Nicki Minaj onstage with Erika Kirk at AmericaFest 2025 – Screenshot: Forbes
In a surprise appearance on Sunday, Nicki Minaj addressed Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025, an annual conference aimed at younger MAGA activists, where she reaffirmed her recent anti-transgender views.
The rapper built her career with the help of a deeply devoted fanbase known as “Barbz,” many of whom are gay men. At the event, the “Super Bass” singer repeated the phrase “Boys, be boys” while seated on stage beside conservative lightning-rod Erika Kirk.
She continued her attacks on California Governor Gavin Newsom at the December 21 event, while offering effusive praise for the president and vice president.
“Don’t be Newscum,” Minaj told the crowd at the conservative conference. “Young men, you have amazing role models like our handsome, dashing president, and you have amazing role models like the assassin JD Vance, our vice president.”
Previously, the singer-songwriter posted a string of tweets ridiculing Newsom for supporting protections for transgender youth during the Trump administration, which has pursued a series of anti-trans policies.
In one post, she depicted the California governor behind jail bars, claiming he was a “career politician at the brink of his moment realigns to become nothing more than a Nicki Minaj ANTI.”
In another post, accompanied by an image of the horror icon “Chucky,” Minaj claimed that Newsom was “running on wanting to see trans kids,” adding that she instead wants to see “HEALTHY, SAFE, HAPPY kids.”
Multiple studies have found that gender identity acceptance and gender-affirming care are associated with lower rates of depression and fewer suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth, outcomes that are linked to improved overall well-being.
The appearance also follows Minaj’s recent speech at the United Nations, where she echoed President Trump’s disputed claims that Christians are facing persecution in Nigeria.
Minaj’s remarks come amid renewed scrutiny of her past public support for both her brother and her husband while they faced criminal charges involving sexual assault and other violent crimes.
In December 2015, Page Sixreported that Minaj posted bail for her brother, Jelani Maraj, after he was charged with raping a 12-year-old.
In October 2017, Maraj’s attorney, David Schwartz, told Newsday that Minaj supported her brother “absolutely 100 percent” as he faced trial. He was later convicted of predatory sexual assault and child endangerment and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Kenneth Petty, whom Minaj first met in high school and married in 2019, was convicted of attempted rape in the first degree in April 1995 for an assault the previous year involving his then 16-year-old girlfriend. In 2002, he also pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the killing of Lamont Robinson.
Comedian D.L. Hughleydefended transgender children in a series of social media posts mocking Minaj.
“Nicki Minaj shouldn’t post anything about kids, trans or otherwise,” he said in one TikTok video. “She supports a dude that is on the Epstein list a thousand times. She’s actually married to a registered sex offender, a pedophile.”
Dutch authorities say Veronica Clifford-Carlos failed to prove she faces a "legitimate risk of persecution" or threat of physical harm in the United States.
A Dutch court has upheld a ruling rejecting a U.S. transgender woman's bid for asylum, finding she does not face a substantial enough threat of persecution in her home country.
Veronica Clifford-Carlos, a 28-year-old visual artist from California, said she once believed she’d build a life in the United States, but felt compelled to flee after receiving death threats over her gender identity.
Clifford-Carlos left the United States -- leaving behind friends and her dog -- and flew to the Netherlands with her father. Upon arrival, she applied for asylum, telling authorities about the abuse she endured in the United States, particularly after President Donald Trump’s re-election last fall.
The Liberty Hotel, a luxury property in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood, has publicly apologized for ejecting a lesbian couple after a security guard mistook one of the women for a man and objected to her presence in the women's restroom.
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) announced that the hotel agreed to settle a discrimination complaint stemming from the incident. Under the settlement, the Liberty must make a $10,000 charitable donation to an LGBTQ organization, update its nondiscrimination policies and management training, post a nondiscrimination statement in its lobby, and formally apologize to Ansley Baker and her girlfriend, Liz Victor, reports GO Magazine.
The Trump administration is working to bring a transgender woman back to the United States after immigration officials wrongly deported her in violation of a federal judge's order.
Britania Uriostegui Rios, a Mexican transgender woman who came to the U.S. in 2003 and later became a lawful permanent resident, lost that status in 2023 after pleading guilty to felony assault with a deadly weapon, according to The Guardian.
She received a suspended sentence for the assault conviction, then was sent to a men's immigration detention facility as officials prepared to deport her to Mexico.
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