cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7971854

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7971853

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7967513

Hi family,

Some of you remember me from when I used to post here for mutual aid. I wanted to come back and share an update and also ask for support again.

For the past 5 years I was under UNHCR protection moving through different refugee camps. I lived in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya and later in Gorom Refugee Camp in South Sudan. Life there was extremely difficult. Many of us faced violence, police brutality, discrimination and constant insecurity. Those years were some of the hardest in my entire life.

Eventually my case was processed through UNHCR and the Canadian embassy and I was given the opportunity to resettle in Canada. I’m now here and safe which I’m deeply grateful for. However adjusting has not been easy. The weather, environment and everything changing including leaving my queer family in danger so suddenly has been emotionally overwhelming. I’m still trying to find my footing.

Before coming to Canada, I had a GoFundMe that many of you supported. The funds from that campaign were not just helping me, they were also helping some of my fellow refugees and the sisters I lived with in the South Sudan . Unfortunately the GoFundMe was closed while I was traveling and settling here due some circumstances.

The people I left behind are still struggling deeply. One of them is a 16 year old trans who is HIV positive and was also a beneficiary of the support we were raising. Right now they are facing rent deadlines and have very little food. Knowing this has been weighing heavily on me. A GoFundMe was started for Them and it will be help a few of others they stay with.

They need upto 850 in rent which as a new immigrant in Canada can’t afford.

I’m coming back to this community because I know many of you care about refugees and queer people who are still stuck in dangerous situations.

If anyone is able to support in any way even something small it would go directly toward helping them cover rent and food while they continue trying to stay safe.

Please consider supporting my queer family through the link in my Bio/ profile

Thank you for reading,remembering me and always showing compassion to people who have so little support in the world.

With pleasure, CyaraKaira

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7905990

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/34015

Montgomery County Planning Commission // Creative Commons

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On Sunday, a federal judge ruled that Aetna's categorical denial of facial feminization surgery for transgender women constitutes sex discrimination under the Affordable Care Act. The landmark ruling, handed down in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, is believed to be the first federal court order requiring a major private insurer to make individualized coverage determinations for gender-affirming facial surgery rather than automatically rejecting every claim as "cosmetic." The case was brought by six transgender women who sought coverage for facial feminization surgery to treat severe gender dysphoria but were denied under Aetna's Clinical Policy Bulletin 0615, which categorically excludes all gender-affirming facial procedures from coverage. Though the preliminary injunction applies to only two of the six plaintiffs, the class action is pending, and the court's legal reasoning will serve as a powerful precedent for transgender women denied facial surgery coverage nationwide.

“To be clear, the issue is not whether Aetna’s policy exclusion prohibits this type of gender-affirming care, but rather that Aetna’s policy exclusion prohibits only transgender individuals, the only individuals who can experience gender dysphoria, from receiving this type of gender-affirming care. Thus, when Aetna decided that facial gender-affirming procedures “performed as a component of a gender transition [were] not medically necessary and cosmetic,” Aetna prohibited only transgender individuals from seeking this medical care, and thus discriminated on the basis of sex,” wrote Judge Bolden in his ruling.

The ruling was made on behalf of two patients, Dr. Jamie Homnick and Dr. Gennifer Herley, both transgender women seeking gender-affirming facial surgery. Both reported severe depression, suicidality, and intensifying gender dysphoria related to facial masculinization—the result of not having access to puberty blockers or hormone therapy early in life. Both were denied categorically under CPB 0615, which does not evaluate requests for gender-affirming facial surgery on the basis of medical necessity but instead denies them altogether, regardless of a patient's individual medical circumstances or whether their treating physicians have deemed the procedures medically necessary.

The court leaned on the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County and Title IX, as incorporated into Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, to find that Aetna's exclusion constitutes sex discrimination. The court reasoned that to deny a facial surgery claim under CPB 0615, Aetna must first determine whether the patient is transgender—which necessarily requires considering their sex assigned at birth. If a person assigned male at birth seeks facial reconstruction to treat a congenital condition or traumatic injury, Aetna evaluates the claim for medical necessity. If that same person seeks the same procedures to treat gender dysphoria, Aetna denies it automatically. Change the reason for the surgery—which is inextricable from the patient's sex assigned at birth—and the coverage determination changes. That, the court held, is textbook sex discrimination. Notably, the court also addressed the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for minors under the Equal Protection Clause, finding that it did not disturb Bostock's application to insurance discrimination claims under the ACA.

