cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7404871

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/21425

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Early Tuesday morning, final appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—and related agencies—were released, marking the last major funding measures to be negotiated in the aftermath of the record-breaking government shutdown fight in 2025. That standoff featured multiple appropriations bills loaded with anti-transgender riders and poison pills for Democrats, ultimately ending in a short-term continuing resolution that punted many of those provisions to the end of January. While other “minibus” packages funding individual agencies moved forward, the Education and HHS bills were conspicuously absent, as they contained some of the most sweeping and consequential anti-trans riders ever proposed in Congress. Now, with the final bills released, it is clear that no anti-transgender riders were included—meaning transgender people will largely be spared new congressional attacks through most of 2026 should they pass as-is.

As the government shut down on Oct. 1, the state of appropriations bills needed to reopen the federal government for any extended period was extraordinarily dire for transgender people. Dozens of anti-transgender riders were embedded across House appropriations bills, even as those provisions were largely absent from the Senate’s versions. The riders appeared throughout nearly every funding measure, from Commerce, Justice, and Science to Financial Services and General Government. The most extreme provisions, however, were concentrated in the House HHS and Education bills, including language barring “any federal funds” from supporting gender-affirming care at any age and threatening funding for schools that support transgender students. Taken together, those measures would have posed a sweeping threat to transgender people’s access to education and health care nationwide.

Those fears eased somewhat when the government reopened under a short-term continuing resolution funding operations through the end of January. In the months that followed, Democrats notched a series of incremental victories for transgender people, advancing multiple appropriations “minibus” packages that stripped out anti-trans riders as the government was funded piece by piece. As amendment after amendment fell away, those wins grew more substantial, including the removal of a proposed ban on gender-affirming medical care from the NDAA—even after it had passed both the House and Senate. Still, the most consequential question remained unresolved: what would ultimately happen to the high-impact anti-trans provisions embedded in the HHS and Education bills.

Now, the package has been released—and for the moment, transgender people can breathe again. The final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom, and no mandate forcing colleges to exclude transgender students from sports or activities like chess or esports. The bills are strikingly clean. As such, they avert yet another protracted shutdown fight in which transgender people are once again turned into political bargaining chips—and, at least for now, remove Congress as the immediate vehicle for new federal attacks, should they pass as-is.

When asked about the successful stripping of anti-trans provisions, a staffer for Representative Sarah McBride tells Erin In The Morning, “Rep. McBride works closely with her colleagues every day to defend the rights of all her constituents, including LGBTQ people across Delaware. In the face of efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to roll back health care and civil rights, she was proud to work relentlessly with her colleagues in ensuring these funding bills did not include anti-LGBTQ provisions. It takes strong allies in leadership and on committees to rein in the worst excesses of this Republican trifecta, Rep. McBride remains grateful to Ranking Members DeLauro, Murray, and Democratic leadership for prioritizing the removal of these harmful riders.”

This does not mean that transgender people will not be targeted with policies and rules that affect them in all areas of life. The Trump administration has acted without regard to law in forcing bans on sports, pulling funding from schools and hospitals, and banning passport gender marker updates. The Supreme Court has been increasingly willing to let the office of the presidency under Trump do whatever it would like to transgender people. However, the lack of passage of bills targeting transgender people means that these attacks will only last for as long as we have Trump in the White House, and a future president should hopefully be easily able to reverse the attacks.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7424216

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22088

Trans News Network (1/1/26): Billie Jean Sweeney, a former New York Times editor, “witnessed the highest echelons of the paper’s management increasingly push anti-trans bigotry and disinformation.”

For several years, the New York Times has baffled journalism watchdogs as well as trans activists with its fearmongering, pseudo-scientific, anti-trans coverage (see, e.g., FAIR.org, 6/23/22, 12/16/22, 7/14/25). A former Times editor has now shed light on the source of the bias, which, she says, comes directly from the top.

In an interview with Trans News Network (1/1/26), Billie Jean Sweeney, a Times veteran who served as the day assignment editor at the international desk prior to her retirement in mid-2024, traced an ideological change in coverage to the 2022 changing of the guard at the paper.

That’s when Dean Baquet, who had been named executive editor by then-publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in 2014, stepped down. Sulzberger’s son, A.G. Sulzberger—who took over as publisher in 2018—picked second-in-command Joe Kahn to replace Baquet, and elevated Carolyn Ryan to co-helm Kahn’s former post of managing editor.

Shortly afterwards, Sweeney explained, the paper published

a series of stories that in hindsight, looking back, were intended to win prizes. It had all the hallmarks of a series of stories that’s intended to make a campaign to win a Pulitzer or whatever they had in mind…a series of stories that challenged every aspect of being trans.

Other observers noticed the shift, too—to the extent that both GLAAD (2/15/23) and more than 180 Times contributors (2/15/23) separately wrote letters to Times leadership to raise concerns about the bias they were witnessing. Kahn responded by essentially declaring war on those who would criticize the paper’s coverage on the issue (FAIR.org, 2/17/23), warning its own writers that he “will not tolerate” their participation in such criticism, and defending the coverage as “important, deeply reported and sensitively written.”

‘Internal PR campaign’

The New York Times (4/9/24) framed the anti-trans Cass Review as part of a “big shift in Europe”—but when reports from other European countries, like Germany and France, came out in support of gender-affirming care, the Times ignored it.

FAIR (5/11/23) conducted a study of Times coverage from April 2022 through March 2023. We found that, unlike the Washington Post, most of its front-page trans-related coverage cast gender-affirming care as either risky or forced on unwitting youth, or else cast trans people as a threat to others—at a time when trans people had become the focus of a nationwide GOP-led assault on their basic rights.

Sweeney said she wrote Sulzberger “a series of notes…that was focused on the coverage and the lack of trans reporters, and the lack of any trans involvement, input even, in the coverage.” She described the Times leadership’s response to the pressure from her and other trans Times staffers as little more than an “internal public relations campaign” that ended after two meetings that produced no changes.

When the English National Health Service in 2024 released the Cass Review—a report on best practices for medical care for trans youth that was heavily criticized by experts—Sweeney said the international desk assigned a UK reporter to the story. The draft article “put it in the context of being this very contentious, very political sort of document.” But once the New York editors saw it, Sweeney said, they killed it, reassigning the piece to science reporter Azeen Ghorayshi, who had worked on many of the paper’s anti-trans articles. (The Times claims Sweeney’s account is “false.”)

The next day (4/9/24), the piece was published with a very different slant from the one Sweeney described seeing: “Youth Gender Medications Limited in England, Part of Big Shift in Europe*.”* As Sweeney pointed out, Ghorayshi used examples like Finland and Denmark—which did not, in fact, reject gender-affirming care the way Cass did—to frame the Cass Review as part of a broader trend.

And when country reports emerged soon after that were supportive of gender-affirming care for youth—from France, and from Germany, Austria and Switzerland—in opposition to Cass, the Times simply didn’t cover them.

‘Conventional wisdom among non-experts’

Utah state medical experts concluded that “overall, there were positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes” from gender-affirming care (Salt Lake Tribune, 5/22/25). The New York Times didn’t find this newsworthy.

Sweeney also pointed to a report out of Utah, where a 2023 bill that placed a moratorium on gender-affirming medical care for youth had also commissioned an independent study by the Drug Regimen Review Center of the University of Utah on the impacts of such care. The more than 1,000-page report was released in May 2025, and its conclusions were striking. They began:

The conventional wisdom among non-experts has long been that there are limited data on the use of GAHT [gender affirming hormone therapy]  in pediatric patients with GD [gender dysphoria]. However, results from our exhaustive literature searches have led us to the opposite conclusion.

And they ended:

It is our expert opinion that policies to prevent access to and use of GAHT for treatment of GD in pediatric patients cannot be justified based on the quantity or quality of medical science findings or concerns about potential regret in the future, and that high-quality guidelines are available to guide qualified providers in treating pediatric patients who meet diagnostic criteria.

Finding those conclusions inconvenient, Utah lawmakers ignored the report—as did the New York Times. But if a review of gender-affirming medical care for youth from another country was important enough to warrant an article, a 2,300-word interview and several prominent subsequent mentions in the Times, why does the review from a US state merit not a single mention in the paper?

If the Times is truly interested in “the facts,” no matter where they point, why do they consistently highlight the minority of European countries that have restricted—not banned—gender-affirming care for youth, rather than acknowledge that the majority allow access to both puberty blockers and hormones?

‘Acknowledged the uncertain evidence’

The New York Times (6/18/25) cherry-picks the medical reviews it likes to defend a ruling that Clarence Thomas saw as justified by Times reporting.

Less than a full month after the Utah report was released, the US Supreme Court ruled in US v. Skrmetti in favor of Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. As one piece of its coverage, the Times published an article by Ghorayshi (6/18/25) purporting to provide context for this anti-trans ruling, under the headline “What Has Medical Research Found on Gender Treatments for Trans Youth?”

Certainly the recent Utah review would seem to be relevant, but Ghorayshi only told readers that “systematic reviews commissioned by international health bodies have consistently found that the evidence of the benefits of the treatments is weak, as is the evidence on the potential harms.”

She pointed to four countries across the Atlantic that “have limited the treatments to extreme cases or allowed them only in clinical trials,” and only one—Germany—that “recently acknowledged the uncertain evidence but cautiously endorsed the treatments.” (Notice she offered no such qualification regarding the restrictions, though they also acknowledged “uncertain evidence.”)

As trans journalist Erin Reed (Erin in the Morning, 6/19/25) pointed out, Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Skrmetti ruling cites the Times seven times. The right has repeatedly used the paper’s reporting to support its legislation and legal cases against trans rights.

Not true, not important

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger (CJR, 5/15/23) rejects the view that “when journalists report information that makes a negative outcome more likely, they are complicit in that outcome.” As Tom Lehrer sang: “That’s not my department! says Wernher von Braun.”

Sulzberger, in an essay in the media review CJR (5/15/23; FAIR.org, 5/19/23), scoffed at those who would say that is evidence of the harm the Times‘ journalism is causing:

In general, independent reporters and editors should ask, “Is it true? Is it important?” If the answer to both questions is yes, journalists should be profoundly skeptical of any argument that favors censoring or skewing what they’ve learned based on a subjective view about whether it may yield a damaging outcome.

Of course, as FAIR (5/19/23, 5/28/24) and other critics have extensively documented over and over, the paper’s most prominent coverage is telling neither “true” nor “important” stories about trans people. It’s telling stories that paint a highly skewed picture of the dangers of transition and prioritizing the perspectives of those who wish to exclude trans people over those of trans people themselves, whose rights and very existence are under attack.

It has always felt clear that such coverage, which deviates markedly from typical centrist media coverage of trans people, is a very deliberate choice by Times leadership. Sweeney’s account gives new insight into that choice.

From FAIR via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7424316

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22066

Florida capital // Daniel Vorndran // Wikimedia Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

The anti-trans bills passed in the Florida House and Senate this week—SB1010 and HB743—are groundbreaking for a few reasons, all of which have activists on the ground sounding the alarm bells and rallying the troops.

Described by activists as the “The More Lawsuits for Teachers & Doctors Bills,” the proposal opens up any health-care practitioner who “aids and abets” a minor pursuing gender affirming care to legal liability. And the bill’s vague and undefined standards embolden Attorney General James Uthmeier to further antagonize trans Floridians, their families, and the doctors who provide them with life-saving care.

Caption: HB0743

The bills passed in both House and Senate committees on Tuesday, with one Democrat—Senator Darryl Ervin Rouson—joining Republican colleagues to vote in favor of the measures, as per the committee vote record.

A policy brief from Equality Florida, shared with Erin in the Morning, argues the bills’ “deliberately” vague language could expose nearly every healthcare worker, from lab techs to therapists, to civil liability or even felony charges for routine care—like counseling, drawing blood, or filling a prescription.

It also targets anyone who is “an employee of the state.” This most notably applies to public school teachers under the guise of “parental rights” over everything from class curriculums to acknowledging a trans student’s name and pronouns.

