Former Scottish Labour leader says she understands that expressing respect for author caused ‘worry, anger and upset’

The incoming chair of the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall says she is “truly sorry” after she expressed “huge respect” for JK Rowling in an interview with the Guardian. Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, said she understood that her words had caused “worry, anger and upset and I am truly sorry about that”.

In an interview for the Today in Focus podcast in Edinburgh to mark her appointment as Stonewall’s chair, Dugdale was asked what she thought of the way in which Rowling has talked about transgender people.

Sports bans have humiliated trans women and girls across America. Now, the Olympics joins in

Last month, the International Olympic Committee announced that transgender women athletes would be barred from competing in all Olympic events in the women’s category – but not the men’s events. In addition to trans women athletes, cisgender women with conditions known as DSDs – differences in sexual development – will also be banned from competition. The new rules effectively redefine womanhood – but not manhood – as a novel and previously unrecognized category consisting only of those with a specific set of genetic prerequisites. To comply with this new requirement, women athletes – but not male ones – will be made to submit to genetic testing, to determine whether their womanhood meets the committee’s standards. The rule will be in effect for the upcoming summer Olympics, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles in 2028.

The move comes as increased political and media attention to the issue of trans rights and visibility over the past years – along with pressure from the Trump administration – has led athletic federations to ban trans women from sports competitions, a demand that has largely not been made for transgender men in women’s or men’s sports. The vitriol and intensity of this controversy has been acute. Twenty-eight states ban trans girls and women from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity; last year, the NCAA announced a ban on trans athletes competing in women’s collegiate leagues.

Stephen Daldry’s 2002 film, which secured Kidman an Oscar for her depiction of Virginia Woolf, is a groundbreaking depiction of queer sexuality across the 20th century

Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Hours – inspired by Virginia Woolf’s seminal 1925 novel, Mrs Dalloway – imagines one day in the lives of three women separated across time periods. The triptych follows Woolf in the throes of writing Mrs Dalloway; Laura Brown, a depressed housewife who is reading Woolf’s novel in postwar America; and Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker who acts as a contemporary embodiment of Woolf’s titular character.

Cunningham’s 1998 text, though widely acclaimed, was initially deemed unadaptable due to its nonlinear structure and stream-of-consciousness approach that paid homage to Woolf’s pioneering style. However, since its publication, The Hours (which takes its name from Mrs Dalloway’s working title), has been reinterpreted as an opera and, most notably, a 2002 film directed by Stephen Daldry.

When we wonder why marginalized groups are ‘underrepresented’, we are asking the wrong question

For the most part, we have been doing it wrong. For decades, the way that government entities, institutions, organizations and even advocates and activists have gone about addressing inequality in this country has been fundamentally flawed. We’ve asked the wrong questions, pursued the wrong solutions, and accepted the wrong premises. We’ve mainly obsessed over why people of color, women and LGBTQ+ individuals are “underrepresented” rather than asking: why are straight white American men so dramatically overrepresented in positions of power?

This isn’t about semantic hairsplitting. It’s about asking the right question, a strategic reorientation in thinking that gets to the heart of the matter. The problem isn’t that people of color and other marginalized people are lacking the necessary qualities – intelligence, ambition, discipline, networks and other qualifications, other merit – to climb their way up to positions of power and influence in greater numbers. The problem is the longstanding and widespread practice of granting preferences to straight white American men. White men make up about 29% of the US population, according to census data.

Twenty-nine percent: white men make up approximately 29% of the US population

The percentage of top positions in an organization, institution or entity held by white men

The organization’s overall workforce demographics.

The demographics of the relevant qualified candidate pool.

The demographics of the communities the organization serves.

Industry benchmarks (where available).

The overall general US population?

Who makes hiring decisions for senior roles?

What criteria are used for promotion to leadership positions?

How are “cultural fit” and “leadership potential” assessed?

What networks and relationships influence succession planning?

How are board seats filled?

This article was adapted from Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America, out on 21 April from New Press

Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good

ECJ says law passed in 2021 is discriminatory and ‘contrary to the identity of the union’, in early test for new PM

The EU’s highest court has found Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ law to be discriminatory, stigmatising and in breach of basic democratic values, setting up an early test for the incoming government when it takes power next month.

In a wide-ranging judgment, the European court of justice said the 2021 law that bans content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and primetime TV was at odds with a society based on pluralism and fundamental rights, such as prohibition of discrimination and freedom of expression.

Schools say Colorado violated their rights by excluding them from state-funded program over admission policies

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The supreme court will hear from Catholic preschools that say Colorado violated their religious rights by excluding them from a state-funded program over their admission policies.

The court agreed on Monday to take up the appeal from St Mary Catholic Parish, which is supported by the Republican Trump administration.

Anyone in a monogamous relationship can now donate immediately, as long as other criteria – such as age and iron levels – are met

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Up to 20,000 additional blood donations are expected to be made each year across Australia, with new rules in effect from Monday allowing many gay and bisexual men and transgender people to donate for the first time.

So what has changed, and why?

An exclusive interview with Kezia Dugdale on the charity’s mistakes and the future of the LGBTQ+ movement. With reporting by Libby Brooks

Kezia Dugdale is the new chair of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ organisation, Stonewall.

As the Guardian journalist Libby Brooks outlines, she is taking up the position when Stonewall, 38 years after it formed, is in trouble like never before. Its income has halved, it has had to slash dozens of jobs, and countless organisations and businesses have cut ties.

The singer is not only a hero for gay men. For a young lesbian like me in the 1990s, she was an object of desire and an inspiration

Recently, when Madonna deleted every post from her Instagram profile, it was as if a gay flare had been fired around the world.

Cue a flurry of texts from gay male friends, with one declaring that this “purging of the Sistine Chapel” meant the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II was imminent, 20 years after her original disco masterpiece, because Madonna had pulled the same stunt on Instagram in 2023 before announcing our gay Christmas: the Celebration tour.

Tiff Bakker is a New York-based writer who specialises in arts and culture

Exclusive: Former Scottish Labour leader says she feels more scared as a lesbian today and calls for a kinder debate on transgender issues

Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, says she is now “quite scared” as a lesbian in Britain and has started to feel nervous holding her wife’s hand in public.

Speaking to the Guardian in Edinburgh on the announcement of her appointment as the chair of Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, she said it was “completely possible” gay rights in the UK could be eroded with the rise of rightwing populism.