Gender-affirming facial surgery can be a critical part of a transgender person's care. A UCLA study published in the Annals of Surgery found that transgender patients who received facial feminization surgery reported significantly better outcomes across several measures of psychosocial health, including reduced anxiety, depression, and social isolation. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health recognizes FFS as medically necessary for many transgender women. Some states, including Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, explicitly prohibit insurers from categorically excluding facial feminization surgery and require that claims be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for medical necessity. Most states, however, leave it up to individual insurers—and many, like Aetna, have maintained blanket exclusions. This ruling may change that calculus, giving transgender women denied coverage a legal framework to challenge categorical exclusions nationwide.

Though the ruling applies to only two patients for now, the plaintiffs are seeking class certification, which could broadly impact every transgender woman on an Aetna plan who has been denied coverage for facial surgery. Members of the same legal team—Advocates for Trans Equality, Wardenski PC, and Cohen Milstein—successfully challenged Aetna's categorical exclusion of breast augmentation for transgender women in 2021, resulting in a settlement that changed the insurer's general policy. If this case follows the same trajectory, it could force Aetna to add facial feminization surgery to its list of potentially covered gender-affirming procedures. More broadly, the court's holding that categorical exclusions of gender-affirming facial surgery constitute sex discrimination under the Affordable Care Act gives transgender women across the country a legal framework to challenge similar denials from other insurers.

You can see the full decision here:

Gordon Order Granting Pi Denying Mtd

419KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7905996

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/34033

San Jose State University // California.com

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San José State University in California has filed a scathing lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s Department of Education, rejecting the regime’s attempts to use the crisis it manufactured over transgender athletes as a vessel for even more repressive and consequential anti-LGBTQ crackdowns.

San José State, a college about an hour’s drive south of San Francisco, became a flashpoint of the right’s obsession with trans youth after a student athlete was outed on the national stage. The Trump regime investigated SJSU for supposed civil rights violations, arguing that the athlete’s mere presence on the team infringed on the rights of the other women and Title IX.

The “resolution” proposed by the Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would have the university ban trans women from women’s sports teams, bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorm rooms, in violation of state law; strip trans women of their athletic medals and honors; issue apology letters to any presumed-cisgender woman who competed with a trans athlete; and adopt the GOP’s definition of “sex” in every aspect of campus life going ahead. If they don’t comply, they could lose federal funding.

Instead, San José State went on the offense. They’re suing.

Federal agencies have cajoled countless institutions of higher education into some form of capitulation since the beginning of Trump’s renewed term. UPenn, Brown, Northwestern and other elite colleges have made bargains sacrificing anything from trans athletes to life-saving care for trans youth to preserve their federal funding.

In SJSU’s lawsuit, filed late last week, the university emphasized it would follow all applicable laws, but that the law is not the basis of Trump’s investigation; transphobia is.

According to Iris, a San José State graduate student and president of the student-led campus group Trans Talk, the unapologetic lawsuit represents much-needed support for trans students—especially at a time when other universities are bending the knee to Trump’s anti-trans agenda.

“Appeasement doesn’t work,” Iris told Erin in the Morning. *“*They just come back for more. So standing up now is really important.”

(Iris requested her last name be omitted due to safety and privacy concerns.)

The lawsuit itself challenges Trump’s anti-trans threats on the grounds that it constitutes government overreach, that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and that it is downright unconstitutional. It attempts to retroactively punish SJSU over Trumpian policies it did not break, in part because the supposed violations pre-date the President’s current term.

In fact, San José State was not just permitted to, but legally obligated to follow trans inclusive policies.

“[T]here is no question that SJSU’s conduct was required by Ninth Circuit law and the federal government’s own guidance at the time,” the complaint reads. California also retains some of the strongest equal rights laws in the country for transgender Americans. Therefore, Trump’s threat to hold critical funding hostage over trans athletes is “not because SJSU violated the law,” the complaint reads, “but because SJSU followed the law.”

Yet the goal posts keep moving, and the Department of Education is threatening to pull funding from any college or university that doesn’t adhere—at times, retroactively—to its contortion of Title IX. Its “proposal” seeks to force the school to redefine “sex,” and Title IX itself, based on unscientific, arbitrary, and politically-charged rhetoric:

An excerpt from the proposal by the Department of Education, which SJSU rejected.

This proposal would target trans people “in all practices, policies and procedures” at the university. This includes “intimate facilities, such as locker rooms, bathrooms, student housing, and overnight accommodations,” which would have to be divided “strictly on the basis of sex,” the proposal says.