The lack of guardrails or clear standards also invites selective enforcement—enabling the AG to antagonize providers or schools based on “suspicion, politics, or grievances from ideological extremists,” Equality Florida said.

Furthermore, the bills establish private causes of action, allowing trans patients and their families to sue doctors for physical and “emotional” damages with a statute of limitations as high as 20 years. Fines could be as high as $100,000 per count; the mere threat of such extensive legal liability is enough to cause some professionals to withdraw care completely.

“Never before has state law threatened even mental health support for transgender youth, like the sweeping and ambiguous language of this bill could,” said Jon Harris Maurer, Public Policy Director of Equality Florida. “Lawmakers continually seek to replace parents, doctors, and therapists in caring for these minors.”

While the focus is indeed on youth, the medical chilling effect of bills like this impacts everyone.

Vance Ahrens, a trans Floridian and Navy Corps veteran, spoke out against the bill at the hearing. A mother and grandmother, she’s struggled to access gender-affirming care due to increased regulations in the state, including those imposed on adults.

Florida law now requires that gender-affirming care be provided only by a physician, in-person, with a signed consent form. This strips nurse practitioners and telehealth providers of their ability to offer such care.

It might seem like innocuous red tape—but in practice, it causes serious disruptions. And that’s the point.

“I saw a nurse practitioner for my care in 2023 and lost that access,” Ahrens told Erin in the Morning. “One of the doctors I was able to get an appointment with just before the bill became law called and canceled my initial appointment because they were no longer providing gender-affirming care.”

Similar bills have been passed in other states too, including Arkansas and Indiana. But in some ways, Florida’s “aiding and abetting” law is uniquely poised to empower one person, activists say: Attorney General James Uthmeier, who has used his seat to target dissidents and stoke fear to the point of overcompliance.

The DeSantis appointee has become a leading innovator in using the office of the AG to chip away at Floridians’ human rights and liberties. Most notoriously, he was the architect behind the newly-established concentration in the Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” for migrant detainees.

Meanwhile, his attacks on trans rights have been a convenient excuse to bolster the powers of the Attorney General, according to some critics.

During this week’s House hearing, Democratic Representative Kelly Skidmore eviscerated the “aiding and abetting” bill—and Uthmeier—in no uncertain terms.

“This bill,” she told the House, “is about giving a person who misappropriated somewhere between 10 and $35 million of taxpayer money—and I’m being kind—additional authority to go after physicians.”

The Chair attempts to interrupt her, but Skidmore bites back.

“This is a terrible bill,” she said. “It is about empowering an individual who doesn’t deserve it. Everyone should vote ‘no.’”

Even though the bill made it through committees, there’s still a long way to go before the bill becomes a law. The fight isn’t over—a final vote is yet to come.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7430174

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22212

The anti-trans movement declared victory last week after eight gender critical NHS nurses in northeast England made to share a changing room with a trans woman won their discrimination case against their employer.

“All biological women, not just these brave nurses, should be celebrating this victory for common sense,” wrote gender critical journalist Julie Bindel in the Daily Mail, as the nurses began a victory lap that included the Houses of Parliament and most of the major national broadcasters.

The celebrations are not unwarranted. Unlike Sandie Peggie – another NHS nurse who, in December, claimed victory in her very similar case despite losing her key argument, namely that having her share a changing room with a trans woman amounted to unlawful discrimination – the Darlington nurses won this same argument.

However, as gender critical campaigners have presented the 134-page judgement as a definitive victory that will banish trans people from women’s spaces once and for all, experts say this is in fact overstated.

Equivocal.

In 2023, eight nurses at Darlington memorial hospital – Joanne Bradbury, Karen Danson, Mary Annice Grundy, Carly Hoy, Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey, Tracey Anne Hooper and Jane Peveller – filed a discrimination claim against their employer for requiring that they share a changing room with Rose Henderson, a trans woman. Henderson had been employed at the trust, and using the women’s facilities, since 2019.

The nurses garnered significant media interest after they went public with their case in 2024, even catching the attention of health secretary Wes Streeting, who in June demanded the NHS urgently resolve the issue (regional chief nurse David Purdue told the court that Streeting had personally asked him to visit the hospital and discuss the situation).

On Wednesday, Judge Peter Sweeney issued his findings that County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust had indeed “violated the dignity” of the eight women by having them share a changing room with Henderson.

Judge Sweeney also found that the trust had harassed the claimants by not taking seriously their complaints about its “transitioning in the workplace” (TIW) policy, namely that it did not sufficiently account for the policy’s impact on gender critical and women staff.

On Monday, the trust apologised to the nurses, saying in a statement that it “did not adequately consider the concerns of a group of our colleagues”, and pledging to “rapidly review our policies.”

Anti-trans groups have emphasised the sweeping implications of the Darlington judgement. They have argued that it demonstrates the general unlawfulness of trans people using single-sex spaces, and have demanded that similar trans-inclusive policies be nixed.

Christian Concern is the ultra-conservative, anti-abortion pressure group that funded the nurses’ case. The group has previously projected the nurses’ legal costs at up to half a million pounds, and raised £27,740 in a recent crowdfunder; the ruling means that these legal costs will likely be reimbursed by the NHS trust, along with compensation. In a press release responding to the Darlington judgement, the fundamentalist group said it “confirms that the trust’s policy allowing men into women’s spaces is unlawful and violates the rights of female staff”.

Meanwhile, the prominent gender critical charity Sex Matters said “the government should act with urgency to withdraw the unlawful civil-service policy and similar unlawful policies across … public bodies”. The charity has since said it will consider legal action against the Cabinet Office over the civil service’s trans-inclusive policies.

Echoing many gender critical campaigners, Bindel declared the ruling “unequivocal”. Yet legal experts are far from agreeing on its implications.

In fact, the ruling has stoked an ongoing disagreement within the legal world – one played out in primary colours between anti-trans and pro-trans campaigners – over who can access single-sex spaces. Following several contradictory tribunal judgements, a resolution to this conflict appears only more elusive.

He said, she said.

Anti-trans campaigners argue that trans people’s exclusion from single-sex spaces is the natural conclusion of last year’s Supreme Court case. Brought by gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, the judge concluded that “gender” under the Equality Act refers to “biological” sex, not to sex as defined by a gender recognition certificate.

For a short while last year, it seemed the gender critical interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement had won out. Just a week after the judgement was handed down in April, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued guidance effectively advising that trans people be banned from single-sex spaces. However, the waters soon became muddied.

In October, the EHRC withdrew its interim guidance following a legal challenge by The Good Law Project. The legal campaign group is currently suing the government for issuing the guidance, arguing that the guidance undermines trans people’s human rights. Meanwhile, the EHRC is currently redrafting its guidance into a code of practice, though early signs suggest the second draft may be even more trans-exclusionary than the first, and the government is reportedly reluctant to lay it in parliament.

In practice, however, equality law is not determined by the EHRC, nor even by any single piece of legislation, but by the law’s application in the courts. This has historically led campaigners on both sides to set much store by, and often to simplify, individual cases and their outcomes – often disregarding the fact that many judgements are issued by lower courts and therefore readily challengeable, and are often ambivalent in their findings.

For their part, legal experts are circumspect about how much the Darlington ruling can be generalised.

A turning point?

One lawyer who welcomed the judgement is still quick to point out its limitations. Audrey Ludwig MBE is a gender-critical non-practising solicitor and legal consultant who specialises in equality law. Ludwig began her interview with Novara Media by stating that “obviously, as with all first-instance cases, it’s not binding precedent; it’s illustrative of how an employment tribunal may well find such a case [in the future]”.

Despite this, Ludwig thinks the Darlington case has wide-reaching implications. In her view, it indicates that the trust’s TIW policy is “basically unlawful”, because it “didn’t take into account the rights of this other protected group [people with gender critical views]”. Asked whether employers should be wary about jumping to conclusions about the implications of the case for their own policies, Ludwig said “no”. Others urge caution.

Robin Moira White KC is the UK’s first employment barrister to have undergone male-to-female gender reassignment. Speaking to Novara Media, she pointed out that the tribunal did not consider the legality of the trust’s transitioning in the workplace policy in itself, but rather, whether the trust implemented it in a way that discriminated against these particular eight nurses – which the judge found it did.

On this point, the judgement appears to support White, not Ludwig. “The act of the trust that falls [to the tribunal] for analysis,” wrote Judge Sweeney, “is the implementation of the TIW policy and the permission given to Rose under it to use the changing room.” It is a “jump”, White said, to suggest that his finding of discrimination renders the policy unlawful. It’s an even bigger leap, therefore, to suggest that other employers should alter their own policies to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces altogether.

‘A shield, not a sword.’

The framing of the debate around these employment tribunals gives a false impression of the law, said White. “The moment somebody says ‘sex-based rights’, I know they don’t understand employment law. There isn’t a right to a particular thing; people are protected against particular types of occurrences.”

In other words, the Equality Act gives neither cis nor trans women a “right” to access single-sex spaces. Instead, it says both must be protected from unfair treatment based on their gender, gender reassignment status or, in the case of the Darlington nurses, their gender critical beliefs (which, following Maya Forstater’s action against her employer in 2022, are classed as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act).

Equality law, said White, “is a shield, not a sword”. The problem with our present debate around it, she added, is that “a lot of people are attempting to turn a shield into a sword”.

Employers have long had to deal with clashes in protected characteristics – some conservative workers object to their colleagues’ homosexuality on religious grounds, for example – and to balance them in a way that avoids discrimination against both parties. The only right employees have, said White, is “the right to come to work and use the facilities with dignity and respect. An employer must find the least discriminatory way of achieving that.”

There is a piece of legislation, however, which obliges employers to provide “suitable and sufficient” separate toilets and washrooms for men and women – the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. This was introduced by John Major’s government to ensure that people of all genders could access work at a time when, for example, many factories lacked women’s toilets and changing facilities.

Sweeney found that the trust breached these guidelines: “We conclude that from the moment it permitted Rose to use the female changing room, the trust was in breach of the 1992 regulations,” he wrote.

However, White pointed out that, once again, this doesn’t mean that trans women must be banned from women’s toilets. The 1992 regulations offer principles, not methods of policing and enforcement, which might – as in the case of boys using women’s changing rooms with their caregivers – complicate the regulations in practice. The regulations also don’t offer a definition of gender, White said – and the Supreme Court judgement, which considered “gender” only as defined in the Equality Act, not in other pieces of legislation, doesn’t automatically apply to it.

Once again, gender critical campaigners disagree: in a blog for Christian Concern, head of policy Tim Dieppe wrote that “following the For Women Scotland [Supreme Court] judgment, it is clear that “men and women” means biological men and biological women. In any case, the 1992 Regulations preceded the Equality Act so the words used by parliament could not have meant anything other than biological sex.”

Views and views.

In White’s view, the NHS trust did not discriminate against the Darlington nurses by allowing a trans woman into a woman’s changing room, but rather by failing to provide them with adequate facilities when they made known their gender critical views.

She conceded that the trust dealt with the Darlington nurses “dreadfully”. For some time following the nurses’ complaints, for example, the trust did not provide any alternative changing facilities, and when it did, they were in an unsuitable, fire-unsafe office space. The person responsible for making these alternative arrangements, the court found, had not visited the hospital site. The whole episode demonstrated “extremely poor management,” said White.

Ludwig sees this mismanagement as more than simple ineptitude. “The management, as soon as people raise concerns, should have taken them seriously and not treated them as bigotry,” she said, pointing to the fact that trust managers set up a meeting to encourage the women to “broaden their mindset” and suggested they needed education and training on equality and diversity.

White adds a caveat. She says that while having gender critical beliefs is protected under UK law, and in this case, the eight nurses were discriminated against on the basis of their protected views, expressing them – for instance by harassing a trans colleague – is a different matter.

No ghettoes.

