide me with his hands.

Soon after we started seeing each other, when he first asked if he could top me, I said, “In what?” I thought he was going to reply Mario Kart or something. It was that bad. I look back, and I think that 20 is pretty old to still not know anything about anything.

But I was the product of a perfect storm of ignorance. Like many young queer people across the country, I didn’t have access to comprehensive sexual education. This was years before Teen Vogue published its controversial anal sex guide, and representations of gayness on TV didn’t really exist beyond the occasional punchline. I didn’t have an internet community to turn to. I didn’t have mentors to teach me. And I never dared to look at porn or dirty magazines, either, because I was afraid of God.

I didn’t even know what “gay” was until I was called it at summer camp. Everything I knew about homosexuality, I learned from other kids. I learned that being perceived as gay meant getting your ass kicked on the regular. I learned that physical intimacy between men was disgusting, something to scoff at, laugh at, gag at. I learned that AIDS was God’s way of punishing the homosexuals for their misdeeds. I learned that their lives were empty.

What I learned from my peers was never corrected in the classroom, where our teachers weren’t allowed to bring up homosexuality in any context other than scaremongering about disease. Oklahoma is one of eight “no promo homo” states — for publicly funded schools, mentioning homosexuality is only allowed in the classroom if it’s to caution students about AIDS.

I’d gone to Catholic school for the first six years of my formal education, where any reference to sex, much less homosexuality, had been meticulously scrubbed from the curriculum. I didn’t fare much better in my public middle school out in the middle of nowhere, where I had my first-ever experience with sex ed. We were taught in a class called “physical health” to abstain from sex unless we wanted an STD or a pregnancy. Gay people weren’t mentioned.

The only thing sex ed accomplished in teaching me about gay people was that we weren’t supposed to exist.

Regardless of sexual orientation, abstinence was the promoted policy for us teenagers, as is still the case in the majority of states. This, of course, didn’t make anyone stop having sex, just like not mentioning gay people didn’t make me disappear. Teenage pregnancy rates are highest in states with abstinence-only sex education, and abstinence-only programs have not been proven to reduce sexually transmitted infection rates or a person’s number of sex partners.

The only thing sex ed accomplished in teaching me about gay people was that we weren’t supposed to exist, and I abided by that religiously. I hid myself so thoroughly and with such paranoia that I was willing to do just about anything to keep it a secret, to make it seem like I was straight.

The first time I had sex was in the back of an empty movie theater with a girl I didn’t know that well. I don’t remember her name. I know that I was 15, and that she was older than me, and that she smelled like lavender. I was at an age when the boys in my class were bragging about sex, and anyone who hadn’t done it was either a loser or a faggot or both. People were starting to catch on to me. I was terrified of them finding out.

We lay down on the folding theater seats, me on top, her underneath. I was scared, not only because I didn’t know what I was doing, but also because my classmates had told me rumors about the seats in the theater. They told me I could get STDs because of all the people who’d had sex on them. They told me I could get AIDS from the used needles that druggies had left behind. But my anxiety about being gay — not just being called gay, but secretly knowing that I was — trumped my fears of the dark theater.

I was at a party in high school when sex came up again, the party where I got drunk for the first time. A friend of mine moved away, but no one lived in the family's old house yet. There was no air conditioning and no plumbing. We sat cross-legged on the dirty carpet and drank until we were wasted, then we crash-landed on couches and pillows and spare mattresses. I ended up next to this guy, another friend. His hands started searching all over me under the sheets, his speech slurred. “Dude, I’m so wasted,” he said. “I’m not even gay.” He said that a few times while I wondered what to do. “I’m not even gay.”

The night Bryan drove me back to his place after taking me to the club, I was slumped over in the passenger seat of his car, my eyes shut tight. Watching the passing streetlights was making me nauseous. I worried I was going to throw up.

“Have you thought more about bottoming?” Bryan asked me as he drove. He’d been bringing it up a lot lately. I knew it was something he wanted me to do, but I wasn’t ready. I looked over at him incredulously, wondering why he’d ask me again. I was in no condition to try it that night. “Not now,” I said. We rode in silence back to his place. He guided me to his bed, set me down on my stomach, and I fell asleep.

I didn’t know men could be raped.

At 3:12 am, he penetrated me without lube and without a condom. I was passed out on his bed, and when I woke up, he was inside of me. While I stared at the clock and waited for him to finish, my first thought was not that I was being raped. I didn’t know men could be raped. My first thought was that if I pushed him off, he’d be upset with me.

Weeks went by, and I didn’t get tested for anything. I didn’t know that was what I was supposed to do. I only knew that I didn’t see Bryan the same way after that night, and that I called things off with him shortly after. Still, I didn’t think he had done anything wrong. We were dating, and he wanted to hook up in his bed. I thought that breaking up with him would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.

Every once in a while, I would have nightmares about Bryan touching me. Nightmares where I was clutching the quilt on his bed, and some invisible force was pushing me down, anchoring me in place. I would feel occasional white-hot spurts of anger, but I couldn’t identify its source.

These thoughts and emotions only existed as frightening, amorphous figures in the dark, and I didn’t have the vocabulary to name them, to give them shape and texture. I sat with them, and they spoke to me in a language I didn’t speak, because I’d never learned how.

I read somewhere that monsters are only monsters because we don’t understand them or can’t explain them. That makes sense to me. It wasn’t until months later, when I told a friend in college what had happened to me and he suggested I see a counselor at the campus health center, that I came to understand my own experience and was able to process my feelings. It was after that that I realized what a scary place I had been in without even knowing it. Education can’t guarantee your safety. But I was uneducated — about gay sex, about consent — and that made me more vulnerable.

Abstinence-only sex ed and “no pro homo” laws keeps kids in the dark, leaving them with bodies they don’t fully understand and experiences they have no context for. Policymakers might think they’re protecting young people by keeping them uninformed. But it’s in the shadows of ignorance where the monsters are.

I had another nightmare not too long ago. I was in a dark room. A hand anchored me to the floor with overwhelming strength. It paralyzed me. All I could do was wait and watch. I woke up in a sweat, and as the world came back into focus around me and the dream receded to the back of my mind, I breathed a sigh of relief that the light was on, and that I could move.

Trystan Reese with his daughter, Hailey.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

"I thought I would be fearless. Who cares that I’m a pregnant man? Fuck it! But I was actually really scared of being hurt or attacked. All my radical, queer, devil-may-care attitude dissipated because every part of my body was dedicated to keeping this baby safe and keeping me safe."

For the past four years, Trystan Reese has lived in Portland, Oregon, with his husband, Biff Chaplow and their two adopted children (Chaplow's biological niece and nephew). Their day-to-day lives are, for the most part, textbook ordinary — school, work, playdates, grocery-store run, repeat. The kids call Trystan “Daddy” and Reese “Dada.”

Recently, Trystan and Biff began to discuss the idea of expanding their family. Trystan, a 34-year-old trans man, would carry the couple's first biological child. After Trystan got pregnant, the couple made the decision to share part of their journey online, but they did not plan on having their story go viral. While a trans man carrying a child is by no means a medical miracle, and Trystan is certainly not the first to do so in the public eye — think Thomas Beatie on Oprah in 2008 — their story has still attracted attention, both negative and positive.

