World's oldest drag queen dies at 92
Darcelle XV, once crowned the world's oldest working drag queen, has died in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 92.

She was known for hosting the longest-running drag show on the West Coast, and ran a nightclub in downtown Portland that opened over 50 years ago. The city regards it as a cultural site, and it was a gathering place for the LGBTQ+ community through the 1970s and onward.

"She touched the lives of so many, not only through her performances but also through her fearless community advocacy and charitable works," said Todd Addams, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon. "She was nothing short of an icon."

"She was just a very, very nurturing person," writer Susan Stanley told the Associated Press. "She encouraged other guys to perform and get out of their shells."

Of the current political controversy around drag, Stanley said, "It bespeaks a really, really big understanding. Politicians wanting to step back decades in attitudes ... it's mystifying and horrifying at the same time.

While not performing, Darcelle was known as Walter Cole. Cole was an Army veteran, charity worker, and LGBTQ+ rights activist, born in 1930 and raised in Portland. He used his army money to open the Darcelle XV nightclub.

Old-guard Republicans decry anti-Trans bill in radio ad
Opponents of a Kentucky bill targeting Trans youth have taken their fight to the state's airwaves, with former GOP lawmaker Bob Heleringer calling the legislature's potential overruling of Gov. Andy Beshear's veto "a bad look for the party of Abraham Lincoln."

Former Republican secretary of state Trey Grayson spoke in another radio ad, saying he couldn't believe the GOP is "working in the final days [of the session] to take rights away from Kentucky parents."

"They want to overrule parents and doctors when it comes to care for Transgender kids," Grayson said.

On a similar note, Gov. Beshear has said that the bill "rips away the freedom of parents to make critical and difficult medical decisions for their children.

As one of the harshest of similar bills being proposed in other states, it would ban gender-affirming care for minors, including gender reassignment surgery, puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-affirming hospital services.

In the case of Kentucky minors already undergoing such therapy, doctors would be required to provide a plan for "detransitioning" them if an abrupt stop to treatment could cause harm.

Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, who has supported the bill, had the following issue with the ads: "They have a First Amendment right to say whatever they want, but it's extremely rare for registered lobbyists to appear in an advertising campaign."