What should employers take from this? For Ludwig, it is simple: “Trans women can’t use single sex spaces, because they’re not single sex if they can use them.” White warns against drastic action.

“Employers have to be very careful, because there is a lot of partisan advice out there. I think employers should step back and think about how to accommodate everyone, every responsible employee, with dignity and respect. When employees come forward with concerns, do we listen to those and find solutions for them, and manage things effectively and with respect for all?”

“The ruling shows that if people come to you with problems, manage them actively. Take the lead. Do a proper job. Go and look at it. Don’t promise people things you’re not delivering.”

For the time being, it appears many workers and public bodies are approaching the ruling with circumspection. Responding to the Darlington judgement, the union Unison, which represents over 1.3 million public sector workers, stated that it was taking time to “assess what this means for Unison”, but that in the meantime its “policy remains the same and the union stands by its beliefs in the rights of our trans, non-binary and gender diverse members.”

So does this mean a bathroom ban on trans people? Not necessarily. In fact, the eventual solution the Darlington NHS trust settled on, albeit too late to stave off legal action – a separate individual changing facility for anyone to use – is the same one White endorses. “Make sure that if it’s easy to, there are some entirely private facilities people can use,” she advised.

She noted, however, that nobody should be compelled to use this facility under equality law. “Putting anyone into a ghetto is likely to be unlawful harassment,” White said. Yet the judgement suggests the trust did ghettoise Henderson, stating that in “alternative changing room facilities were found for Rose to use.” In an email to Novara Media, the trust denied this, insisting that no such bathroom ban was put in place: “The separate facilities were available for any colleagues to use, and this is how it was communicated.”

The tribunal judge, however, suggests that even if Henderson were to have been made to use separate facilities, it wouldn’t have been harassment, since she wouldn’t have been discriminated against on the basis of her gender reassignment, but on the basis of sex, ie. for being a “biological man”.

“Further, excluding Rose from the female only changing room would not have amounted to an act of direct discrimination on grounds of gender reassignment. The exclusion would not be on grounds of gender reassignment. If anything, it might be said to be on grounds of sex. However, Rose would be treated no less favourably than a woman who would also be similarly excluded from the male changing room.”

For lawyers, then, the upshot of this case remains disputed. Judge Sweeney’s reasoning was entirely different from that of the judges in Maria Kelly and Sandie Peggie’s cases. Each side tends to set more store by which one is more favourable to them (Darlington in the case of gender critical campaigners, Peggie and Kelly in the case of trans campaigners). Yet all three judgements are first-instance and therefore not binding on other courts. For the time being, it appears the question of a trans bathroom ban remains inconclusive. What’s certain is that expensive, protracted, psychologically gruelling legal fights will continue in the courts, as both gender critical and pro-trans campaigners await the EHRC code of conduct – the document that will likely guide employers more than any individual tribunal judgement – with bated breath.

From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7415315

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/21784

Lurie Children’s Hospital // Laura Brown NMH Communications

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Hundreds of trans patients, their families, and community activists mobilized last week to protest outside Lurie Children’s Hospital, braving Chicago’s bitter winter cold to do so. Lurie—the only independent, research-driven children’s hospital in Illinois—has announced it will no longer prescribe life-saving puberty blockers and hormones to trans minors at its pediatric gender clinic, unless they are an existing patient already on these regimens.

In a statement shared with Erin in the Morning, the hospital cited federal threats as the catalyst for the changes. “As we await Federal court rulings and assess the rapidly evolving legal landscape, at this time, Lurie Children’s will not initiate gender-affirming medications for patients under age 18 who have not previously been treated with these therapies by our team,” the statement reads*.*

“Actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including their announcement on January 15th of a referral for an investigation of Lurie Children’s, have resulted in this decision,” it continued. “This threatens our ability to care for all of our patients.”

But protestors challenged this narrative. “Let us be clear: this is pre-compliance,” Trans Up Front Illinois, a grassroots advocacy group, said in its own statement on Jan. 20. “No hospital system has lost federal funding. No court has ruled. No law has changed. What we are witnessing is the result of pressure designed to intimidate health care providers and families before any enforcement has occurred.”

Lurie was one of six hospitals targeted by HHS General Counsel Mike Stuart last week over the provision of legal and medically necessary care for trans youth. The Jan. 15 announcement also singled out hospitals in Delaware, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and Oregon.

A tweet by Mike Stuart from Jan 15.

Federal officials say they’re taking aim at hospitals providing gender-affirming care to trans youth (which the right is now calling “sex-rejecting procedures,” in an attempt to erase trans identities). It’s not the first time the HHS has referred trans-friendly hospitals to the Office of the Inspector General to intimidate and harass providers. Denver Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado also recently scaled back care because the HHS “referred” them for “investigation” to the OIG.

Lurie already stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries for trans patients under age 19 in February, after President Donald Trump signed an anti-trans health care executive order. However, executive orders do not hold the weight of law, and that rollback, too, was widely seen as complying in advance in an attempt to avoid costly legal battles.

“Not only may this decision represent a failure to provide medically appropriate care to its patients, but we are also exploring whether Lurie Children’s may be in violation of the law by potentially denying care to trans patients,” Brian Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois, said at the time. “Gender-affirming care is essential, evidence-based, and life-saving, and any rollback of such services puts vulnerable youth at risk.”

“Many of Lurie’s patients were referred for surgery to nearby Northwestern Memorial Hospital,” WBEZ Chicago reports, “which then canceled their appointments.”

Providers around the country have also followed suit, and in many cases, it has thrust trans patients into chaos and disarray.

There are initiatives dedicated to helping families impacted by care bans and pediatric gender clinic closures such as the Trans Youth Emergency Project, Trans Up Front’s Gender Affirming Care Navigation System, and Elevated Access—plus fact sheets compiled by organizations including the ACLU and Lawyers for Good Government.

For many, Lurie’s retreat was seen as a long time coming. The Department of Health and Human Services has launched a full-scale assault on gender-affirming care for youth. While no federal law banning gender-affirming care has been passed, the agency is attempting to inflate its own power and authority by cracking down on it anyway, using federal funding as a carrot on a stick—essentially holding all patients hostage.

Similarly, Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego announced Tuesday it would no longer provide “medical interventions, procedures and prescriptions” to transgender patients under age 18 seeking gender-affirming care.

A Rady spokesperson said continuity of care would otherwise “affect our role and responsibilities as a provider participating in federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential,” as per The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Rady did not respond to Erin in the Morning’s request for comment. Transfamily Support Services, a California-based trans advocacy group, will be leading a protest outside of Rady this Saturday at 11 a.m.

Meanwhile, proposals for anti-trans federal funding cuts to hospitals are still hanging in the balance. The Federal Register is still open for public comment until 5 p.m. on Feb. 17. You can submit input here and here.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7394190

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/21127

Judge Kacsmaryk // Cspan

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

On Saturday, Jan. 17, far-right judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued one of his most extreme rulings yet, finding that West Texas A&M can ban drag performances on campus. In reaching that conclusion, Kacsmaryk discarded long-standing First Amendment precedent and made demeaning assertions about drag itself, including a comparison to “blackface.” The 46-page ruling is riddled with strained reasoning and misapplications of law and, unless overturned by a higher court, will continue to prevent the campus LGBTQ+ organization Spectrum WT from holding its drag show on campus—an event that raises funds for LGBTQ+ suicide prevention hotlines.

Spectrum WT is an LGBTQ+ student organization at West Texas A&M. The group previously held drag performances on campus, including in 2019, without incident. That changed in 2023, when University President Walter Wendler announced a ban on drag shows, writing in a campuswide email that the university would “not host a drag show on campus” because, he said, “every human being is created in the image of God, and therefore, a person of dignity.” Wendler went on to justify the ban by characterizing drag as “misogynistic,” “derisive,” “divisive,” and “demoralizing,” even comparing it to blackface. He concluded by writing:

“A harmless drag show? Not possible. I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it. Supporting The Trevor Project is a good idea. My recommendation is to skip the show and send the dough.”

(The full email is attached at the end of the story)

The dispute has since evolved into a protracted legal battle winding its way through the courts. Judge Kacsmaryk first denied a preliminary injunction, allowing the ban to take effect. That decision was briefly reversed by a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit, before the full court vacated the panel ruling and opted to rehear the case en banc. Now, following a full bench trial, Kacsmaryk has issued a final ruling on the merits, holding that West Texas A&M may ban drag performances on campus.

While the decision permitting a campus drag ban is itself extreme and departs from precedent in similar cases nationwide, Judge Kacsmaryk’s reasoning is particularly egregious. In his ruling, Kacsmaryk accepts University President Walter Wendler’s framing wholesale, concluding that the ban is justified because Wendler likens drag to blackface and claims it “mocks” women. Embracing that comparison, Kacsmaryk writes that “the only difference is that one performance is ‘abhorred by cultural elites’ while the other is in vogue—at least for now.”

This framing, however, fundamentally misunderstands both drag and its comparison to blackface. Blackface was created by white performers to dehumanize a marginalized group and reinforce racial subjugation. Drag, by contrast, emerged from marginalized communities themselves as a form of self-expression, community building, and survival. It has existed across cultures and centuries, from Shakespearean theater to Harlem ballroom culture to contemporary performance. In its modern form, drag conveys meaning about gender identity and expression, deliberately subverting gendered expectations around clothing and performance—placing it squarely within the realm of activity protected by the First Amendment.

Judge Kacsmaryk also sidesteps these First Amendment protections in a separate section of his ruling, where he claims—without explanation, by fiat alone—that drag carries no discernible message. During the proceedings, Spectrum’s former president testified that drag performances convey messages including “bending gender norms,” among others. Kacsmaryk dismisses that testimony, writing that it is unclear whether any drag performances would feature cross-dressing that communicates such a message—a conclusion that requires a willful disregard for what drag is and how it functions. He further asserts that “this court cannot find that there is great likelihood that this message would be understood by those who viewed it,” effectively imagining a world in which audiences attend drag shows without recognizing their commentary on gender norms.

Kacksmaryk ruling that drag does not carry a message.

This is not the first time Judge Kacsmaryk has issued a controversial and legally dubious ruling targeting LGBTQ+ people or advancing far-right causes. His record includes a 2022 decision opposing workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees, a 2024 ruling striking down Biden administration Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students, a 2025 decision siding with employees who misgender colleagues and restrict bathroom access based on gender identity, and his widely criticized 2023 attempt to suspend FDA approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. None of this is coincidental. Before his appointment to the bench—where he continues to preside over cases of national consequence—Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel at First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal organization that routinely litigates against LGBTQ+ rights.

Kacsmaryk’s ruling stands in sharp tension with recent decisions elsewhere in the country. In June, the 11th Circuit found that drag bans create a “chilling effect” on protected speech, whereas a federal judge issued an injunction against Montana’s drag ban after concluding the law violated the First Amendment by censoring expression without proving obscenity. Even courts that have allowed drag restrictions to proceed have emphasized that such bans may be enforced only against obscene performances—not family-friendly shows. Whether this ruling endures may now hinge on the Fifth Circuit’s pending en banc hearing on drag bans. After previously blocking similar restrictions, the court vacated its own decision to rehear the issue before its full, heavily conservative bench—a showdown that will unfold this week and could determine whether Kacsmaryk’s reasoning holds permanently in states belonging to the circuit.

See the full decision here:

Dragdecision

749KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

See Walter Wendler’s full email banning drag on campus here:

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7373344

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20543

On January 13, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on two cases related to trans students’ right to participate on school sports teams. The Idaho and West Virginia state laws in question were passed in 2020 and 2021, respectively, making them early entries in the flood of anti-trans legislation proposed and passed over the last few years in a nationwide effort coordinated by far-right organizations, exposed by trans activist Elisa Rae Shupe in 2023. It’s typical for legal challenges to take several years to reach the Supreme Court; in both cases, the U.S. Courts of Appeals ruled against the bans, and it’s the states, not the athletes, that are taking them to the Supreme Court.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in the Skrmetti decision in favor of a Teneessee law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth, but the decision framed it as a matter of age and medical regulation, not one of anti-trans discrimination, meaning that the court avoided answering certain anti-trans legal questions. These two new cases raise legal questions about Title IX and the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment that could significantly expand the scope of legal anti-trans discrimination in the United States.