We visited Trystan and Biff at their home in Portland when Trystan was nine months pregnant — on his due date, in fact — to hear more about why they chose to share their story online, what it means to be a trans parent, and what the future holds for queer families like theirs. The following account has been collected from various in-person and phone interviews leading up to the birth of Trystan and Biff’s son Leo. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

Trystan: In 2010 I met Biff. We were both really involved in the LGBT community; me on the more political organizing side and Biff on the more social and economic justice side. We met at a trans community brunch hosted by a mutual friend (Biff being the only non-trans person at the brunch). My trans radar is pretty finely tuned, so it wasn’t a surprise. I was interested in him from the second I saw him. He was not at all interested in me — partially because, as I would later learn, I had food stuck in my teeth. I know, I can’t be bitter at my friends anymore because it all worked out, but come on.

I don’t think we’ve spent a night apart, aside from work travels. There’s never any need to. We wanted to do this right, having made a lot of mistakes in past relationships.

We waited a year to move in together, but three months after moving in we got the phone call letting us know his sister’s kids were going to go into foster care if we didn’t take them and...could we take them? It had been a year in coming — we knew their situation wasn’t stable. Biff was basically Mom Jr. growing up, helping raise his siblings. He wanted us to be able to have this time where we still had independence and freedom, but this phone call came, pretty much saying if we didn’t take these kids, his sister wasn’t going to be able to get them back. We’d probably never see them again. The answer seemed very clear to me: Of course we would do this.

Biff and Trystan photographed with their kids Riley and Hailey.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

This was way bigger than us getting married — this was an 18-plus-year commitment. We’ve had them in our lives for five years now, six in September. We celebrate our family day every year, the day they came to live with us. It’s the one time of the year they can ask us questions, we can be together as a family. Every year they have different questions about that, so we want to make sure the questions and conversations are always developing along with them so they can understand.

The kids are so enmeshed into our lives and into our identity now as fathers. I can’t imagine things going any differently. I had moments of doubt, where I thought, Can we undo this decision? Maybe I should be the fun uncle, not the dad. But Biff and I balance each other out — when I’m unsteady, he guides me back to the path. I don’t know if I would have known I had chosen so well in a partner if all this hadn’t happened to us. There is nobody better suited for me, better suited to be with me on this journey with me, than he is.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

I have a huge Peter Pan tattoo on one of my arms. That was always my thing: Never grow up. When I transitioned — that was 14 years ago now — when I first started taking hormones I never wanted to get married, period. I didn’t want to own a house, I didn’t even want to own a car! I always wanted to be footloose and fancy-free. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized I was ready for what’s next, to be partnered with someone or someones.

I thought I was giving up having a family — I didn’t even think of it as an option. I didn’t ever dream of having, or wanting to have, a biological child. One, I didn’t think it would be possible, and two, it took a long time for me to be strong enough in my identity as a man to be able to do that. And I wouldn’t want to just have a child — I want to have Biff’s child. It wasn’t until I met him that I finally understood what all those straight people are talking about. I definitely teased my sister when she had kids. Why do you want to have kids? Why is your DNA so special? And now look at me. And it’s not even my DNA that’s so special, it’s his.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

I wanted to make sure I understood the medical side of it — I didn’t want this to be an experiment.

Since I met Biff, I had started to have thoughts of, What if we had a baby together and I carried? But our other kids came along so quickly before we could discuss it. That took over our entire lives and became the central focus for years. It wasn’t until the adoption was finalized, about two years ago, that it felt like the dust from all that had settled. Now, I thought, We can build our life the way that we want.

I became really consumed by this idea of having a baby. I let it sit for a long time and I really thought about it, doing research. We know a lot of other trans men who have had babies, who have done so very responsibly under medical supervision, and their pregnancies have been happy and healthy. I wanted to make sure I understood the medical side of it — I didn’t want this to be an experiment.

I said to Biff, "I wonder what you would think about us having a baby, a biological child that I would carry?" Initially, he said no. He thought it was the dumbest idea in the world. He was worried about my personal safety. On the other hand, our kids had finally gotten to an age where we could sleep in until 8 in the morning — why would we start over from scratch? Dear lord, why would we ever do that.

We both took some time to think about it, and in a couple months he came to me and admitted he did some soul searching. If it was something I wanted to do, he was open to exploring it.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

I went to a pregnancy specialist here in Portland that my insurance happened to cover. I discussed it with them, they ultrasounded all my parts, and they came to the conclusion that this wouldn’t be too different from women who have been on hormonal birth control and had stopped their cycle for years. I needed to stop taking testosterone to have a few normal cycles, and the difference would be pretty minimal between me and a woman attempting to conceive. So I stopped taking hormones.

The first time we conceived I didn’t know I was ovulating, and instead of my cycle coming back I got pregnant right away. Which is not uncommon, as it turns out; the first time you ovulate after a long time you can hyper-ovulate, which ups your odds even if your body isn’t ready yet to carry a baby to term. That pregnancy only lasted a few weeks.

The nurses and doctors let me know that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriages, so this wasn’t any reason to be discouraged. Every fiber of my being felt we needed to start trying again — today. But it spooked Biff. Going off hormones meant huge mood swings and challenges for me emotionally that he had to navigate. All the while, we were parenting two other kids, trying to show up for them and be good parents. It was a lot. He said it was too much, that we should wait a year. Hearing him say that sent me into a panic. But I trust him, and if he wanted us to wait a year, we should wait a year. Having a baby wasn’t as important as us being in a healthy relationship."

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

I know that hormones play a part in our personalities, but I thought, I’m an adult. I know how to manage my emotions and reactions. I seriously underestimated the effect that hormones and the balance of hormones in one’s body and brain affect your personality and the way you interact with the world and respond to things. It was terrible. It wasn’t terrible just from a trans perspective — it was terrible from a human’s perspective. I didn’t feel unregulated from my gender, it was just that little things bothered me so much more! I was getting in horrible moods for reasons that I couldn’t explain. It was really difficult, and I pride myself on being a good parent and a good partner, but those things were so much harder when my hormones were all wonky.

We then actively tried not to get pregnant, but quickly realized it would be hard for me to be off hormones for a year, or to go off and then go back on.

I’m meeting with a medical team tomorrow to find out how soon after the pregnancy I’ll be able to go back on hormones. Sometimes testosterone helps the body heal faster. If I don’t have a C-section I should wait longer, but if I do it could be helpful to get back on. My goal is to go back on hormones as soon as possible. It’s something I’m very much looking forward to.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

It was a big and very conscious decision to share our story publicly online. There are certain things we won’t share, period. We are also selective about who we give our story to. Piers Morgan offered to interview us and we said no; that’s a conversation that’s going to be rooted in defending our right to exist and we’re not interested. What we looked at was the landscape of the trans movement and trans acceptance in our culture today. Would telling our story help move the conversation forward? Do we have the opportunity to broaden and expand what it means to be trans in America today? Will it be too provocative and drive people away from trans acceptance? Are people ready for us?

