Mic

After the most recent seasons of Real Housewives of Orange County andReal Housewives of Dallas sparked controversy among LGBTQ viewers for airing what some saw as anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, a Mic reporter decided to take a deep dive into Housewives history, rewatch old episodes and rethink the impact of the many plotlines that have played out over the years. It wasn’t long before she realized that the Real Housewives of nearly every city have a lengthy, well-documented past of problematic LGBTQ moments that have largely been ignored by Bravo in the name of entertainment. Here is an annotated timeline of every homophobic and transphobic moment on 'Real Housewives.’

“The nightmare must end,” the full-page ad in the New York Times announced on Wednesday in bold, block letters. It called on thousands of people to take to the streets. “Nov 4. It Begins.”Less than one year ago, as protesters flooded Washington, D.C., for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Refuse Fascism materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, brandishing their now-iconic black and white “NO!” posters. Since then, the anti-fascist organization has become a mysterious yet omnipresent force throughout the past year’s wave of protests. As demonstrators have continued to spill into the streets with anti-Trump resentment, Refuse Fascism frequently emerges with signs, shirts, pins, and orators primed with a megaphone. Read more.

Candace Towns, 30, of Macon, Georgia, was first reported missing on Sunday. Two days later, on Tuesday, her body was found at the top of a hill on Macon’s Rosecrest Avenue, the Telegraph, a local Macon paper, reported on Tuesday.Towns had been fatally shot, making her at least the 23rd transgender person killed so far in 2017. Lonnie Miley, the Bibb County chief deputy coroner, told the Telegraph that he was sure Towns’ death was a homicide. Read more. 

A small public elementary school in Mississippi announced it would make a big change in 2018 by changing its name to honor former President Barack Obama. And while this is a nice gesture on its own, it becomes even more significant when you consider the school is currently named after Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Read more.

After Mason Parker finishes up his typical 10-hour shift as an assistant manager at a mattress store in Charlotte, North Carolina, he jumps in his car to make the half-hour trek back home — but not to rest. Instead, he might shower, change clothes and make the 80-mile drive to Winston-Salem for a daddy-daughter breakfast at his child’s school. After the breakfast and business meetings for his budding entertainment career, he rushes back to Charlotte to pick up his son for the weekend. Read more.

Online dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid have become the second-most common way straight couples meet, and researchers think it could be drastically altering our society. Specifically, a new study suggests that online dating might be responsible for several spikes in interracial marriages throughout the last 20 years or so, which has potentially huge implications for the health of our society more broadly. Read more. 

An Army official said green card holders cannot enlist in the Army Reserve “for the time being,” responding to a Mic report from Tuesday about previously unreported changes to Army recruitment policies.The change is due to a Department of Defense policy announced Friday, which requires green card holders to have completed background checks before shipping off to basic training. Kelli Bland, director of public affairs at the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said green card holders can still enlist as active duty members of the Army. Read more.

While the fashion industry is slowly opening up to models with various skin conditions — models such as Winnie Harlow, who has vitiligo, and Shaun Ross, who has albinism — an artist based out of Kansas City, Missouri, is making sure the doll industry follows suit. Read more.

United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed the Justice Department to reverse a federal policy protecting transgender workers from discrimination.According to a memo dated Wednesday that was obtained by BuzzFeed, Sessions has instructed U.S. attorneys and the heads of federal agencies to stop interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a protection on the basis of gender identity. Read more.

“To be beautiful. To be a little sassy. Not much. Beautiful. Friendly,” that’s how Desmond Napoles, a 10-year-old drag veteran, defines being fierce — a word one be hard-pressed not to use when describing the precocious pre-teen.Drag found Napoles at the ripe young age of 2. “I used to get Mommy’s towels and everything and put them around my head and face,” he said. “And then clomp in her big heels — just clomp around the house, and it was fun.” He cites Pepper LaBeija and “realness” as inspirations for his looks. Read more.

Perfume is for women and cologne is for men — that, for many, is what we’ve been taught for most our lives. Walk through a department store and you will likely see strict gender lines. The colognes are in displays with male models or a heterosexual couple in deep embrace, with the cologne itself being stored in a black or industrial-looking bottle. Perfumes, meanwhile, are advertised with images of women or a couple that looks loving and sensual, with the perfume itself in a bottle that is white or pink or purple. Read more. 

Appearing before the press Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced he was considering lifting the so-called Jones Act, a 1920 maritime law preventing foreign ships from bringing much-needed aid to the storm-struck island of Puerto Rico. “We’re thinking about [lifting the Jones Act],” Trump said. “But we have a lot of shipments and a lot of people that work in the industry that don’t want the Jones Act lifted, and we have a loft of ships out now.” Read more. 

Sportscaster Bob Costas criticized President Donald Trump Monday for engaging in empty “flag-waving” with his attacks on NFL players who protest racism during the national anthem, telling CNN that patriotism isn’t solely the property of the military. Read more.

Kelvin Davis, one of the few successful plus-size male models in the United States, who’s been in seen in ads for Chubbies as well as that ill-fated #AerieMAN April Fools’ snafu, has finally been signed to a modeling agency.Over the weekend, Davis broke the news to Mic that Bridge Models, a curve modeling agency based in London, has signed him as one their influencers and models. Read more.

Since early March, when the first Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was introduced in the House, activist groups have driven millions of phone calls and thousands of protesters to Washington.To push for the bill’s defeat, they led numerous rallies on Capitol Hill, occupied Senate offices, shouted in the Capitol building — and even learned, if they made enough noise, senators could hear them outside the Capitol.Whether that activism is remembered as a force that helped drive the defeat of “repeal and replace” will be decided in the next week. And organizers plan to employ all their past tactics over the next few days. Read more. 

Watching New York Fashion week this season, we had a certain inkling that we were seeing more models of color on runways than ever before, and more plus-size and transgender models too. It felt like this season was signaling turning point for New York.According to a new report from the Fashion Spot, which meticulously tracks diversity on fashion week runways, we were right. Read more. 

President Donald Trump’s approval rating is on the upswing, now standing at 41% in the RealClearPolitics average — an uptick pollsters say is attributed to how voters view his response to the recent spate of devastating hurricanes as well as bipartisan deals to fund the government.However, while Trump’s approval rating is better than the dismal 37% low he faced last month, it’s still bad compared to his recent predecessors. Read more.