The Right has long viewed sports as a viable starting point for establishing legal precedents to lay the groundwork for more sweeping anti-trans legislation. Participation in school sports can be framed as merely a hobby and therefore lower-stakes than social transition and access to gender-affirming medical care. Courts can thus avoid emotionally-charged arguments in the public square about mental health and suicidality.

Questions of competitive “fairness” raise the specter of other people being harmed by trans girls’ existence in a way that is inherent to sport participation instead of relying on increasingly unlikely frightening hypotheticals. Anti-trans discrimination in this type of situation is considered more palatable to centrists and liberals, and the Right tries to use agreement with sports-related discrimination to establish legal precedents that can then be applied in other situations. After all, if trans people aren’t entitled to equal protection under the fourteenth amendment, then all kinds of discriminatory laws can be passed to exclude or closet them.

The Domino Effect of Anti-Trans Litigation

The state of Idaho argues that prohibiting Lindsey Hecox from competing in women’s track is not a matter of sex discrimination. According to journalist Christopher Wiggins, Justice Sotomayor seems to be suggesting that accepting this framing would have bigger implications for sex discrimination protections as a whole. The current legal foundation for anti-trans discrimination — classified as discrimination on the basis of sex — accepts assigned sex at birth as a relevant category. It argues that if a trans woman is treated differently than a cis woman for the same behaviors, she’s being discriminated against because of her assigned sex.

If the court rules that a case like Hecox don’t count as “sex discrimination,” it would undermine the legal reasoning behind many pro-trans protections and open the doors to future carve-outs. That is, if some women can be discriminated against on the basis of sex, then similar arguments could be made for other exceptions for sex-based discrimination or discrimination on the basis of other protected categories, such as race. S. Baum reports that even conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett seems concerned that a broad ruling in this case could result in greater gender segregation and, thus, fewer opportunities for women, including cis women.

Transmisogyny, Plain and Simple

The laws in question also don’t apply to all trans athletes; only trans girls and women. While this might be used to argue that these laws aren’t anti-trans discrimination because they don’t apply to all trans people, this distinction is a prime example of intersectionality in its original legal sense: A law or practice can still be discrimination based on a protected characteristic even if not everyone with that characteristic is treated the same way.

As Baum writes, Sotomayor has previously pointed out that it was argued about Loving v. Virginia that bans on interracial marriage were race neutral because people of all races were banned from interracial marriage. The same argument has been made about same sex marriage — that bans aren’t discriminatory because straight people aren’t allowed to get gay married either.

These laws are plainly anti-trans discrimination even if they only apply to trans women and girls, and singling them out is transmisogyny.

The Working Class, Not the Courts, Can Protect Trans People

Analysts anticipate the Supreme Court will uphold the laws in its final ruling (expected in June), but what remains unclear is how narrow the ruling will be, and which legal questions the Court will choose to address or avoid.

In any case, the decisions have the potential to have significant implications for the legal landscape for trans people in the years to come. While the lower courts’ rulings successfully prevented the laws from being enforced for several years, the likely outcome of the Supreme Court rulings shows that a strategy that relies solely on lawsuits, legal arguments, and sympathetic justices will not deliver the protections trans people need.

Attacks on trans people’s rights, even the right for teachers to acknowledge trans people’s existence, are continuing to escalate, and a strong, combative movement is needed. For example, while some schools are censoring curricula related to trans people specifically — and LGBTQ+ people in general — and capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands to discriminate against trans athletes, other school districts are reaffirming their commitments to support of all students. For example, the Chicago Teachers Union recently negotiated stronger protections for LGBTQ+ teachers and students in its contract. Just as everyday people are in the streets defending their neighbors against ICE, regular people can and must organize in their communities, schools, and workplaces to defend their trans neighbors too.

The post The Supreme Court Is Endangering Far More than Trans Athletes — We Must Fight Back appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7353275

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20329

Wikimedia Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Some transphobes might be on the cusp of understanding what the trans community has been saying for decades now: anti-trans extremism hurts everyone, transgender and cisgender people alike.

Realistically speaking, it’s doubtful these human rights concerns will be enough to tip the scales in favor of progress for the trans community at SCOTUS. We are staring down the barrel of Supreme Court decisions in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. BPJ, both of which follow young trans women who had the audacity to want to play sports with the other girls at school.

The decisions could potentially shape how Americans of any sex or gender are treated across all aspects of life—not just trans people, and not just in sports.

“Even Barrett was a bit alarmed about what a broad decision here could do for women,” Alejandra Caraballo, a Harvard Law instructor and civil rights activist, told Erin in the Morning. “It could result in segregation of women in a host of other areas of public life under the rationale that biologically, men are different and they need to be separated.” Underlying this is the assumption there is a universal scientific or legal definition enshrining two binary sexes, which there is not.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, previously penned one of the most conservative anti-trans documents in SCOTUS history in an even further right-wing concurring opinion for Skrmetti. In thiscase, however, she seems to at the very least acknowledge that anti-trans policies mandating sex segregation inevitably harm cis women, too.

“Your whole position in this case depends on there being inherent differences,” the Justice told the anti-gender rights camp. “I’d be a little bit concerned about what the ramifications of that might be.”

What if, for example, a state produced evidence that women outperform men in math—that women’s good grades put men at a disadvantage academically? Would women need to be culled from advanced math; would there be a required men’s-only remedial option? “Seems to me like there would be some risk on your understanding that that would be okay,” Barrett remarked.

And as far as competitions go, liberal Justice Elena Kagan added: “How about chess club?”

West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams, arguing in favor of the state in BPJ, said this would “fail” to require sex segregation “because there’s an actual lack of evidence of meaningful physiological differences that are reflected in the existence of the express regulations in the athletics context.” (Note: There has nonetheless been a successful push to ban trans women from many gendered chess tournaments, as Erin in the Morning has extensively reported on since 2023.)

Beyond that, despite the snipers atop the roof of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, who oversaw protestors and counterprotestors alike, the tenor inside of SCOTUS was more cordial—on its face. Lawyers exchanged pleasantries. Justices asked them questions about “your friends on the other side.” At least one of the trans youths who fascists have scapegoated to tear apart the country sat quietly as her humanity was interrogated in front of the world.

“A lot of people want to read hope into the justices’ generally more conciliatory demeanor on Tuesday but I fear we cannot afford that luxury right now,” Khadijah M. Silver, Director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, told Erin in the Morning.

“We must prepare for a world where whatever decision, however narrow on its face, is read expansively by judges that have been placed in their roles explicitly to erase our legal right to exist,” they said. “This has never been a strict constitutional or statutory inquiry but instead a political one.”

Some expert spectators latched on to milquetoast comments by the likes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who told the lawyers representing a trans athlete: “I think one of the themes of your argument has been the more people learn, the more they’ll agree with you.”

But this is arguably an off-hand comment at best, and a condescension at worst—a post-Skrmetti affirmation that the court does not see trans people as a distinct class worth protecting. During questioning, many Justices refused to recognize the long and storied history of legal discrimination against the trans community in the United States. Conservative Justices suggested that, because most anti-trans laws do not actually use the word “transgender,” that they can’t possibly be a symptom of discrimination against trans people.

We’ve seen the fallout of this mental-legal gymnastics before; as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion on Skrmetti, this line of thinking was used to justify racial segregation by arguing that, while different races were separated, they all were separated equally.

“[N]early every discriminatory law is susceptible to a similarly race- or sex-neutral characterization,” Sotomayor had said of Loving v. Virginia, which challenged a state antimiscegenation law. “A prohibition on interracial marriage, for example, allows no person to marry someone outside of her race, while allowing persons of any race to marry within their races.”

In today’s legal battle over trans rights, this manifests as trans erasure. The more the government can plausibly deny the existence of trans and intersex people—robbing them of legal recognition—the more it emboldens lawmakers to discriminate. The logic rests on the idea that you can’t violate the constitutional rights of a group if that group does not exist.

On Tuesday, Justices further grappled with the combined and contradictory legacies of the 2025 Skrmetti case, which upheld Tennessee’s law preventing trans youth from accessing many kinds of gender-affirming care, and the 2020 Bostock decision, which established employee anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.

Republican-appointed swing Justice Neil Gorsuch was the primary author of the Bostock decision. He argued then that trans people were constitutionally entitled to protections from discrimination on the basis of sex. This time around, Gorsuch sparred with attorneys over what “sex” even means.

But, as University of California - Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky notes in his analysis on SCOTUSBlog: “Over the last year, the court has failed to follow the logic of Bostock in upholding discrimination against transgender individuals.”

Indeed, the more these cases play out in front of the court, the more the contradictions of anti-trans extremism seem to crumble.

“My sense is that this court is going to sidestep the constitutional questions entirely—they didn’t seem even remotely eager to grapple with the basic reality that trans people are protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause,” said Tekla Taylor, a Public Education Specialist at Advocates for Trans Equality.

“It wouldn’t shock me if they ultimately say that states can discriminate against trans girls under Title IX, which completely glosses over the fact that the feminists who fought for Title IX did so to expand opportunity and dismantle sexist stereotypes—not reinforce them.”

Taylor further emphasized how laws are already chipping away at trans, intersex and women’s rights. “It was extremely disappointing,” they said, “though not remotely surprising, to hear Chief Justice Roberts try to wave away the Court’s own ruling in Bostock in order to pretend these laws don’t plainly discriminate against young trans people and deprive them of the same opportunities everyone else has.”

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7342833

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/19903

New Jersey State Legislature // Niagara // Wikimedia Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

It’s a new day in New Jersey politics, we hope. Activists and lawmakers say the Garden State is on the verge of passing sweeping health care laws protecting transgender people and their medical providers. They’ve been saying as much for years, but a new coalition of advocates has emerged to make equal rights and access to care the law of the land.

Advocates who spoke to Erin in the Morning said they had been under the impression that the law would be put to a vote during the final weeks of Governor Phil Murphy’s tenure—and expressed fear about what the delay could mean for trans New Jerseyans.

“As a new session of the New Jersey legislature opens today and the state prepares for the swearing in of Mikie Sherrill as governor on January 20, a new coalition of transgender adults, parents, providers and allies calls on the state legislature to honor their lame duck commitments and get protections for gender-affirming and reproductive health care on the books immediately,” a press release by the newly-formed Transgender Rights Coalition of New Jersey (TRC-NJ) reads.

The group emerged after years of attempts to pass “shield” laws fell short, leaving trans youth, their parents, and their providers in a state of perpetual fear as assaults on trans Americans’ rights intensify every single day. The proposal also protected reproductive health care more broadly, including abortion.

“I’m terrified,” one parent of a trans teen told Erin in the Morning at the end of the last legislative session, which was earlier this month. She said hundreds if not thousands of trans people, parents of trans youth, doctors and activists have voiced their support for the measures. “I don’t understand how I can live in New Jersey, which always says, like, ‘We’re the bluest of the blue.’”

It’s not immediately clear why New Jersey, which has had almost a decade of Democratic leadership across the board—Democrats control the Senate, the Assembly, the governorship, and the attorney general’s office— adjourned without enacting a version of a law that has been implemented in most every other state in the Northeast Corridor. New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia all have trans shield laws on the books.

Governor Phil Murphy also signed an executive order creating shield protections, but without the codification of law, these safeguards remain up in the air. A new governor could overturn it at any time.

Some New Jerseyans initially criticized Democratic leadership over the stalemate. “As a coalition, we were deeply disappointed that the bill we need to protect trans people, reproductive health access, and health providers did not pass in the previous legislative session, despite substantial support among lawmakers,” said Louise Walpin, co-lead of the progressive group WADEIn NJ and a founding member of the TRC-NJ.

