You don’t have to look at a calendar to know it’s January. All you have to do is look at the marquee of your local multiplex to see the failing crop of new releases. “80 For Brady,” anyone?

(SS) Students at Western High School in Davie joined high schools around the state in protesting Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill on Friday, holding what was meant to be a peaceful walkout.

Inmate advocates worry that a proposal to reduce the financial penalties for states that don't comply with a 2003 federal law aimed at eliminating rape behind bars will severely damage it.

When Leny* first arrived at Capanne prison, a women's facility in Perugia, central Italy, she was sulky and withdrawn. She paced the yard alone, head bowed and shoulders hunched. This was not unusual for a transfer. Each prison is its own delicate ecosystem. Being uprooted and replanted, often without warning, is a frightening experience. I noticed her immediately: petite, with a paunchy belly and short, dark hair. I made Leny for the kind of prisoner who'd only lash out if cornered — so not a threat to me.

Retired gay porn actor Blue Bailey has found a new calling. Now known as Stephan Ferris, he has opened his own law practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lives.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California prison officials are setting the first standards for which transgender inmates should receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery after spending years in court fighting to block the operations.

On Day Two of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce’s International Business and Leadership Conference, CNN correspondent Richard Quest shared his coming out story.

Fernando Velez has been imagining, creating and writing in Los Angeles for almost 10 years, but he’s got a South Florida connection, too. 

(WB) The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is required to allow a federal inmate to have for the first time gender reassignment surgery as a result of a court order Wednesday determining the agency was waiting too long to provide the procedure.

BOSTON (AP) — A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a ruling ordering Massachusetts prison officials to provide taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery for an inmate convicted of murder.

In a blow to the private prison industrial complex, a bill sponsored by Florida Representative David Richardson won committee approval on Tuesday.

[Editor’s note: This story was published in Sun Sentinel in October after the sentencing. This week Michael Anguille was transferred to state prison to begin serving the remainder of his time. Anguille was once a freelance copy editor and writer for SFGN. ]

When it came time on Thursday for Michael Anguille to stand and face the woman he left paralyzed after driving drunk in 2014, he asked his attorney to step out of the way so he could have a clear view of Kim Smith, seated in her wheelchair at the back of a Broward courtroom.

A Canadian gay porn actor who was convicted of murdering his sex partner and was sentenced to life in prison, is currently sending letters to friends, detailing how he's enjoying prison life, Gay Star News reports.

As Hurricane Irma approached Florida anxiety was everywhere. People were rushing for fuel, water, food and supplies. Vehicles clogged the roads northbound and airplane seats became scarce.

(WB) A federal judge issued an order Monday blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a rule allowing health care providers to discriminate against transgender patients — one day before the regulation was set to go into effect.

State prison officials must immediately resume hormone treatments for a transgender inmate who argued that she suffered a medical setback including facial hair growth and depression when her treatments stopped, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (AP) - Religious conservatives and supporters of gay rights are preparing for a potentially bitter debate over enshrining LGBT rights into state law.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A transgender inmate who says she was called “it” and “some kind of animal” by guards who watched her shower has won a legal victory that forces the Maryland prison system to better train for how to treat transgender people, advocates say.

The U.S. Department of Justice has released its report, “Sexual Victimization in Prisons, and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12: National Inmate Survey, 2011–12.” As this survey collected data for the sexual orientation of the victim, differences in risk between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) inmates and heterosexual inmates became visible: LGB inmates are much more likely to be victims than are straight inmates. Sexual victimization or forced sex ranges from nonconsensual touching to gang rape. Fortunately most inmates both straight and LGB reported no sexual victimization. Unfortunately, the survey did not collect data for the victimization of transgender individuals.

In the U.S., mass incarceration is an LGBT issue. The U.S. incarcerates people at a higher rate than nearly every other nation in the world — poor LGBT people and LGBT people of color are disproportionately affected. 

Several times each month, a white bus picks up newly released ex-inmates at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex and drives into Harlem, where helping hands await at a transition program run by a nonprofit called the Fortune Society.

Texas will not comply with parts of a federal law designed to eliminate prison rape, Gov. Rick Perry said in a letter to the U.S. Attorney General, calling the rules too costly and an infringement on state rights.

City prison commissioner Louis R. Giorla says the department’s new transgender policy may not be perfect, but it’s a work in progress and he’s fully committed to the humane treatment of transgender inmates.

HOUSTON (AP) — Black eyeliner rings Tyniesha Stephens' large brown eyes. Her long, dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she excitedly shares pictures of herself in the blonde wig and skirts she dons when she's not in orange jail garb.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When Estefanie Ferraz went to prison, she had been living as a woman for around a decade, had undergone more than half a dozen plastic surgeries including breast and cheek implants to enhance her feminine looks, and was saving up for a sex change operation.

Alannah Moody, much like other lockdown participants, picked up a new hobby during the pandemic: cross-stitching.

Theerayut Charoenpakdee was terrified when police stopped her outside a mall in Pattaya, a Thai resort famous for its sordid nightlife. A urine test on the spot revealed meth coursing through her veins.

Welcome again to our annual ‘Best Of’ Issue, which I hate passionately, from our fluffy logo to the arbitrary and capricious determinations of who is the best at anything.

Here’s a round up of the pizza places that have won SFGN’s annual Best Of contest. Take a look, and take a bite. Below are the winners and their stories (reprinted).

Ashley Diamond is finally home.