Ten years ago, when Thomas Beatie came out [as a trans man who was pregnant], I don’t think the public was ready. I think his story did more harm than good. I was a young trans person at the time and I remember being so angry with him: People are not ready for this, why did you do this to us?

Now we look at Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and people really pushing for trans acceptance and celebration. We thought we had the chance to do some good here. The whole reason I wanted to be more public was because I’m ready for the next trans narrative. This idea that to be trans means that we hate our bodies, that we wish we weren’t born in the bodies we were given, that we want to be just like non-trans people or the gender we’re transitioning to — that’s just not true for a lot of us. We’re delighted with who we are. It’s true for some trans people, but not for all of us.

Do we have the opportunity to broaden and expand what it means to be trans in America today?

Shockingly, the most backlash we’ve had has come from within the LGBT community, from the more radical left. People have said we should stop gendering our baby. He’s male, it’s a boy, and we’re giving him a more traditionally masculine name. Nothing is good enough. How much more of a risk do you want us to take? How much more unsafe do you need us to be? I am trans, I am a pregnant man, I have thought about this. This is not something we’re doing because we believe in the gender binary — but statistically, we will probably have a boy-identified child. Being trans is still rare; he probably won’t be trans. We aren’t trying to make things harder for him or ourselves on top of everything that’s already going on. Being gender neutral is also a choice he is equally likely to be unhappy with than if we picked a gender he is not in alignment with. I certainly survived and thrived being raised with certain gender norms and having to adjust and adapt. I don’t feel like it was the worst thing that could have happened to me.

Everyone feels the right to their opinion and to share it with us. The hateful messages are on a spectrum. There is "I don’t judge you, but you shouldn’t bring a child into the world when you know they’re going to be teased for being different." Which is shocking to me, because any oppressed person could hear that. How dare I bring a child into this world? I’m not going to stop living my life because everyone else is fucked up. That’s the most mild of the hatred.

Then, there’s the sexual stuff. "This is so hot, send me nudes." Oh god, no. Those are in that random, weird category where it’s just funny to me.

Then there is, "This is the rainbow people just trying to push their agenda."

And then there is the super-4chan, neo-Nazi, really scary, brutal, "You look like a circus freak," "I hope your baby dies" kind of stuff. "You’re a cancerous piece of shit."

I get those on a daily basis.

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed

I have to train myself to not go there, to not read the comments. It’s a poison and it will absolutely get to me. The people in my life have helped sort through. I’m so lucky to have amazing allies in my life that help. Friends monitor my Facebook page and go through several times a day to delete hateful comments, ban people. So I never really have to see any of the comments anymore. If positive messages come through, they send me those. They send me the 15-year-old trans kid from Michigan.

There is nothing that people can say that I haven’t already heard.

I’ve been trans for more than a decade, which in the trans world is a long-ass time. I’m a trans elder at this point. The lifespan of trans people has never been particularly long. I have a very high level of resilience toward things that people say. I navigated the world of gay men as a trans guy; I’ve been through Grindr. People don’t say things out of malice — usually, it’s out of ignorance or curiosity. There is nothing that people can say that I haven’t already heard. I learned early on how to pick my battles and use my energy in the best way.

Biff: The more people that show support, that share our stuff with supportive messages, the more pressure there is on other people to take that seriously. There is a group of people that will treat it like a freak show no matter what.

Trystan: We’re not here for them. From the transgender community, I almost expected to get, "You’re making things harder for us. You’re confusing people." I expected way more of that, but that isn’t what we’ve heard. We’ve heard, overwhelmingly from LGBT people, "Thank you for expanding what it means to be a man, to be trans, to be a family."

Sarah Karlan for BuzzFeed News

I’ll probably never be able to look at salad the same again, tbh.

What ~gets you going~ can be totally different from what turns another person on, or maybe it's not. It's hard to know since it's really not that often you get to hear what puts other people ~in the mood~.

So we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share the uncommon and surprising things that turn them on. Here are some of the incredibly specific foods that they told us (and to be clear, we're talking about stuff being done by/between consenting adults):

Eating raspberries

"They give me this weird tingle in my mouth that I can only describe as like 'an orgasm in my jaw,' which gets me thinking of orgasms and feeling sexy. It's just raspberries, too — no other food can do this for me. It seems to always get things going. It happens every time I eat raspberries, or see them in the grocery store."

—27/Female/Lesbian

wifflegif.com

Burgers

"I get seriously turned on anytime my partner eats a burger. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's how messy the burger is, or maybe it's knowing she is comfortable enough to eat something messy like a burger around me. But whatever it is, it never fails to turn me on — whenever we go to McDonald's and she orders a Big Mac I am in heaven. It happens anytime she's eating a burger/talking about eating one."

—18/Female/Gay

CBS / Via tenor.com

Cookie dough

"Sometimes making cookie dough does the trick for me. I think I was really horny one time but couldn't do anything about it at the moment due to the circumstances, so I made cookies to have something to do. Now I have this strange association where I'll go to make cookies and end up aroused. Oops."

—20/Female/Bisexual

Thitareesarmkasat / Getty Images

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A week after Janet Mock’s appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show, the hosts are coming under fire for their interview with comedian Lil Duval, who joked about killing trans women.

Janet Mock has published a response to the controversy following her recent appearance on the popular — and often contentious — Power 105.1 morning talk show, The Breakfast Club.

One week after Mock's appearance on the program, hosted by Angela Yee, DJ Envy, and Charlamagne Tha God, comedian Lil Duval came on the show and made several comments about Mock and trans women, saying that if he found out a woman he had slept with was transgender, he would have to kill her. The interview was published in full on their Youtube page on July 28th.

After discussing Trump's proposed ban on trans service members in the military, DJ Envy posed a hypothetical question to the comedian about dating and sleeping with a woman who later discloses that she’s transgender. “This might sound messed up and I don’t care,” Duval responded. “She dying. I can’t deal with that.”

Charlamagne jumps in to point out that killing a trans woman would be considered a hate crime. "You can't do that," he says.

Duval inferred that there should be "repercussions" for a trans woman who sleeps with a man without disclosing her gender identity. "You should go to jail or something," Charlamagne agrees, mentioning the show's previous interview with Janet Mock, when they discussed the topic of disclosure. "But you can't go around killing transgenders," he said.

“If one did that to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’d probably going to want to kill them," Duval responded.

Some of the hosts laughed in response to Duval's comments. DJ Envy placed Janet Mock's book, which has a large photo of the author on the cover, on the table in front of Duval. Both Charlamagne and Yee tried to convince Duval that Mock is pretty. "Nope," he said, referring to Mock with male pronouns, drawing more laughs from the hosts.

instagram.com

I was hopeful that I could use the show’s vast platform to speak directly to their predominantly black and Latinx listeners, who are often excluded from the conversations held in mainstream LGBT spaces (which are largely white, moneyed, and concerned with the centering of cis folk). I hoped I could make listeners aware of the lived realities of their trans sisters, and let them know that we deserve to be seen, heard, and acknowledged without the threat of harassment, exclusion, and violence.

My ultimate goal was to be accessible — to not judge, to call in rather than call out, and, above all, to exercise patience as the (straight cis male) hosts processed my existence.