“At the same time, we appreciate that legislative leadership understands the importance of this bill and is committed to work with us to deliver a new bill to Governor-elect Mikie Sherill’s desk in the first months of her governorship.”

Garden State Equality’s Action Fund Board Chair, Jeannine Frisby LaRue, struck a similarly hopeful chord in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, as one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases for trans rights in history played out before a conservative majority of judges.

“Legislative leaders have personally assured me this is an issue they support and that we will expeditiously pass this bill in the new legislative session,” LaRue said. “I am confident Governor-Elect Sherrill will enthusiastically sign this bill into law.”

Khadijah M. Silver, Director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), a national nonprofit delivering pro bono services to TRC-NJ, also told Erin in the Morning that the fight is still on.

“We call on everyone who is impacted by snowballing federal and out-of-state attacks on your rights to come together,” Silver said. “Tell your stories to the Attorney General’s office and the legislature so they can effectively fight for your rights, and protect each other as we push this bill over the line.”

Constituents can also use the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters to contact their representatives, and to demand that the 222nd Legislature make trans rights a priority from day one.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7283802

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18282

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Across the United States, transgender people have been battered by a relentless wave of anti-trans legislation from Republican-led states. Under the Trump presidency, that pressure has only intensified, leaving transgender people increasingly dependent on whether their state government is willing to protect them or abandon them. While many states have weakened protections or embraced outright hostility, a smaller number have taken the opposite approach—suing the federal government, refusing to cooperate with discriminatory directives, and affirming trans people’s right to live freely. Transgender people are noticing. According to a new poll from the Movement Advancement Project and NORC, an estimated 400,000 transgender people have already fled their home states for safer ones since the 2024 election, relocating specifically in response to anti-trans laws and policies, making it among the largest relocations in modern history in the US.

Surveyors at the Movement Advancement Project polled more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ households, asking respondents about their perceptions and actions since the 2024 election. When asked whether they had moved to a different state, 9% of transgender respondents said that they had. That figure translates into a striking level of displacement. According to Gallup, transgender people make up roughly 1.3% of the U.S. population—about 4.5 million people nationwide. If 9% of that population has moved states, it amounts to approximately 401,000 transgender people relocating in the wake of the election, an extraordinary migration driven by political conditions rather than personal preference.

MAP Survey

The likely reasons for this movement appear later in the survey. Transgender people report experiencing startling levels of discrimination in the aftermath of the 2024 election. More than half—56%—said they have faced discrimination because of their gender identity, while 47% reported being harassed in person. In many cases, that hostility is coming directly from the state itself: 24% of transgender respondents said they were discriminated against or mistreated by their local or state government. Faced with conditions like these, which can make even day-to-day life a struggle, relocation becomes less a choice than a means of survival.

MAP Survey

The movement is not limited to transgender people. A far larger number of LGBTQ+ people overall have also changed states since the Trump election. While the percentage is smaller—about 5% of non-transgender LGBTQ+ respondents—the raw numbers are much larger, translating to roughly 1.5 million people relocating across state lines since the election. Their reasons closely mirror those cited by transgender respondents: widespread harassment, persistent discrimination, and a growing sense that remaining in place has become untenable.

This is not the first survey to document this kind of movement. In 2023, Data for Progress examined transgender migration in the aftermath of harsh anti-transgender legislation passed at the state level, and found similarly large numbers of transgender people reporting that they had moved to a different state as a result. While the Movement Advancement Project survey focuses only on migration since the 2024 election, the broader pattern is clear: this migration has been underway for several years, and the true number of transgender people who have relocated in response to hostile policy environments is likely far larger than any single survey can capture.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7274411

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17977

Vermont Statehouse, Adam removeden, Creative Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Across the United States, gender-affirming care has come under sustained attack in Republican-led states and from the Trump administration. For transgender youth, those attacks have been especially severe, with roughly half of U.S. states now banning such care outright. At the federal level, the administration has waged an intense pressure campaign against hospitals, threatening funding and prompting many systems to drop their care programs altogether. That campaign has now escalated further, with the federal government moving to threaten hospitals’ entire Medicaid and Medicare funding if they continue providing transgender youth care. In response, some states and cities are beginning to fight back by establishing their own funding mechanisms for trans healthcare. The latest example comes from Vermont, where lawmakers have introduced a bill to create a trust fund for gender-affirming care designed to be entirely insulated from federal funding threats.

H.576, introduced by Representatives Daisy Berbeco, Tiffany Bluemle, and Troy Headrick, would establish the Affirming Health Care Trust Fund. Administered by the State Treasurer, the fund would provide direct monetary support to healthcare providers and nonprofits offering gender-affirming care in Vermont. It would cover costs for patients who would otherwise go without treatment, fund the establishment of Vermont-based clinics, and pay for malpractice and liability insurance for clinicians who continue offering care. The bill is part of an increasing movement towards private clinics as a mechanism to survive federal threats.

The bill also includes provisions designed to protect patient information from both federal pressure and out-of-state threats, going further than the recent “refuge” or “shield” laws passed in several blue states to protect transgender youth care. It explicitly bars the board and other state actors from disclosing patient-identifiable data, the identities of providers, or the identities of award recipients to the federal government. This is a significant protection given the wave of abusive legislation and attempts to subpoena transgender healthcare records nationwide. While federal preemption may ultimately be litigated, these provisions give clinics a stronger legal footing to resist such demands—particularly as similar subpoenas have been repeatedly quashed in recent court cases.

The bill comes as families scramble to locate alternatives to hospital systems that are abandoning them. With more than 20 hospitals closing their doors to transgender youth care out of fear and preemptive compliance with the Trump administration, many families have been forced to seek alternatives. Just this week, major hospital systems across Colorado, for example, have stopped providing care. Groups like the Trans Youth Emergency Project say they have the capacity to refer displaced patients to private clinics, and in many places those clinics do exist and are absorbing demand. But as hospital-based programs continue to shut down and demand rises, those private providers will need sustained support—and more clinics will need to be created. Bills like this are a targeted way to do exactly that.

If this bill passes, Vermont would be the latest state to protect care in this way—but it would not be the only one. Massachusetts passed a similar measure last year, allocating $1 million toward transgender youth care clinics, though that funding has already come under criticism as insufficient to meet statewide need in the wake of major clinic closures. In New York City, newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged $65 million for transgender healthcare. If that funding is realized, it would position New York City as a major hub for private clinics capable of absorbing demand created by hospital closures across the country. This strategy could prove to be a critical backstop for private providers that are already emerging—and that are likely to come under increasing strain in the years ahead.

The bill allows funding from state appropriations, private donations, grants, and—importantly—federal funds under a future administration that is protective of transgender healthcare. It would take effect immediately upon passage, with the board required to convene by August 1, 2026. There are still hurdles ahead: the bill must advance through committee, pass both chambers, and ultimately receive meaningful funding to function as intended. But its introduction alone signals something important. At a moment when hospitals are retreating and families are being forced into crisis planning, Vermont lawmakers are putting forward a concrete framework to protect access to care rather than surrender it. For Vermonters who want to see their state take a clear stand, residents can find and contact their legislators through the Vermont General Assembly website to make clear where they stand on protecting transgender healthcare.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7265203

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17623

Denver Health // Google Maps

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

It’s a new year but a familiar refrain for Colorado’s transgender youth. For the second time in a row, trans minors seeking gender-affirming care at Denver Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado have rung in the new year with a devastating tug-of-war over their life-saving medical treatments.

On one side sits science-based standards of care. On the other is a political regime hellbent on terrorizing trans children, their families, and their doctors; and some of Colorado’s premiere health care institutions appear to be capitulating to the latter. Last week, both hospitals announced that they would close their doors to transgender minors seeking puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and/or gender-affirming surgery.

“This is the latest in several years of what we’d call ‘pre-compliance’ or ‘overcompliance’— providers feeling threatened into stopping care even before they legally have to,” said Adam Polaski, communications director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, in a statement to Erin in the Morning.

It is not illegal to provide transgender youth with gender-affirming care in Colorado, but that hasn’t stopped the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President Donald Trump from targeting the practice anyway. The White House and its underlings have threatened to strip hospitals of critical funding via Medicaid and Medicare if they provide such care to trans kids in need.

“These closures will surely be a significant blow to access and I don’t want to minimize that,” Polaski said. “We also know that there are providers all over the country doubling down on keeping their doors open, staffing up, expanding hours.”

Implicit in Trump’s threats are costly and draining legal battles. But in abandoning the duty to provide equal access to care for everyone, cisgender and transgender patients alike, these same health systems put untold lives at risk.

Denver Health, for its part, branded the care stoppage as “necessary.” Children’s Colorado has painted it as the inevitable product of threats wielded by the HHS, arguing that keeping its gender clinic doors open to trans youth would be “risking care for hundreds of thousands of children.”

Spokespersons for the hospitals emphasized that psychiatric care will continue, but for many trans youth, that simply isn’t enough. Such Faustian bargains tend to accrue interest. If trans kids’ care is deemed acceptable collateral—even in the interim as court proceedings play out—it begs the question of who will be on the chopping block next.

Denver Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado made headlines in February last year under similar circumstances. They stopped certain kinds of gender-affirming care for trans youth after Trump threatened to pull federal funding. However, the hospitals reinstated such care following favorable court proceedings.

This time around, the programs shuttered following a Dec. 30 tweet from Mike Stuart, the general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He says he “referred” the Children’s Hospital Colorado “for investigation” at the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG)—this despite the fact that state law protects if not compels hospitals to provide equal access to both cisgender and trans people’s care.

The office usually focuses on investigating claims of fraud and professional misconduct, but like many government bureaucracies, the Trump regime has turned the oversight body into a political spectacle in hopes of drumming vitriol from its base and inciting fear from its political enemies—in this case, transgender children.

Rachel See, who spent over a decade as a senior attorney in the federal government in senior enforcement and management roles, told Erin in the Morning that Stuart’s social media declaration was “unusual,” but that general counsel does not determine the results of an investigation. At the same time, Trump has been known to oust Investigator Generals whose findings don’t adhere to his agenda.

The bottom line: “This is the Trump Administration, through HHS, opening up yet another front in its campaign against trans healthcare,” See said. “It is another shot that is intended to—and likely will—make institutional healthcare providers feel that providing trans healthcare puts them at risk, legally.”

Private clinics as well as initiatives like the Trans Youth Emergency Project have cropped up in hopes of softening the blow of such care cuts, but inevitably, diminishing treatment options from Colorado’s largest providers is bound to see many trans kids, especially those from low-income families, fall through systemic cracks.

These capitulations mark a grave turning point for a state once touted as a progressive “haven” for trans youth—in a region of the country otherwise hostile towards their existence.

In December, the HHS announced a proposed rule change to defund hospitals that “perform sex-rejecting procedures” on minors, the latest rhetorical creation of the same party that arbitrarily redefines sex and gender on a routine basis.

“The idea that Robert Kennedy and Dr. Oz, who have no medical expertise and have been discredited, are questioning and condemning the judgment of real medical providers and families is disgusting,” said Mardi Moore, chief executive officer at Rocky Mountain Equality, when news of that proposal first broke.

“They don’t know what they are talking about.”

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

I am in the south east united states and I am trying to figure out if I need to use my legal name on the testing

I know they require you to show identification for drug tests but can anyone give info on if they actually require an ID or not for a hormone panel

I am not publically out and not in the best area but I would probably just wear a mask and pay with a gift card unless they require me to show a drivers license then I guess I will have to do it because I need the blood testing but I don't feel particularly safe having that on my medical record

Edit : forgot to say but unless they require Id and somewhere else doesn't I am probably going with Lab-Corp for the testing because they have it for cheap and I figured out how to get it

So, I posted about not wanting to shave despite my family and the guy I like wanting me to. Someone on another social media platform (I know Lemmy isn't like other social medias sometimes) said that it was because the guy I like was transphobic and saw me as a girl. Is his behavior transphobic for wanting me to shave my private areas and legs? I think it's just a preference...

