Gender And Identity

Did former FBI Director James Comey vote communist during the cold war? No, that's not true: Comey told an interviewer in 2003 that he voted for Democrat Jimmy Carter for president in 1980 -- the first election he was old enough to cast a ballot -- before becoming a Republican and voting for Ronald Reagan in 1984. He joked that…

Did Minneapolis set up a "Sharia Hotline" to report Americans criticizing Islam? No, that's not true: a website that makes a living by copy pasting real bits of news and then adding a fake headline to attract clicks has claimed that a new hotline to report hate crimes is a "sharia hotline". It is not true. The story originated from…

Did French President Emmanuel Macron knowingly grant political asylum to an ISIS chief? No, that's not exactly true. Ahmed Hamdane Mahmoud Ayach El Aswadi posed as a refugee when he arrived in France in the summer of 2016. He was granted refugee status in June 2017, shortly after Emmanuel Macron took office in May 2017. The President of France does…

Are California parents banned from pulling their kids from 'obscene' LGBT sex education classes? No, that's quite the distortion of what is actually going on, the headline is not true. It was written by a site that regularily twists the truth in order to create false headlines that are way more shocking than what is going on in reality. The…

After Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes criticizing President Elect Donald Trump several fake news sites published an article claiming she had been fired from a 'major project' because of it. LeadStories' Trendolizer engine picked up the fact that the fake stories started trending so we decided to investigate. According to the fake article a remake of the popular…

There is a NOT TRUE story trending stating "Transgender Woman Shot To Death In Department Store Restroom." This particular topic is a current hot-button issue and has many, many hoax stories being posted about it daily. Lead Stories has debunked several NOT TRUE stories regarding this issue, and will continue to do so if they are as ignorant and baseless…

Over the past month or so, several states have come under fire for their "Bathroom Policies" which basically dictate who can and can't use certain gender specific public restrooms. North Carolina has seen several artists withdraw from performing due to the state's "Bathroom Policy" that some see as breeding hate and discrimination. A few days ago Target, the second-largest…