It’s been a very long year…
Jan. 14 — … and we’re only a couple of weeks into 2026. The fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week is a nadir for America, but I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet. An award-winning poet, Good was a queer woman with a wife and kids, but the administration and its minions have already labeled her a domestic terrorist. Six prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced their resignations Tuesday after they learned there would be no probe into Good’s death. ICE’s unchecked power, the detainment of U.S. citizens and protesters, and the disappearing of immigrants is a chilling callback to other despotic regimes in history.
Here are a few more headlines:
⚖️ The conservative wing of the U.S. Supreme Court hinted that it would uphold bans on trans youth in sports after hearing oral arguments on Tuesday in two critical cases. A decision is expected in June.
💰 LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention nonprofit The Trevor Project received $45 million from billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025, the organization said Monday.
🙄 “Las Culturista” podcast hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang faced backlash after they indulged in a little misogynoir, telling listeners not to donate to Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett’s senate campaign. Their tepid apology was about what you’d expect.
🤣 Comic Ricky Gervais – who regularly targets trans people in his standup –won a Golden Globe on Sunday, but since he wasn’t there, lesbian comic Wanda Sykes accepted it for him, thanking “God and the trans community” on his behalf. Well-played, Wanda.
I can’t wait anymore…
Collin
👟 Lace up and join the Beltline Thursday Run Club. This free, social run welcomes all paces and rotates to a new Beltline location each week. Come for the miles. Stay for the community. More info here! SPONSOR MESSAGE
Queer Hands provides support and safety to handy workers
🔧 Queer Hands is more than a handy work organization. The worker cooperative, which began as a small group of queer friends and quickly grew into a nonprofit, is providing safety and support to both the people who hire them and those who do the work.
Queer Hands is a “small but mighty collective of queers” who are providing accessible handy services in Atlanta and beyond.
The organization is made up of about 15 Hands, queer and trans people who perform the litany of services the organization provides, and led by a team of trans administrators – Julian, Juni, and Nicky.
➡ Read Katie Burkholder’s full story here.
Fashion meets art at the High Museum!
SPONSORED BY THE HIGH MUSEUM
👗 Experience Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Statements – a bold, breathtaking exhibition celebrating avant-garde fashion visionaries who blurred the line between haute couture and art. Only at the High, the exhibition’s sole U.S. stop.
Matt Nadel unpacks the viatical settlement industry in documentary short ‘Cashing Out’
🎥 On a walk with his father in 2020, Matt Nadel learned an earth-shattering truth about his upbringing. A few years later, he turned that truth into the short film “Cashing Out.”
During the early days of the AIDS crisis, thousands of people turned to a new industry for a little relief before they died: viatical settlements, or the practice of people with terminal illnesses selling their life insurance policies to a third party.
On that walk with his father, Nadel learned that his father was one of the investors who bought life insurance policies during the AIDS crisis. “Cashing Out,” which examines what type of system allows for viatical settlements to exist, focuses on the intertwining perspectives of a broker, a person with AIDS who sold his life insurance policy and then lived to tell the tale, and an Atlanta trans woman who navigated the AIDS epidemic without a life insurance policy to sell.
➡ Read Sammie Purcell’s interview with Nadel here.
👟 Lace up and join the Beltline Thursday Run Club. This free, social run welcomes all paces and rotates to a new Beltline location each week. Come for the miles. Stay for the community. More info here! SPONSOR MESSAGE
Best Bets
❄️ My Sister’s Room is hosting the kickoff party for Atlanta Winter Pride on Jan. 15, with doors opening at 10 p.m. The festival continues throughout the weekend with parties, mixers, and more.
👠 The legendary drag troupe The Armorettes will mark their 47th anniversary on Jan. 17 from 7 to 10 p.m. at The Heretic in Atlanta. The queens will be presenting checks to local LGBTQ+ organizations, including AID Atlanta.
💼 OUT Georgia Business Alliance will host its 2026 Chamber Kickoff on Jan. 18 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Azotea Cantina in Atlantic Station. There will be networking, celebration, light appetizers, and a look at what’s ahead in the new year.
🎂 Dolly Parton’s 80th Birthday Brunch with special guest Phoenix is Jan. 18 at El Valle in Midtown, with doors opening at 11:30 a.m.
🏳️🌈 Atlanta Pride Night at Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia at Atlantic Station is Jan. 18 at 4:30 p.m. and will raise funds for the organization. Get tickets here.
🏳️⚧️ Trans Atlanta Social Club is hosting two events in January: the Monthly Craft Hangout on Jan. 18 and its Wednesday Night Meetup at the H Mart Food Court in Doraville on Jan. 28.
➳ Check our Instagram stories @thegeorgiavoice for more events and activities.