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7201364

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16368

Photo by Jamie Fenn on Unsplash

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Every year around this time, I look back and try to make sense of what we’ve lived through. Since I began reporting on LGBTQ+ news, there has never been a shortage of material—years defined by a mix of real victories and relentless harm. In the past, I’ve marked the end of the year by listing the wins, but as 2025 comes to a close, that tradition feels hollow and even dishonest, given how much this year has taken. And yet, beneath the exhaustion, I find myself feeling something unexpected: hope. Not because the danger has passed or because things are about to suddenly get easier, but because even with so many levers of power turned against us, we are still here. We are still finding care. We are still finding one another. We are still surviving. That persistence—the simple fact that we have not been erased—is what gives me hope for the future, even as the forces arrayed against us lash out with what increasingly feels like desperation.

I want to remind readers of what we have lived through this year—especially those who are newer here, who may have found my work because a family member passed it along over the holidays. In 2025 alone, we’ve faced dozens of executive orders and federal policies touching nearly every part of our lives: bans on passport gender marker changes, threats of revocation, and national sports bans spanning everything from darts to figure skating. Colleges have capitulated to Trump’s demands, pledging to bar transgender people from bathrooms, and even the U.S. Capitol building has followed suit. Many people have lost health insurance coverage or had identification documents withheld. Transgender youth, in particular, have been hit hard—dozens of hospitals have stopped offering care, courts have ordered forced outings to parents, and access to stability has been stripped away piece by piece. This is only the tip of a very cruel iceberg we have endured throughout 2025, with three more years of a Trump presidency still ahead.

And yet, we have not met our doom—at least not yet. Gender-affirming care for transgender adults remains available in all 50 states, with Florida imposing some restrictions, ones that transgender people have nevertheless found ways to work around. Many hospital systems continue to offer care to transgender youth, and some are actively fighting to keep doing so. At the same time, private clinics have emerged across the country providing youth care entirely disconnected from federal funding threats. The Trans Youth Emergency Project is helping families bridge the gaps, offering stipends, information, and travel assistance so care can continue. Even after everything that has been thrown at us, they have still failed to stop transgender healthcare in the United States.

Other federal policies are hitting us hard as well. The passport ban remains in effect, and many transgender people are living with uncertainty as the administration waffles on whether it intends to revoke passports issued during the injunction period that briefly allowed gender marker changes after Trump shut the process down. However, for now, those who updated their passports before the crackdown remain unaffected, and many people were able to renew or change their documents just before the presidency began, giving them nearly a decade of safety. As of this moment, passports updated during the injunction still appear to be valid and usable for travel. While some people are nevertheless being deeply impacted by the current policy, this pain is not permanent. In a few years, there will be another election, and because none of these restrictions are federal law, a future administration could reverse them just as easily as they were imposed.

Looking more broadly, there is no national federal bathroom ban. There is no total national ban on transgender youth healthcare. There is no nationwide sports ban enacted through a law passed by Congress—and many states continue to protect transgender participation in sports, despite capitulation by national sports organizations. Numerous states are still maintaining sanctuary-style protections, and people continue to travel across state lines to access the care they need. Quite simply, the administration is failing—often spectacularly—at erasing transgender people. They are making our lives harder, yes, but many of us are finding strength in community, sharing information, and relying on word of mouth to navigate around restrictions that are often riddled with holes and, with enough effort, still bypassable.

There are also more concrete reasons for hope. In Congress, only a small number of Democrats defected on a national sports ban. More recently, when Marjorie Taylor Greene’s national ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth came to a vote, more Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats than Democrats crossed over to vote with Republicans. The margins were narrow on both sides, to be sure—but they show that the fault lines have not cracked into earthquakes. National Republicans, it turns out, are often less unified on these issues than their state-level counterparts. And amid all of this, sustained pressure—including lobbying by Rep. Sarah McBride, who has faced criticism in the past (including from me) for what some viewed as overly cautious positioning—helped strip anti-trans medical provisions from the NDAA, even after similar policies had passed both the House and Senate. It’s hard to look at this record and not see that we still have a fighting chance.

Going beyond Congress, there are signs that the anti-trans fever that gripped politics over the last several years is beginning to break. In 2024, anti-trans advertising was widely credited with helping Republicans flip key races. A year later, voters are no better off: prices remain high, government dysfunction persists, and inequality continues to deepen. The promised fixes never arrived. As that reality sets in, voters appear increasingly exhausted by the constant effort to pin society’s failures on transgender people. What once functioned as a mobilizing wedge is now being recognized for what it is—a distraction meant to redirect anger away from those actually in power. That distraction is losing its potency. Even among voters who may hold mixed or conservative views on transgender issues, there is growing evidence that they do not see those issues as a governing priority, and may even be turned off by politicians who make anti-trans attacks the centerpiece of their campaigns. The results speak for themselves: sweeping 2025 losses for anti-trans firebrands in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, and in school board races across the country.

This is no promise that 2026 will be easy. I expect continued regression, particularly in red states that still believe they must deliver cruelty toward transgender people to satisfy their base. We will likely see new and inventive ways to target us, along with further federal attacks from President Trump. Adult care may face threats in some states, or even nationally, before this is over. But the deeper we move into Trump’s presidency, the less time he has to enact the most extreme ambitions of his party. Even when new policies are announced, they are likely to be tied up in court for months, if not longer. And even when the Supreme Court ultimately signs off—as it has repeatedly shown it is willing to do—the clock will be closer to running out. The tunnel is long, but the light at the end of it is still there.

And so, as we move into 2026, my advice to the community I belong to—and write for every single day—is this: there will be hard moments ahead. There will be people who tell you to give up, and there will be days when hope feels distant. My reporting will continue to cover things that are difficult to read, because the truth often is. But it is through understanding the threats we face, maintaining connection with one another, and quietly, relentlessly finding ways around policies meant to erase us that we continue to survive. We carve out space not because it is given to us, but because we insist on it. And when history does bend toward justice—as it always eventually does—it will be because people like us were there, hands on the arc, bending it.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7206975

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16545

A transgender rights activist holds a flag during the Trans Day of Visibility rally on the National Mall on March 31, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

For trans people in the United States, the year is ending much as it began: with a flurry of assaults on their very existence from Donald Trump’s regime. Attacks on trans people, especially trans youth, have been a constant throughout Trump’s second term so far, but the government took advantage of the year-end lull to attempt to push through a series of measures aimed at fully decimating health care provisions for trans youth.

The Department of Health and Human Services in mid-December announced proposals that, if enacted, would be a de facto ban on all gender-affirming medical care for young people in the entire U.S., where this care is already banned or restricted in 27 states. The new rules, which are now in a 60-day comment period, threaten to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to minors — effectively forcing hospitals to stop offering it. Without this funding, practically no hospital can survive.

The same week HHS announced its plans, the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to a dozen manufacturers and retailers of chest binders, warning that the products were in violation of federal law since they were not registered as medical devices.

Heading into 2026, we know we can expect more of the relentless same from Republicans. When it comes to making trans lives unlivable, Trump’s party and its anti-trans zealots will throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. The open question is whether Democratic leaders will learn from their mistakes and actually stand up for the trans kids and adults on the front lines of Trump’s fascist onslaught.

[

Related

How to Keep Providing Gender-Affirming Care Despite Anti-Trans Attacks](https://theintercept.com/2025/03/09/abortion-trans-health-care-doctors-trump/)

Indeed, Democrats nationwide have an opportunity right now to show what it looks like to robustly oppose measures deployed by the Trump administration to hack away at essential health care. They can refuse to let HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his quack accomplice, Dr. Mehmet Oz, quietly and unilaterally push through dangerous and blatantly anti-science rules that would affect every hospital in the country. To do this, though, Democratic leaders must unite to support trans youth.

The latest administration moves are devious – using Medicaid and Medicare funding and FDA regulations as cudgels to coerce health care providers and related businesses to stop offering lifesaving services and tools to young people. Journalist and trans rights advocate Erin Reed described the HHS plan as “the single most aggressive attack on transgender healthcare in U.S. history” since “its adoption would likely force every hospital and major clinic that relies on Medicaid to immediately cease providing transgender youth care.”

Even threatening such a policy serves to chill health care providers. The point is to apply constant pressure and add layers of complication and uncertainty so hospitals and health care systems fall in line out of fear. This has been the Republican playbook for years when it comes to hacking away at reproductive and gender-affirming care. Such efforts depend on compliance, and — particularly when it comes to anti-trans policies and laws — have faced all too little serious opposition from Democratic leaders.

It is a good sign that a coalition of 19 states has already sued to challenge the proposed HHS rules. The lawsuit calls the HHS efforts unlawful and based on bunk scientific claims.

“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, in a statement. “No one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices.”

While the lawsuit against HHS signals crucial opposition, this last year has made it all too clear that the courts cannot be relied upon to defend trans people’s basic human rights. After all, the far-right Supreme Court in June upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming health care for trans teenagers.

But legal avenues are limited when the highest court in the land is ruled by a majority of right-wing ideologues. This is a struggle on many fronts. As Reed reported, organizations like the Trans Youth Emergency Project and the Campaign for Southern Equality are “actively assisting families with contingency planning for continuity of care” while the implementation of the proposed new policies is challenged. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and brave trans kids and their loved ones, who have fought every unconstitutional and malicious anti-trans law in court, will continue to need vigorous support and direct funding assistance.

It’s also high time that Democratic leaders treat the assault on trans youth for what it is: the attempted eradication of an entire category of persons, against which committed political opposition should be the baseline.

Democrats’ willingness to align with fascists to criminalize lifesaving health care should have no home in a purported opposition party.

Democratic leaders across the country have so far largely failed to stand up for trans people. California Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed himself to be despicably eager to throw trans people under the bus in service of an ill-thought centrist realpolitik and to buoy his larger political ambitions. Three Democrats joined with Republicans in the House of Representatives to support a bill that would imprison health care providers for providing basic gender-affirming care for anyone under 18. Luckily, the bill is highly unlikely to pass the Senate, but Democrats’ willingness to align with fascists to criminalize lifesaving health care should have no home in a purported opposition party.

As sure as Republicans will continue to push their cruel and deadly agenda, centrist pundits and operatives will urge Democrats to sacrifice targeted communities in an effort to appeal to an imagined group of voters. This pandering only serves the far right by treating its talking points as a legitimate political center as Democrats negotiate against themselves.

[

Related

Gavin Newsom’s Cynical Embrace of the Anti-Trans Agenda](https://theintercept.com/2025/03/07/gavin-newsom-trans-democrats/)

The idea that Democrats benefit electorally by bending rightward on key moral issues like trans rights and immigration has by now been thoroughly debunked. With the midterm elections ahead, Democrats would do well to focus on economic issues that serve America’s working class, the material concerns where Trump is roundly failing Americans — which in no way requires throwing trans people and minority rights under the bus.

In reality, it’s quite the opposite: Democrats simply need to push a consistent platform of health care and dignity for all, while refusing to let far-right fearmongering frame the debate. They must start now, using every possible tool at their disposal to block Kennedy’s underhanded health care ban — or risk forever being remembered for slinking back to the wrong side of history.

The post Trump Spent 2025 Making Trans Lives Unlivable. It’s Time for Democrats to Defend Them. appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7083726

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14431

Photo by Suzy Brooks on Unsplash

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

On Thursday, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., released a new proposed rule that represents the single most aggressive attack on transgender healthcare in U.S. history. The rule—effectively a “nuclear option” from the administration—relies on expansive and legally dubious authority to restrict Medicaid funding through what are known as “conditions of participation.” Rather than directly banning Medicaid reimbursement for transgender care, the rule would bar any hospital that accepts Medicaid funding from providing gender-affirming care for trans youth at all, regardless of whether that care is paid for by Medicaid. By making this a baseline condition for participation in the program, the administration appears to be weaponizing Medicaid itself to enact a de facto national ban on transgender youth care, following the passage of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill in the U.S. House and its likely inability to advance in the Senate.