Mock calls out the show's hosts for laughing at Duval's comments and using her book "as a literal prop for laughs, vitriol, and a deeper call and justification for violence," only one week after speaking with her.

"Just so we are all clear," she begins, "On a black program that often advocates for the safety and lives of black people, its hosts laughed as their guest advocated for the murder of black trans women who are black people, too!"

For Duval, she had several choice words. "This was not the first time that I’ve been misgendered, dismissed, told that I am an abomination, that I need medical help and God, et cetera, et cetera. Boo boo: You are not original," she wrote. "Everything you’ve spewed has been said to me and my sisters before — hundreds of times. But there are deeper consequences to this casual ignorance."

Twitter: @janetmock

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BRB, I need tissues.

Hey friends, I have something ~wholesome~ for you: the short film In a Heartbeat was released today.

Ringling College of Art and Design

The movie started as two students' senior thesis at Ringling College of Art and Design and had a Kickstarter.

THEY. GOT. $14,000. AND. ONLY. ASKED. FOR. $3,000.

Kickstarter

Twitter

The film follows Sherwin, a boy who is in the closet, as his heart chases his crush, Jonathan, around school.

Sherwin is me, TBH.

Ringling College of Art and Design

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It's crunch time, folks – well, maybe. The long-speculated private members' bill on marriage equality is reportedly hitting the government party room next week.

Liberal MPs Tim Wilson, Trent Zimmerman and Trevor Evans.

Lukas Coch / AAPIMAGE

BuzzFeed News understands a private members' bill is in the works, ahead of it possibly being presented to the government party room as early as next week.

The private members' bill would legalise marriage equality and likely be designed to allow religious ministers and a new category of religious civil celebrants to refuse to preside over same-sex weddings.

It sets the stage for a potentially explosive party room meeting in the coming weeks.

The speculation comes after a hectic Monday of same-sex marriage chat, which began with a PR blitz from pro-marriage equality Liberals suggesting it was time to push ahead on the issue.

“There is still a number of ways to achieve reform," Brisbane MP Trevor Evans told The Australian. "But I think the quickest and most likely course now is to allow politicians to have a free vote … and I support that."

On Sky News Victorian MP Tim Wilson said he would be talking to his colleagues about the challenge on marriage equality in coming weeks.

"I always said politely that the plebiscite wasn’t my first preference for a way to deal with this issue," he said. "I also have a personal conflict which torments, frankly, and challenges me on a daily basis, and I’d like to see this issue resolved."

But in response to all this, prime minister Malcolm Turnbull did not issue a public slap down – instead, giving what some political watchers have interpreted as a green light for the marriage equality rebels.

"In our party, backbenchers have always had the right to cross the floor," he said.

"In the Labor Party, you get expelled for doing that," he said. "It's always been a fundamental principle in the Liberal Party and indeed the National Party. So it's a very different political culture to the very authoritarian and centrally controlled culture of the Labor Party."

So stop, rewind, Australia has been arguing about marriage equality for years. How did we finally get here?

A private members bill from government backbenchers has been the subject of rumour since a combination of Labor, Greens and crossbench MPs voted down the plebiscite in the Senate last November.

Yes, it was just nine months ago.

About three weeks ago, Liberal senator Dean Smith announced he had been working on a bill and would bring it to the party room for a free vote.

Minister for immigration Peter Dutton.

Mick Tsikas / AAPIMAGE

Following Smith's announcement, the spotlight swung back onto opponents of same-sex marriage, with prominent conservatives including Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott publicly endorsing a national, non-binding postal vote on marriage that could be held without legislation having to pass the Senate.

And then last week Tony Abbott tweeted that the Liberal party was not "bound on the issue" of same-sex marriage itself, but was "honour bound" to the electorate to hold a national vote on marriage equality, as the government had taken its plebiscite policy to the last election.

So when this much-touted bill reaches the party room, one of two things could happen.

First, the room could agree to ditch the plebiscite and hold a free vote. Given the enormous distraction same-sex marriage has been for the government, this vote could be brought on quickly. If a free vote was held, all indicators suggest it would pass both the lower and upper house and become law.

The second option is that the party room sticks with its plebiscite policy. This would open the way for three government MPs to cross the floor and suspend standing orders so a vote could be taken.

You can read a detailed explanation of how that would work here, but basically all of Labor, plus the four pro-marriage equality lower house crossbenchers, plus at least three government MPs, would need to team up to suspend standing orders.

And the bill could pass – particularly if more MPs agree to vote yes to same-sex marriage as a result of the standing orders being suspended. Victorian Liberal Jason Wood told the Guardian today he was one such MP.

On the current numbers, the Senate would likely then pass the bill from the lower house, making marriage equality law in Australia.

Easy...right?

We know best.

Let's be honest, queer women of the world — we don't get a lot of actual romantic action on our favorite television shows.

lesbian-aesthetic-tho.tumblr.com

And because sharing is caring, we asked the queer women of the BuzzFeed Community about their favorite, steamiest, get-you-hot-n-bothered sex scenes from television.

The responses did not disappoint.

waverlyrp.tumblr.com

Carmen's strip-tease for Shane in Season 3 of The L Word:

"Ok, there's one on The L Word with Shane and Carmen and Shane is serving andro butch realness and Carmen is wearing this really hot lingerie. I literally watched this scene when I was first questioning whether I was attracted to girls and my answer was a resounding, 'Yes!'"

—Sarah Barowski, Facebook

Showtime

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Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft in 2015.

Mike Blake / Reuters

The head of the US Coast Guard said on Tuesday that he will not "break faith" with transgender service members under his command, despite President Trump's call for banning their involvement in the military.

The president last week announced via Twitter, without warning, that he would no longer "accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military," citing health care costs and "disruption."

The White House said the administration was still working to determine the specific details of the policy change, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders unable to say, for example, what would happen to transgender service members currently on active duty.

But speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies headquarters in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said he would not turn his back on them.

youtube.com

"The first thing we did [after Trump's announcement] is we reached out to all 13 members of the Coast Guard who have come out under a policy who declared themselves transgender," Zukunft said. "I reached out personally to Lt. Taylor Miller, who was featured on the cover of the Washington Post last week. If you read that story, Taylor's family has disowned her. Her family is the United States Coast Guard."

"And I told Taylor, 'I will not turn my back. We have made an investment in you, and you have made an investment in the Coast Guard, and I will not break faith,'" he said.

In an interview with the Washington Post last week, Miller had spoken of her shock and despair at Trump's announcement.

"You can’t just post it on Twitter and call it a day. It just really upset me that I didn’t get an official military guideline. Nobody really knows the next step. It’s scary,” she told the newspaper. “You have all these people who were comfortable with coming out. They told their leadership, and they trusted everyone. Now their lives and their families are in jeopardy.”

Adm. Zukunft said that after Trump's announcement he also reached out to the former secretary of homeland security, John Kelly, who was formally installed as the president's new chief of staff on Monday. According to Zukunft, Kelly then contacted Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

The Coast Guard has also assembled a team of military Judge Advocate General's Corps lawyers on the issue, Zukunft said.

Asked about Zukunft's comments at Tuesday's White House press briefing, Sanders said she was not aware of his remarks.

