Across the country, anti-LGBTQ violence is on the rise. Just recently, a California business owner was killed for displaying a Pride flag.

"This is a tragic example of where someone was trying to be supportive and send a message of love and safety and then became targeted by the very hate that is used against so many," Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of BAGLY, told Under the Radar. "I think it's a reminder of how dangerous the situation has become with the increased rhetoric. ... And it's emboldening people, and all of us are being threatened in different ways."

The current climate is also reflected in at least 142 bills introduced across the U.S. this year that aim to restrict gender-affirming healthcare. But some advocates are pushing back. Janson Wu, executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, said these legal battles are about more than the law:

"It's about people's lives. It's about families who now have to consider whether or not they have to uproot their lives and move to another state to provide their child with the health care that they need. And it's about medical providers who are facing the loss of their licenses and criminal penalties for doing their oath, which is to provide and care for their patients."

Advocates say an increasing number of LGBTQ+ people are moving to Massachusetts, specifically, in part because of the state's legal protections.

"I fled Ohio for the same reason. It just was not comfortable being queer in Ohio," said E.J. Graff, managing editor of Good Authority. "But especially those families that have trans kids, I don't see how they can stay where they are with their children always under threat."

It's our LGBTQ News Roundtable.

GUESTS

Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of the Boston Alliance of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Youth, or BAGLY

Janson Wu, executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD

E.J. Graff, journalist, author and managing editor of Good Authority, an independent blog publishing insights from political science