The rule, document 2025-23465, is sweeping in scope. It introduces a new regulatory term, “sex-rejecting procedures,” defined as any medication or surgical procedure that “attempts to align an individual’s physical appearance or body with an asserted identity that differs from the individual’s sex.” Under the proposal, a hospital “must not perform sex-rejecting procedures on any child” in order to participate in Medicaid. This goes far beyond a simple ban on Medicaid reimbursement for transgender youth care. Instead, it functions as a direct threat to any hospital that continues to offer such care at all, regardless of funding source, and its adoption would likely force every hospital and major clinic that relies on Medicaid to immediately cease providing transgender youth care.

The new rule contains no exceptions for patients already receiving care, meaning transgender youth who have remained in treatment even under some red-state bans would immediately see that care cut off. For many, this would amount to forced medical detransition, particularly for those unable to find another provider—an almost impossible task given that no hospital accepting Medicaid could continue offering care under the rule. The document itself openly acknowledges this choice, stating, “In developing this proposed rule, we considered aligning our requirements with those States that already have restrictions on SRPs but with a variety of exceptions they provide as outlined in Section 1.B of this proposed rule. For example, we could have allowed those currently receiving these procedures to continue receiving them. Ultimately, however, we have decided to adopt the proposed provisions with fewer exceptions than are allowed in these States to maximize health and safety for all children.”

This rule appears to violate multiple U.S. statutes and constitutional limits on federal authority. Most notably, Section 1801 of the Social Security Act explicitly bars the federal government from using Medicaid regulations to exercise direct supervision or control over the practice of medicine. The statute states: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any Federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer or employee of any institution, agency, or person providing health services; or to exercise any supervision or control over the administration or operation of any such institution, agency, or person.” By conditioning all Medicare participation on the cessation of a specific clinical practice, CMS is exercising direct ‘supervision and control’ over the practice of medicine.

The government attempts to get around this by stating that gender affirming care is not part of “the practice of medicine.” In a section dedicated to this anticipated challenge, the new rule states: “Under Section 1801 of the Act, CMS may not “exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided, (42 U.S.C. 1395). However, we believe that providing the SRPs for children is not healthcare and hence are not subsumed under the term of “the practice of medicine.” Therefore, the proposed rule would not regulate the practice of medicine".”

Practice of medicine exception

The rule also likely violates the Constitution in two fundamental ways. First, it disregards the separation of powers. The executive branch cannot simply create a de facto nationwide healthcare ban through regulation when Congress has never authorized such a ban in statute. Agencies are empowered to implement laws, not to invent sweeping new prohibitions that Congress itself has declined to enact. Second, the rule represents a direct assault on states’ rights under the Tenth Amendment. By threatening to strip Medicaid participation from hospitals that comply with state laws requiring the provision of care, the administration would effectively coerce states into abandoning their own democratically enacted protections—or face the collapse of large portions of their healthcare systems.

The proposed rule nevertheless asserts that these guidelines would preempt state laws, placing a direct target on the “shield laws” enacted by states like California, Minnesota, and New York. The text is explicit in its intent to override state sovereignty, declaring that any state statute requiring hospitals to provide gender-affirming care—or protecting the providers who do—would be superseded by this federal regulation. In effect, the administration is claiming that a bureaucratic rule change has the power to nullify the democratically enacted protections of “safe” states, attempting to shatter the legal firewalls these states have built to protect transgender youth and their families from persecution and to ensure that care could be continued to be provided.

Federal preemption of shield laws assertion

“These draft rules comprise a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to undermine the longstanding right of states to ensure the health and well-being of their residents, the right of parents and caregivers to support and love trans and nonbinary young people, and the guidance of doctors and medical organizations on the well-established standard of care. This draft rule is based on a biased “report” written by anti-trans authors that distorts existing evidence and ignores decades of rigorous research supporting the safety and necessity of gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary youth,” says Khadijah M. Silver, JD/MPH, Supervising Attorney for Civil Rights at Lawyers for Good Government.

The ban would leave only a narrow window for transgender youth to access care from providers not affected by the rule. The only entities that could continue offering treatment would be private doctors or clinics that do not accept Medicaid at all. While there has been some discussion about establishing such clinics to fill the gap, those efforts have largely failed to materialize. As a result, most transgender youth would be left without any realistic alternative provider for their care.

The full federal rule can be read in this document. An unpublished version is available here, with the official published version expected to appear Friday. Once published, the rule will enter a 60-day public comment period, during which members of the public can submit feedback. After that period closes, the government is required to review and respond to those comments before the regulation can take effect, a process that can take an unspecified amount of time. Court challenges are all but certain, but if the rule is ultimately allowed to go into force, it would likely spell the end of most transgender youth care in the United States.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7101833

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14845

TYEP - Used With Permission

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

Over the last several years, many red states have banned gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Since Trump returned to power, that campaign has shifted to blue states, with the administration threatening hospitals and healthcare systems with the loss of federal funding unless they stopped providing care. This week, those threats escalated sharply: a new federal rule, now in its public comment period, would bar any hospital that provides transgender healthcare from receiving Medicaid funds—a move that would effectively force most major hospital systems to end that care altogether. In response, an organization that has already helped families navigate care bans in red states is stepping in again. The Trans Youth Emergency Project (TYEP), spun up by leaders at the Campaign for Southern Equality, says it has capacity to help parents of transgender youth locate independent clinics that may be less vulnerable to the administration’s current and incoming policies and can provide, in some cases, travel assistance.

TYEP’s latest outreach follows the release of a sweeping new federal rule that would bar any hospital system—and any clinic affiliated with those systems—from providing gender-affirming care if they accept Medicaid. The rule contains no carveouts for patients already receiving care, meaning many transgender youth would be forced into abrupt medical detransition unless they can quickly secure alternative providers, should the rule take effect. It explicitly claims to preempt state shield laws in places like California, Minnesota, and New York. The proposed rule further destabilizes an already fragile healthcare landscape for transgender youth, as hospitals and clinics continue to shutter services in preemptive compliance with the administration’s escalating threats.

The rule does leave one narrow avenue for transgender youth to continue accessing care: private, independent clinics and physicians who do not accept Medicaid. Earlier this year, as hospital systems began shutting down services, advocates spoke about spinning up independent clinics to meet the need. Massachusetts advanced a measure intended to funnel funding toward that kind of care, and in New York City, mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani pledged millions to help preserve treatment capacity. But for many families, the talk of these clinics have felt like vaporware—plans discussed publicly that have yet to translate into accessible appointments. There may, however, be a quieter reality beneath the surface: clinicians and small practices that are not advertising openly but remain prepared to provide care. That is where TYEP steps in, working behind the scenes to connect patients with providers who are still able and willing to treat them.

When asked whether TYEP has the capacity to absorb a surge of families seeking alternatives in the wake of the new rule, organizers said unequivocally that they do. They noted that the organization has repeatedly scaled up during previous waves of clinic and hospital closures without issue. Adam Polaski explained, “At every turn, we have been able to pivot and scale up and show people the reason that this is important. Folks have stepped up with their dollars, and also folks have requested support and spread the word. So right now, I don’t want folks to feel like they shouldn’t reach out because they ‘don’t really need it’ or someone else ‘needs it more than them.’ Everyone needs the support right now, and it’s ok. We have the capacity to take it on.”

Polaski compared what the group is doing to efforts that spun up for abortion access in the wake of recent restrictions and bans. “A lot of folks are recognizing that this kind of, you know, practical support network that the abortion access movement has crafted so powerfully is going to be necessary for trans folks.”

The group is likely to face real stress testing in the coming weeks. While the rule change has not yet taken effect—the process will include a 60-day public comment period, additional time for the administration to review comments and finalize the rule, and near-certain litigation that could delay or block implementation entirely—we have already seen that the mere threat of new anti-trans rules is often enough to prompt hospital systems to fold. Even now, EITM is aware of hospital systems actively discussing the proposed rule and weighing preemptive closures in anticipation of compliance pressures. That means independent clinics may begin seeing an influx of patients well before any rule is finalized. In that environment, organizations like the Trans Youth Emergency Project will be essential in helping families navigate a rapidly shrinking and increasingly opaque care landscape.

Families wishing to contact the TYEP about their situation can do so here by filling out their intake form. The national project offers family navigation through one-on-one phone calls to help identify providers unimpacted by restrictions, as well as travel grants of $500.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7073048

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14218

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

As major anti-transgender bills loom and Congress prepares to vote on sweeping restrictions on transgender healthcare over the next two days, Representative Sarah McBride gathered with reporters outside the Capitol to denounce what she called the Republican Party’s “obsession” with transgender people. McBride was joined by Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Johnson for the press scrum, which comes at a critical moment: two high-profile bills—one proposing a national felony ban on trans youth healthcare and another seeking to bar Medicaid coverage—are expected to receive floor action, alongside anticipated moves by the Trump administration to pressure hospitals nationwide through Medicaid restrictions.

“So, we are two legislative days away from the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring, when millions of people will see their healthcare premiums skyrocket, And GOP leadership, with that deadline fast approaching, has decided to schedule two votes on anti-trans bills and precisely zero votes on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” started McBride, before turning to Republican obsession on transgender people.

“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s healthcare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent. All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. They are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this and they are extreme on it.”

McBride’s comments come as Congress weighs two major anti-transgender bills. The first, introduced by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, is expected to be heard today. The bill would enact a nationwide ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, imposing penalties of up to 10 years in prison on those who provide such care. With amendments expected, the bill could extend its reach beyond doctors to parents as well, a move that would be devastating for transgender healthcare nationwide. While the bill is not expected to survive the Senate, it will function as a high-stakes messaging vote—particularly for Democrats facing pressure from political consultants to shift right on transgender issues, and for Republicans representing more moderate districts. Notably, Democrats recently secured major electoral victories in races where transgender rights featured prominently, a political reality that may give some Republicans pause before embracing the measure.

The second bill, introduced by Representative Dan Crenshaw, would ban Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care nationwide. The proposal is expected to be framed as a more “moderate” alternative to Greene’s felony ban—an apparent effort to peel off support from centrist Republicans and potentially even some Democrats. Like many recent Republican proposals, Crenshaw’s bill also embeds a rigid definition of sex, legally grounding it in reproductive capacity, language the party has increasingly attempted to codify across federal legislation related to gender.

McBride focused on the extreme nature of the bills, including the parental jailing provisions, stating, “They are bringing forward a bill that would put parents and providers at risk of being jailed—literally jailed—for affirming their transgender child and following medical best practices. t is already hard enough to raise a family today. It is already hard enough to be a kid today. And families with transgender young people are navigating complicated and complex situations, making deeply personal healthcare decisions. And regardless of what decision you might make as a parent, government should never insert itself into the personal healthcare decisions of patients, parents, and providers. That is a basic principle and a basic right that should be afforded to all Americans, including transgender people and their families.”

The language marked some of the harshest criticism McBride has leveled at Republicans to date over their targeting of transgender people. She has herself been the subject of Republican attacks, including a bathroom ban advanced earlier this year by Rep. Nancy Mace that appeared aimed directly at her. While McBride has faced criticism since her election—over interviews and statements on transgender rights, including from myself—her forceful posture and visible pushback against this legislation are likely to be received as a welcome sign by transgender people who want to see Democrats in Congress meet these attacks with more than quiet resistance.

You can contact your representatives today to urge them to vote against the anti-transgender provisions. At least one Democrat has expressed uncertainty on how she will vote, Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA), and several other Democrats have voted for anti-trans provisions this year, including: Henry Cuellar (TX), Donald G. Davis (NC), Cleo Fields (LA), Shomari Figures (AL), Laura Gillen (NY), Jared F. Golden (ME), Vicente Gonzalez (TX), Adam Gray (CA), Susie Lee (NV), John W. Mannion (NY), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA), Kim Schrier (WA), and Thomas R. Suozzi (NY).