"I haven't heard those comments or had a chance to speak with any[one] about it, but I know that the goal is to work with all of the relevant departments, primarily the Department of Defense, to lawfully implement that new policy," she said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford said in a letter last week that there will be no changes for transgender personnel until the president sends further guidance.

"We will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect," Dunford said.

Army and Navy leaders echoed that message, saying all service members should "be treated with dignity and respect."

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimates that there are more than 15,000 transgender members of the various branches of the US military. The RAND Corporation estimates that there are between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender personnel in the active service, and between 830 and 4,160 in the selected reserve.

LINK: Top Military Leaders Say There Are No Current Changes For Transgender Service Members

LINK: Trump Says Transgender People Cannot "Serve In Any Capacity" In The Military

Television needs more LGBT characters, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some great people out there already.

Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) in Doctor Who

"It's awesome to see a black gay woman who is just casually queer and no one cares. I'm super upset she's not going to be in Season 11 though, because of course that's what happens."
– Charlotte, email

"I find her so inspiring and such a badass. She's a role model for younger girls and boys."
– harrietm4bc79670d

"Why did she have to leave so soon?!"
– georgiap40209bbcb

Watch it on: BBC iPlayer (UK), BBC America (US)

BBC / Via bbc.co.uk

Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) in Brooklyn Nine-Nine

"This is a man who's endured years of discrimination for being a black gay cop, and he's using it to be a force for good in his precinct and in his community. He's given all of them advice on how to overcome adversity."
– emilyadder

"What really does it for me is how this comedy show deals with issues around race/ethnicity, sexual identity, and gender. The characterisation of Holt just reiterates the struggles of being a black gay man rising up in the ranks of the NYPD and how defiance and hope allowed him to end up captaining a great squad who accept him."
– Justisabel

Watch it on: Netflix (excluding US), FOX Now (US)

NBCUniversal Television Distribution / Via youtube.com

Josh (Josh Thomas) in Please Like Me

"[Please Like Me is] so funny and sincere, and represents the best and hardest aspects of coming out, looking for love, and trying to figure out what you want to do and who you want to be."
– Michael, Facebook

"Josh is, at times, stubborn, childish, and spiteful. Other times he is lovable, charming, and very insightful. The show does a wonderful job in its portrayals of mental illness and portrayals of real relationships."
– Jacob, Facebook

"The portrayal is so real and I can imagine a lot of people will relate to his experience."
– megnas

Watch it on: Amazon Prime (UK), Hulu (US), ABC TV (Oz)

ABC / Pivot / Via Amazon Prime

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“Are you guys really defending capitalism? Are you serious? Right in front of my salad??”

A gay porn scene in which two men wearing aprons have sex in a kitchen while a woman sits at the counter eating salad has gone viral after people became quite entertained by the woman's reaction to the whole scenario: "Are you guys fucking? Are you serious?! Right in front of my salad?!"

Men.com / Via men.com

First, it was a reaction pretty much focused on that one iconic line:

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AAP

Not for the first time, Australian politics is abuzz with speculation about same-sex marriage.

The government is rocketing towards a dramatic showdown on the vexed issue, with Liberal moderates well down the path of a last-ditch push to drop the plebiscite...which, if unsuccessful, could culminate in a handful of MPs defying their party to cross the floor and force a vote on same-sex marriage.

BuzzFeed News understands wheels are turning for a private members' bill, penned by government backbenchers, which could be presented to the Coalition party room as early as next week.

Meanwhile, conservatives are pushing Plebiscite 2.0 – a noncompulsory postal version of the exact same policy roundly rejected by the Senate in November last year.

Alternatively, the government could reheat the original plebiscite and try to sway some minds in the Senate to get it through. Or all of this could all come to nothing.

We asked two couples integral to Australia's same-sex marriage debate – who have been watching wheels turn for 15 years as they raise their kids and live their lives – what they think of the current Coalition brouhaha.

Clockwise from left: Sarah Nichols, Cully, Scout, Jacqui Tomlins and Corin.

Lane Sainty / BuzzFeed

In 2004, two Melbourne couples – Jacqui Tomlins and Sarah Nichols, and Jason and Adrian Tuazon-McCheyne – sought to have their Canadian marriages recognised in Australia.

Their application to the Victorian Family Court provoked a response from then prime minister John Howard, who amended the Marriage Act to explicitly ban same-sex marriage.

On August 16, it will have been 13 years since the Coalition and Labor voted to insert the words "between a man and a woman" into the legislation – and Tomlins is still waiting for her marriage to be recognised.

She told BuzzFeed News that despite the current fuss, in her experience, "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings.

"My sense was that there had to be some kind of crisis before the election. It is a topic that just won’t go away.

"On the one hand I’m excited at this progression, but I'm still cautious about where this might go. [The suggestion] there’ll be marriage equality in a week’s time? I find that hard to get my head around."

Jason Tuazon-McCheyne is similarly sceptical: "I hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it."

He said watching the government's political manoeuvring over this issue is "like following Donald Trump".

"It’s extraordinary to watch, it’s like watching a pantomime or something," he said.

"Watching this cycle, it’s depressing but I’m hardened to it now, and will keep working towards the ultimate goal, which is equality."

Adrian and Jason Tuazon-McCheyne with their son, Ruben.

Supplied

Tuazon-McCheyne is optimistic that even in the "worst case scenario" marriage equality will pass shortly after the next federal election.

"Either the Coalition will get their act together now, or Labor will win and they will legislate it," he said.

"My understanding is that there’s a big chunk of the Coalition who would rather lose government than legislate for marriage equality."

Tomlins added that there is "a whole stack of other things" she and the LGBTI community more broadly would rather be advocating for, but instead, the marriage debate carries on endlessly.

"I also feel – I hate to say this – I’m bored. My brain is about to explode with the amount of time and energy we are all putting into this," she said.

One potential path forward being floated at the moment is a non-compulsory plebiscite, conducted by a postal vote.

The government can hold a non-compulsory vote on same-sex marriage without passing legislation through the Senate by contracting the Australian Electoral Commission to run a "fee-for-service" election.

The postal proposal has been floated before, but ramped up in previous weeks with Liberal National senator Barry O'Sullivan telling BuzzFeed News he would pursue the idea through "all avenues available".

Immigration minister Peter Dutton and former prime minister Tony Abbott have also lent support to the idea. But some election experts have flagged that the poll would likely under-represent younger voters and overstate opposition to same-sex marriage.

Both Tomlins and Tuazon-McCheyne campaigned vigorously against the plebiscite in the first instance, and believe its postal iteration is even less compelling.

"It's an absolutely insane idea by any measure," said Tomlins. "I think it is a very last desperate attempt by a cohort of the Liberals to delay, to justify their current path.

"I feel exactly the same as I did when we campaigned before. I talked to my kids about it, and they get it. They’re rolling their eyes about it."

Tomlins and Nichols have three children, aged 10, 12, and 14.

"They’ve been dealing with this their whole lives," Tomlins said. "For them, it is important. Increasingly, their life experience is that everybody in their own world – their school, their community – is extremely positive. They don’t get why this is a problem. You have two people who love each other, your parents. Why can’t they get married? It doesn’t make sense.