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40180143

What happened

Going against policy, the UK's EHRC chose to not record (or perhaps even destroy) the meeting minutes for a 2023 consultation with trans groups after one of its worst acts towards their rights.

This meeting was the day after the EHRC sent its now infamous letter to Kemi Badenoch, suggesting the Government to rewrite the Equality Act by redefining the words sex, man, and woman to mean “biological sex"

Context for Americans etc.

For context, the EHRC is the UK's primary human rights organisation. However, since Kishwer Falkner's takeover in 2020, the organisation has taken a clear trans-exclusive direction that has only gotten worse over time.

They offer guidance to businesses and the government on how to interpret human rights laws. That guidance authority has been used to twist the meaning of legislation intended to protect minority groups, against all legal precedent, to instead use as a basis for removing the rights of trans people specifically.

The EHRC has since rarely met with trans organisations when deciding how to advise on their rights. Instead, they frequently meet with trans hate groups like Sex Matters. This is to the point that their views closely mirror these hate groups.

Back to the article

Looking at the meeting notes, it's clear why they chose to hide them, as it's clear that they were entirely unable to justify their change in definition of sex and gender, and they knew that it went against the stances of most other human rights organisations.

Have a read for yourself. The long pauses are wild.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7023465

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/13295

As the anti-transgender panic continues to escalate — and as many of the bills seen over the last four years migrate from statehouses to the national level — states that have led the charge have shown no inclination to slow down. Instead of resting on the discrimination they have already enacted, many are pressing forward with new and increasingly punitive ways to target transgender people.

Source

From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7011204

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12980

On 3 December, the Women’s Institute announced its “sincere regret” that it will no longer accept trans women as members. The next week, on 8 December, Good Morning Britain (GMB) aired an interview with a trans woman expressing her upset at being expelled.

However, she — Rowena Purdy — also argued that the Women’s Institute should allow “fully transitioned” trans women to join as members. This article is about why this line of thinking is dangerous, regressive bollocks at a moment when trans people’s rights are on the line.

GMB tweeted:

A trans woman, who has been a member of the Women's Institute for nearly 10 years, is being forced to leave after the organisation decided it can no longer offer trans women membership. The W.I. will restrict membership to only those born female from next year, because of a… pic.twitter.com/lyo32So26c

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) December 8, 2025

Discriminatory and voluntary

As the Canary’s HG previously reported, Melissa Green — the chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes — said it made the decision to ban trans women with the “utmost regret and sadness”. She stated that:

To be able to continue operating as the Women’s Institute – a legally recognised women’s organisation and charity – we must act in accordance with the Supreme Court’s judgment and restrict formal membership to biological women only.

She added:

But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex in the Equality Act in April, many organisations have either willingly or under pressure from TERFs been excluding trans women and girls. The actual legal pressure to do so is, however, dubious at best.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) took down its interim trans guidance from its website on 15 October. This was the document which held that trans people should be excluded from spaces aligned with their lived gender.

Further, equalities minister Bridget Phillipson hasn’t written EHRC’s trans code into law. As such, there’s absolutely no legally binding basis to exclude trans people.

However, that hasn’t stopped organisations like the Women’s Institute from pre-emptively moving to obey whatever they think the law might be. That they firmly believe that trans women are women is immaterial. Their actual actions are discriminatory and completely voluntary, all in fear of getting sued by some transphobe with deep pockets.

Transmedicalism 101

Anyway, enter Rowena Purdy who argued on GMB that:

We all know that there are men who put dresses on and go around and call themselves women and think that they may now be trans women, but they’re not. To be a trans woman you’ve got an awful lot of medical things to go through. […] And on my behalf, I’m now fully transformed, fully transitioned, and so I go to WI.

As a good rule of thumb, if your argument at any point sounds like a slight variation on something a bigot who wants you to stop existing would say, it’s probably a good idea to reconsider. ‘Men in dresses trying to get into women’s spaces‘ is transphobic shit. Purdy went on to say:

I think the waters are very muddied by people who literally do put a dress on and try and get into womens’ ‘spaces’, if you like, and I think that’s wrong.

Now, regarding Purdy’s argument, presenter Richard Madeley said:

I’ve not heard someone in your position say this before

The problem is that most trans people will have heard this from someone within their communities before. Its a position called ‘transmedicalism’. It’s an ideology that used to be more dominant, but has thankfully waned in recent years.

As Pink Newsexplained:

Often, self-proclaimed transmedicalists will, falsely, claim that a portion of the community are “legitimate” trans people, under a vaguely defined list of requirements such as gender dysphoria or desire for surgery. Anyone who does not fit that criteria, to a transmedicalist, does not have a true trans identity. […]

The belief has since spawned a long list of exclusionary sub-beliefs, such as the idea that non-binary people do not exist and are not valid, and that over the past few years some influencers have begun identifying as trans to keep up with a “trend,” insultingly called “transtrenders”.

We can’t abandon one another

Transmedicalism is harmful for a number of reasons. First and foremost, to transmedicalists like Purdy, it reduces trans identity from something one simply is to something that’s done to you. ‘True’ transness becomes a reward reserved for people who can play the medical establishment game and access HRT and surgery.

As a reminder, the government is desperately trying to restrict access to trans medical procedures. The waiting list for even a dysphoria diagnosis is measured in years. And outside of the NHS, transitioning costs tens of thousands of pounds, which many trans people don’t have.

As such, hinging who gets to be a True Trans on ‘whoever the government allows to transition’ is a non-starter.

Some trans people don’t want surgery because they would like to have children one day. Others can’t have surgery because of healing disorders like keloid scarring. Some people can’t afford surgery, or can’t spend months inactive for recovery because of family commitments.

We’re at an extraordinarily dangerous moment for trans rights in the UK. However, the answer to that — as trans people and allies — cannot be to start throwing each other under the bus. If one portion of the community gets to keep their rights but everyone else lost them, that’s a loss for all of my trans siblings.

I can’t believe I actually have to say this

I don’t want to jump through smaller and smaller hoops for a state that hates me in order to receive a scrap of validation. I’m trans because I am trans. It’s no more complex than that.

Beyond that, I’m going to try to put this as simply as I can:

I don’t think a trans woman’s ability to join an organisation best known for jam and knitting (among many other wonderful endeavors) should hinge on her willingness to allow herself to be sterilised. Would you people fucking listen to yourselves?

Feature image via Unsplash/Norbu Gyachung

By Alex/Rose Cocker

From Canary via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7003236

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12823

Jared C. Benedict/Wikimedia Commons

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

One defining feature of the modern anti-transgender panic has been the fixation on bathrooms. While early efforts in 2016 were widely rebuked and ultimately failed, the last four years have seen several states enact new versions of bathroom bans. Most have targeted public schools, but legislators have increasingly pushed further—extending restrictions to colleges and universities, publicly owned buildings, even airports. Now, New Hampshire Republican lawmakers are taking the cruelty a step further: their latest proposal would apply to private businesses that offer public restrooms, turning the simple act of a transgender person using the bathroom into potential “willful trespass.”

The bill, HB1442, at first glance resembles measures enacted in states like Texas, South Dakota, and Wyoming. It bars transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity in government-run buildings, including prisons, schools, and municipal facilities such as public restrooms and highway rest stops. But where most states enforce these laws through civil penalties against the government institutions themselves—allowing cities or schools to be sued—New Hampshire’s proposal goes further by targeting the transgender person themselves. It creates a separate trespass statute tied specifically to bathroom use, mirroring Florida’s approach, which likewise imposes criminal penalties on transgender people for entering the “wrong” bathroom.

Importantly, the new violation applies only to transgender women—not transgender men. In debates over restroom access, Republicans have often grown visibly uncomfortable when confronted with the reality that many trans men present with traditionally masculine features, including beards and attire; trans men have repeatedly pointed out in hearings that forcing them into women’s restrooms would be both unsafe and absurd. Rather than take that point as evidence of the incoherence of bathroom bans, New Hampshire lawmakers appear to have drawn a different conclusion: they carved transgender men out of the “willful trespass” provision entirely, which appears to only apply to transgender women:

See the section here:

HB1442

The new bill also targets transgender people in a way not yet seen in any other state: it applies to private businesses. While previous bathroom bans have generally stopped at public schools or government buildings, HB1442 extends its reach to any “place of public accommodation”—hotels, bars, theaters, concert venues, retail stores, and more—allowing those businesses to pursue willful trespass charges against anyone who enters the “wrong” restroom. The bill does not require businesses to file charges, but it does say that signage is sufficient grounds for doing so. In practice, that means transgender people would have to guess, bathroom by bathroom, which businesses might enforce the law—and risk a trespass charge every time they use a public restroom anywhere in the state.

See the section here:

HB1442

The bill is backed by thirteen cosponsors, including several with significant leadership roles, such as Sen. Kevin Avard, who chaired the Senate Rules Committee in the 2023–24 session, and Sen. Regina Birdsell, who led the Senate Health and Human Services Committee during the same period. Their support does not guarantee the bill’s passage, but it is telling: multiple lawmakers with real influence inside the Republican caucus are choosing to elevate this proposal as a priority for the year.

New Hampshire has seen a sharp escalation in anti-transgender policymaking in recent years. In 2024, the legislature advanced both a school bathroom ban and a ban on trans-related surgeries for youth—measures that passed only because multiple Democrats crossed party lines to support them, the only state to see significant defections on transgender rights among Democrats. Those same Democrats pitched their votes as an appeal to “moderate” voters, yet the party went on to lose several seats that fall as Republicans expanded their control of the state. In 2025, lawmakers doubled down, approving additional bills targeting transgender students and prohibiting gender-affirming care for trans youth. New Hampshire has become a case study rebutting the idea that surrendering on transgender rights slows Republican attacks or protects Democrats politically; neither claim has been borne out.

As the 2025–2026 legislative season begins, New Hampshire now has twelve bills trained on transgender residents—an outlier in a region where most states are expanding civil rights, not dismantling them. It signals yet another year in which LGBTQ+ people and their allies will be dragged back into the same exhausting trench warfare, forced to defend the basic ability to move through public life without fear. The relentlessness of these attacks makes one thing unmistakably clear: the fight is not letting up, and neither can they.

Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6977720

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12228

Anti-DEI and sports ban provisions for the military still exist in the bill, but the removal of a health care provision is a major victory for transgender people in congressional legislation.

Late Sunday night, congressional leaders released the negotiated text of the National Defense Authorization Act. The House and Senate had each already passed their own versions—both with anti-LGBTQ+ provisions, including a sweeping ban on Defense Department funding for gender-affirming surgeries. That measure, which would have compounded the barrage of anti-trans actions already underway in the military under Donald Trump’s command, was widely expected to survive into the final bill. But in a surprise twist, the negotiated text dropped the surgical funding ban altogether—marking the second time in recent weeks that major anti-trans riders have collapsed during the congressional process. Though the final version still includes anti-DEI language and a transgender sports ban for those enrolled at military academies, defeating the surgical funding ban is a significant and unexpected victory.

Earlier in the shutdown fight, the National Defense Authorization Act emerged as a major secondary flashpoint between House and Senate negotiators. Many LGBTQ+ observers watched its trajectory closely for signs of whether Democrats would fold on transgender rights. On the House side, a slate of amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace passed into the bill—targeting transgender service members and dependents across military health insurance, athletics, bathrooms, pride flags, and more. The Senate side did not have most of those measures, but a major provision remained: a ban on funding for transgender-related surgeries, a policy that would have affected not only service members and their families but potentially any company with a military contract, blocking their insurance plans from covering transgender surgeries. Stunningly, despite parallel provisions having passed in both chambers, the final negotiated bill includes neither. Lawmakers did not split the difference; they removed the surgery ban entirely.

Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the chief architects of the anti-trans provisions in the House version of the bill, posted immediately after the text was released, writing, “NDAA is out, furiously reading through to see which of our Amendments made it in, and which did not.” In the hours that followed, her account stayed conspicuously silent about the defeat of her anti-trans amendments.

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.