"Living with that every day, knowing where the kids are at, I struggle with that some days. I want it resolved for them. I know the joy it will bring them."

*opens in an incognito tab*

Note: Not all submissions are from Community users.

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Doctor’s appointments, insurance, and recovery — oh my!

When someone makes the decision to transition, part of that process can be social (letting people know what pronouns you go by or trying out a new wardrobe) and, for some, it can also involve medical interventions (surgery or hormone therapy).

After all, there is no one way to be trans.

BuzzFeed

For many trans or gender-nonconforming people, top surgery is a significant milestone on the road to living life as one's authentic self.

meme-rage.tumblr.com

But, like any surgery, there are insurance papers to work through, risks to consider, and preparations to be made for recovery — it can all be pretty overwhelming.

Instagram: @saskdraws

So, we want to know how you prepared your mind — and body — for the big day, as well as how you made the most of your recovery period.

Instagram: @elnations

View Entire List ›

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

President Trump stormed into office promising an exhausting number of wins, but he's floundered in his attempts to undo his predecessor’s signature accomplishment. Trump’s White House has frequently stumbled with court delays, public backlash, and spectacular failures in Congress — particularly on health care.

But just a mile away from the White House, the Trump administration is notching a flurry of wins over the Obama administration — and some of the biggest victories of Trump’s presidency are being accomplished by the man Trump has spent much of the last several weeks publicly ridiculing.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is winning constantly, as the White House lurches between crises. Hardly a week goes by that Sessions doesn't rescind a policy, reverse a court position, or issue an order that erases another signature step taken by the previous administration.

Sessions has been surgically dismantling the legacy of Obama’s former attorneys general — Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch — on civil rights, criminal justice, and voting access.

And yet Trump has been whipping Sessions as “very weak,” saying he’s “very disappointed” that his “beleaguered” attorney general recused himself from the Russia investigation, and has not taken steps to investigate Hillary Clinton.

But Sessions slogs on in utter deference.

"Sessions is moving rather swiftly to dismantle civil rights progress.”

As a Justice Department official put it to BuzzFeed News this week, “The Attorney General is a workhorse who is committed to fulfilling the president’s agenda as expeditiously as possible.”

Sessions’ success has become dismay for the people who created Obama’s legal legacy.

"For us, when we were leading the Department of Justice, there was a keen sense that some of the most significant work had a target on it, and this has borne out to be true,” Vanita Gupta, who ran the department’s Civil Rights Division from 2014 to 2017, told BuzzFeed News. “There is no questions that Attorney General Sessions is moving rather swiftly to dismantle civil rights progress.”

As attorney general for most of Obama’s presidency, Holder told every prosecutor under his watch to stop filing charges that mandate multiyear prison terms in certain lower-tier, nonviolent drug cases. He later blocked federal cooperation on many asset seizures that enrich local police departments.

But within months of taking office, Sessions has reinstated those property forfeitures — including seizures from suspects who haven't been convicted of a crime — and enacted a policy to once again seek long mandatory prison terms.

And where Holder was harshly criticized for placing a lower priority on busting noncitizens who are in the country illegally, Sessions has vowed to step up enforcement against those immigrants, and warned so-called sanctuary cities he'd deny them grants.

Sessions has also repealed guidance this year to protect transgender students, and his office sent letters to every state demanding records on how they purge voters from their rolls. The Justice Department is now expected to push against affirmative action policies at American universities that it believes are discriminating against white or Asian-American applicants, the New York Times reported on Tuesday night.

“It seems like their policy announcements are directly contradictory to all the work we did to make justice more fair and more effective over the past eight years," Dena Iverson, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division under Obama, said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

Part of that work was phasing out private prisons under Lynch, who replaced Holder in 2015. The department issued a memo in August 2016 saying the private facilities lacked the services and security needed to properly handle inmates.

But in February, Sessions reinstated their use, suggesting the inmate population would thrive. In a memo, he said that cutting the for-profit facilities "impaired the ... ability to meet the future needs of the federal corrections system."

Iverson reflected, "It’s disheartening to see evidence-based policies that we put in place being undone for what seems like purely ideological reasons.”

Paul Zimmerman / WireImage

Dismantling Obama’s legacy was a goal from the Trump campaign's ideological corners. Stephen Moore, a campaign adviser and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said in an interview with The New Yorker last year that he envisioned a project for Trump’s first day: “Trump spends several hours signing papers — and erases the Obama Presidency.”

The Heritage Foundation’s John Malcolm told BuzzFeed News that Sessions has been essentially doing just that — repairing the past administration's “misguided attempt to bend the law in a political direction.”

"I think Jeff Sessions has been quite aggressive at implementing policies he said he would,” said Malcolm, whose group had key staff advising the Trump transition. Trump has frustrated some Republicans by going too far on issues like asset seizure and sentencing, but still, Malcolm added, “Sessions is moving quickly and decisively."

As much as Trump crafted his presidency around opposition to Obama, Sessions has long nurtured his own distaste for Obama’s AGs. When Sessions sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he supported Holder's appointment in 2009 — a time when Democrats controlled Congress and voting against him would have been futile. Still, Sessions said in a floor speech that he worried for "my beloved Department of Justice,” and cautioned that Holder “made many serious errors” when he served under former president Bill Clinton. “We do need to eliminate politics from this office,” he said, pointing out that some of Holder’s deputy appointments “disturb me.”

“We don’t need the Department of Justice to become a liberal bastion,” Sessions warned.

Sessions immediately set to work breaking down that bastion once he arrived at the Justice Department. The day after being sworn in, on Feb. 10, Sessions dropped the Obama Justice Department's court defense of guidelines that protected transgender students and workers from discrimination. He later walked back the government's defense of a rule that said health insurance must cover transgender people and women seeking abortions under Obamacare. Sessions told the court the government would "reconsider” the policy.

“We don’t need the Department of Justice to become a liberal bastion,” Sessions warned in 2009.

On the LGBT front last week, Sessions filed a brief in federal appeals court to declare that a 1964 civil rights law doesn't protect gay workers from discrimination, putting the Justice Department at odds with the other federal agency that handled civil rights law in the workplace.

Holder and Lynch had also made banks pay community groups, such as those assisting with housing, as part of settlements. Reuters reported the Justice Department negotiated $46 billion in settlements with US banks between 2013 and 2016 that, in part, directed funds to those organizations.

But Sessions issued a memo banning the practice on June 5, saying the funds should only go to government and victims.

Sessions "doesn’t have to go through Congress to change policies," Iverson said, contrasting the attorney general’s nimble work with Trump’s. "It's easier for him to make those changes, whether it’s through sentencing guidelines or enforcement priorities."

Trump, however, has spent more time berating Sessions than taking ownership of his successes.

By bullying Sessions, Malcolm said, Trump is facing "blowback, not just from the public but from conservatives, particularly Republican senators."

Gupta also defended Sessions from Trump’s attempts to bully him, saying, “Those type of attacks really attack the Justice Department's independence and the institution's mandate to ensure that nobody is above the law."

Being slightly removed from Trump’s spotlight, though, has enabled Sessions to do his work relatively under the radar.

"What worries me is that there is very little bandwidth in the media to cover much more than the daily cabaret acts of the White House,” said Gupta. “Every one of those rollbacks on civil rights is going to impose significant harm on the most vulnerable communities, and very few people have the bandwidth to pay attention.”

Many of Sessions’ actions simply don't get blasted across cable news — Trump's favorite medium.

Many of Sessions’ actions simply don't get blasted across cable news — Trump's favorite medium — because they're mildly arcane and pale compared to developments like Trump firing his smack-talking, brand-new communications director.

Gupta and Iverson are encouraged that some civil rights work remains largely untouchable: Police settlements are controlled by federal courts, and prisoners remain released on clemency. Hundreds of career staff who worked under Obama have stayed in the Civil Rights Division under Trump.

But as long as he can survive Trump’s current frustrations, Sessions is just getting started.

There are still many Obama-era policies that Sessions is actively targeting. Where Holder's deputy stamped a policy to tolerate legal marijuana operations in several states, Sessions has put that back on the table. He said federal prohibition still applies, and commissioned a subcommittee to make recommendations on how and whether to override Holder's mellow pot policy.

Gupta also fears Sessions will soon try to use state voter data to try purging voter rolls.

The Department of Justice may have been a liberal bastion under Holder and Lynch. But as long as Sessions stays lodged in place, his beloved Justice Department can instead be a conservative battering ram.

From left: Priya Shah, Nikki Shah-Brar, Nikki’s sister, and Jaspret Brar.

Courtesy of the Shah-Brar family.

Just before Nikki Shah-Brar’s seventh birthday, in June 2016, she was watching her mom get ready in front of the bathroom mirror when Nikki said, “I’m a girl. I want to be called a girl.”

That announcement kicked off a journey for her and her parents, Priya Shah and Jaspret Brar, to let their child express her gender identity and come out as a transgender girl at school.

But the family confronted roadblocks that winter when administrators said they would still treat her as a boy the following school year, according to a lawsuit the family filed in Orange County Superior Court in California on Wednesday.

“They said that we could grow her hair out,” Brar told BuzzFeed News, recounting the school's rules for his daughter in third grade. “But they said no girls bathroom, no female pronouns, no girls name, and no girls uniform.”

By imposing those conditions, the suit alleges, Heritage Oak Private Education and its parent company, Nobel Learning Communities, illegally discriminated against the girl on the basis of gender identity in a business, engaged in fraudulent business practices, and intentionally inflicted emotional harm.

The complaint filed on Wednesday is unusual in part because of Shah-Brar’s young age, and also because the case is being brought in state court against a private, secular school. Most high-profile transgender student lawsuits in recent years were brought by teenagers alleging their public schools violated federal civil rights law and the Constitution.

The Obama administration had backed some of those cases in federal court. But under Trump, the Justice and Education departments have reversed transgender student guidance, and indicated that investigators would back away from transgender restroom complaints.

Shah said her daughter, who is now eight years old, supports suing the school — which she quit in February after being bullied by other students.

"We had to stand up for our child who was standing up for who she was."

“We would not have done it if she didn’t support it,” Shah said. “This was a family decision. We thought we had to stand up for our child who was standing up for who she was. This is not something we do lightly.”

Lawyers for Shah-Brar say they want to show that transgender students still have recourse, whether or not the federal government is involved.

“Given that Trump and the Justice Department have turned their back on the discrimination of transgender individuals, it’s important to put the word out there that this sort of discrimination is actionable in every state in the nation,” Mark Rosenbaum, one of Shah-Brar’s lawyers at the legal support organization Public Counsel, told BuzzFeed News.

The crux of the suit rests on California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which bars businesses from discriminating based on a person’s gender identity. The complaint also claims the school violated portions of the California Business and Professions Code, which bans fraudulent practices and misleading advertisements — the complaint alleges the school falsely claims to offer a program that educates the “whole child” and give students “a sense of self-worth.”

In failing to accommodate Shah-Brar as a transgender girl, the suit continues, “Heritage Oak and Nobel Learning Communities exhibited reckless disregard for the emotional distress it would cause her, and engaged in the intentional infliction of emotional distress in violation of California common law.”

Heritage Oak and Nobel Learning Communities did not respond to requests from BuzzFeed News to comment on the allegations.

Heritage Oak calls itself a "traditional school" for students from preschool to middle school, and uses the motto "Developing the Whole Child." Its website explains, "This is accomplished by providing a positive, safe, nurturing climate that enhances learning by establishing and maintaining a high level of academic and behavioral standards."

After Shah-Brar came out to her parents in mid-2016, her parents told school officials that she was gender-nonconforming before the school year began. When Shah-Brar started second grade that fall, she still presented at school as a boy, wearing a boy’s uniform and using the boys' restroom. As the year went on, however, she was increasingly insistent in her female gender identity, and her parents sought to prepare for a full transition in third grade.

School officials had been open to discussing Shah-Brar’s gender, the parents said in an interview, but in January 2017, school officials said she would not be allowed to transition.

Phyllis Cygan, the executive director of Heritage Oak, said “Nikki would have to wear the boy’s uniform, use a boy’s name and pronouns, and use the staff restroom,” the complaint says. “She said that Heritage Oak is a ‘conservative institution’ that focuses on ‘character education’ and that allowing Nikki to transition would ‘create an imbalance in our environment.’”

Shah reflected in an interview, “It just felt like a punch in the gut — up to that point, I really did believe they were going to work with us.”

In the previous months, the suit says, other students had been taunting Shah-Brar by saying, “You just don’t know you’re a boy,” “You can’t change being a boy,” and “You’re a loser.”

Shah calls these taunts on her daughter “devastating. She asked us about suicide. She talked about harming herself and hating herself. She refused to go to an open house because she couldn’t handle putting on a male uniform.”

“This is not a trend, it’s not a fad, it’s not a phase,” Shah added. “This is who she is at her very core, and if you can’t learn and grow at school, then you can’t be who you are. We stand with Nikki and we want to do our small part to make sure other transgender kids don’t have the same trauma.”

“This lesbian shit is intense!”

If you haven't yet tuned into Freeform's new show The Bold Type, a lot of people would be quick to let you know that you're really not living your best life right now. Specifically on Tuesday nights.

John Medland / Freeform

No, really, they're out here listing the reasons to tune in.

Twitter: @gaycloness

Twitter: @kiyokosvanlis

And a lot of fans are especially interested in Kat Edison’s (Aisha Dee) romantic roller coaster of a storyline with queer photographer Adena El-Amin (Nikohl Boosheri).

Freeform

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An unlegislated postal plebiscite on marriage equality would likely be found invalid by the High Court, according to legal advice seen by BuzzFeed News.

Dolgachov / Getty Images

Prepared by Ron Merkel QC and Christopher Tran, the legal advice says the government would need to pass specific legislation to pay for a same-sex marriage postal vote as there is currently no money set aside for it.

Merkel and Tran argue a postal vote cannot be funded under existing laws, as it is an "extraordinary event". It doesn't fall within the funding authorised in the Appropriation Acts or what could be considered an ordinary departmental expense, because plebiscites are historically rare and same-sex marriage is a socially momentous change, the lawyers say.

They claim a specific law would need to be passed through parliament, in order for the government to hold the non-compulsory postal vote.

If the Turnbull government circumvented parliament to hold the national postal vote without legislation, it would likely be found to be invalid, the legal advice claims.

Marriage equality campaigners told BuzzFeed News that based on the advice they'll challenge a postal plebiscite — if the government decides to hold one — in the High Court.

The Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organisation is sending the legal advice to prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and attorney-general George Brandis. The Turnbull government has reportedly sought its own advice on how a voluntary postal vote could be held without legislation.

It's unlikely the government would have the numbers to pass any plebiscite legislation through parliament.

The government previously attempted to pass a plebiscite bill but it was defeated in the Senate in November 2016 by a coalition of Labor, Greens and crossbench senators.

The reasons for voting it down included the $160 million price tag; the fact the vote would not be binding on the parliament; the negative effects of an ugly debate on LGBTI people; and the question of why Australia would have a national vote on same-sex marriage, yet not on other contentious pieces of policy.

Yinyang / Getty Images

A postal plebiscite is one of the possible outcomes when Liberal politicians meet in Canberra tomorrow for an emergency meeting to resolve the party's position on same-sex marriage.

The potential outcomes of Monday's meeting include: a reiteration of the current plebiscite policy; the switch to a free vote on the issue; or a non-compulsory postal plebiscite.

Details of a private members' bill written by Liberal senator Dean Smith were reported by News Corp on Sunday.

It would see a newly-created category of religious civil celebrants who can legally refuse same-sex couples, as well as granting exemptions to religious organisations. But it would not exempt commercial businesses unless they were linked to a religious organisation.

Smith is one of the five men dubbed the "marriage rebels" for their recent push to bring on a free vote on marriage equality.

"Tomorrow when I go into the party room I will be arguing as vigorously as I can to my colleagues to uphold those great traditions that were set in place first by [Robert] Menzies ... to allow issues like this to be resolved by free vote or by conscience vote in the parliament," Smith told the ABC on Sunday.

Is it getting hot in here?

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Torsten Blackwood / AFP / Getty Images

Australian laws barring same-sex couples who married overseas from being able to get a divorce are in violation of international human rights law, a United Nations committee has declared.

In a decision handed down in March and published on August 3, the UN Human Rights Committee found in favour of Australian university lecturer Dr Fiona Kumari Campbell, who married a woman in Canada in 2004 but has been unable to get divorced since the couple split up about 13 years ago.

The ruling is a significant one for Australia, where a robust debate on same-sex marriage continues to rage among politicians, against the backdrop of clear majority support for same-sex marriage in the community.

As same-sex marriage is not legal in Australia, Campbell's 2004 marriage is not officially recognised as a marriage and therefore can't be subject to Australian divorce proceedings. But in order to get a divorce in Canada, you have to have lived there for a year.

Several Australian same-sex couples have been left unable to divorce after marrying in New Zealand, Canada, and the UK.

The UN committee found that Australia's laws banning foreign same-sex marriages from being recognised mean Campbell has no mechanism by which to get a divorce.

It rejected Australia's argument as to why some foreign marriages were recognised for the purposes of divorce and why same-sex ones were not as "not persuasive".

"In the absence of more convincing explanations from the State party, the Committee considers that the differentiation of treatment based on her sexual orientation to which the author is subjected regarding access to divorce proceedings is not based on reasonable and objective criteria and therefore constitutes discrimination under article 26 of the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]," the decision read.

Three people on the 17-person committee wrote dissenting reports.

Manuel-f-o / Getty Images

Campbell, who first took the complaint to the UN in 2012, told BuzzFeed News she was "thrilled" with the decision and that it had been a "long time coming".

"For me it represents a significant decision not just in terms of LGBTI law in Australia but I think some of the shifts and changes internationally," she said.

"The committee has agreed that I am unable to access the remedy of divorce which actually causes me harm and humiliation," she said.

"[The problem] really came to a head when I was doing a lot of travelling for work… when you go through immigration, having to declare your marital status, you’re wondering whether your marriage was recognised in a particular country or whether it wasn’t."

Campbell moved to Scotland in recent months, but has been following the Australian debate on same-sex marriage.

"For me, it’s the final nail in the coffin for same-sex marriage prohibition," she said.

"As an Australian living in Scotland, it’s really interesting observing Australia from afar. All around us, in Europe, in Taiwan, so many countries have legalised marriage equality — and Australia looks foolish. It’s really out of step."

The UN committee directed Australia to respond to the ruling in 180 days. It noted that Australia is obliged under the Covenant to provide a remedy to Campbell and to take steps to prevent future occurrences, but the decision is not actually binding on Australian law.

The decision comes at a crucial moment in Australia's same-sex marriage debate. On Monday at 4pm, the Liberal party, which is currently in a coalition government with the Nationals, will have a party room meeting on whether it should allow a free vote in the parliament on the issue or continue with its current policy of a national plebiscite.

The plebiscite policy was previously voted down in Australia's upper house and is broadly opposed by pro same-sex marriage advocacy groups.

Spokesperson for the LGBTI rights group just.equal, Rodney Croome, said the UN decision showed Australia's laws pertaining to LGBTI people are an "international embarrassment".

"By highlighting the serious human rights implications of marriage equality, this decision is another reason why a plebiscite or postal vote is not the right way to deal with the issue," he said.

Earlier this year, the same UN committee ruled that Australian laws barring married transgender people from changing the legal sex on their birth certificate were also in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“This is my family, this is my home, and I’m not moving.”

Brett Alford-Jones was just pulling into his Pickering, Ontario, home last Tuesday, his five-year-old daughter in tow, when he saw this message spray-painted across his garage.

"We don't like faget [sic]," it said. "Time to move, 30 days."

Alford-Jones, his husband Paul, and their daughter moved into the house a year ago after Alford-Jones' father had a stroke. He's lived there on and off for four decades.

At first he thought it was a joke, and even called his brother to check. Then it hit him that it was serious.

"I kind of lost it, I started shaking," Alford-Jones told BuzzFeed Canada.

"It just kind of dawned on me... Am I being watched?"

Brett Alford-Jones

Alford-Jones (left) rushed his daughter inside before calling his husband.

"He raced home," said Alford-Jones, about his husband. "It’s really affected him a lot. When he was younger he was gay bashed and I think the threat sort of opened the floodgates for him."

They called the police who came the next day and are now investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Alford-Jones said they're just baffled as to who could have left the message, as they've had no issues before and keep to themselves.

As upsetting as the message was, however, the outpouring of support has also been an emotional experience. The day after the message was found, friends from Toronto drove down to cover it up. Alford-Jones said he's also received tons of messages from strangers offering to help.

"People are willing to sit in my driveway at night and watch the property," he said. "This has really changed my pessimistic outlook — total strangers are just giving us total support."

Brett Alford-Jones

They also have absolutely zero plans to relocate.

"This is my family, this is my home, and I’m not moving," he said.

"All I can say is this thing, as much as it has unnerved us, it has done nothing to change our way of living or how we bring our daughter up. It was a waste of someone’s time, really."

Brett Alford-Jones