Proposed settlement agreement rejected by SJSU

In response, the lawsuit takes a bold stance in challenging the very premises of Trump’s anti-trans crusade, pulling back the curtain on the right-wing smear campaign against trans people. In this case, for example, anti-trans activists pearl-clutched about the necessity of separating teams by “sex” on the basis of “safety,” positioning women as so much weaker than men that their mere co-presence on the court is a physical danger.

In reality, the men’s and women’s teams often play against each other for practice at SJSU and other colleges, the complaint says. Like many of these high-profile clashes over trans athletes, the issue was never gender parity or sex separation. It was always about pushing the needle further and further to the right and sequestering trans people from public life.

This lawsuit comes after over a year of legal back-and-forth, culminating in the OCR’s “Proposed Resolution Agreement,” which—among other provisions—requires SJSU to publicly agree that it violated Title IX, discriminate against trans athletes moving ahead, rebuke trans-inclusive language, and send out apology letters to presumed-cisgender athletes expressing “remorse” for welcoming trans student athletes.

It’s the same playbook federal officials used at the University of Pennsylvania against champion swimmer Lia Thomas, who is trans, and whose fifth-place tie at a swim meet led to the anti-trans activism career of Riley Gaines.

Among other infringements, SJSU argues this is a brazen violation of the Constitutional right to free speech.

“The First Amendment forbids such compelled speech, except when it survives strict scrutiny,” the lawsuit reads. Trump’s proposal demands that SJSU “express[es] certain sentiments, like remorse” with “particular individuals of the government’s choosing [...] in the way the government wants.”

In a statement to the press, the California State University system, which oversees SJSU, made clear its commitment to standing up for its students. “The federal government may not punish the CSU for conduct that complied with binding federal law and the government’s own guidance at the time,” it reads.

“Therefore, the CSU will not agree to accept the terms of the Proposed Resolution Agreement,” it continued. “The CSU remains unwavering in its commitment to fostering an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for all students, faculty, and staff—including members of our LGBTQ+ community.”

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Editors Note: Erin Reed, who owns and runs Erin In The Morning but did not write this piece, recently took a paid speaking engagement at SJSU.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/52298474

Death to

Click that youtube video link and watch my video to know what happened, guys 🥹🏵️🫂 It's only around 2 minutes long 🥹🌼

Click that youtube video link and watch my video to know what happened, guys 🥹🏵️🫂 It's only around 2 minutes long 🥹🌼

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/31110

Kansas Sate Capitol // farzinvousoughian

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Today, transgender people across Kansas are reporting receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles stating that they must surrender their driver's licenses and that their current credentials will be considered invalid upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday. Should any transgender person be caught driving without a valid license, they could face a class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Kansas already requires county jails to house inmates according to sex assigned at birth. The letter, obtained by Erin in the Morning, marks one of the most significant erosions of transgender civil rights in the United States to date.

The letter, which has been reported to Erin In The Morning by a Kansas-based activist, states that under House Substitute for Senate Bill 244, Kansas-issued driver's licenses and identification cards must now reflect the credential holder's “sex at birth.” It warns that upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday, February 26, current credentials for affected individuals "will no longer be valid." The Legislature, the letter notes, "did not include a grace period for updating credentials," and anyone operating a vehicle without a valid credential "may be subject to additional penalties." Those whose gender marker does not match their sex assigned at birth are directed to surrender their current credential to the Division of Vehicles for reissuance.

You can see the full letter here:

SB 244, also known as the "bathroom bounty" bill, contained heavy identification document bans as well. The bill was rushed through the Kansas Legislature in January using a "gut and go" procedure that bypassed nearly all public input on its key provisions. Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the bill on February 13, calling it "poorly drafted," but the Legislature overrode her veto days later. In addition to the driver's license provisions, the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for at least $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms. The bill takes effect immediately upon publication in the Kansas Register rather than the standard July 1 effective date—giving transgender Kansans just days between the override and the invalidation of their identity documents.

The consequences for noncompliance could escalate quickly. Under Kansas law, driving without a valid license is a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine—though first-time offenders are more likely to face a citation and fine. A conviction, however, triggers an automatic 90-day license suspension. If a person drives during that suspension, they face a charge of driving on a suspended license, which carries a mandatory minimum of five days in jail. Kansas already requires county jails to house inmates by sex assigned at birth.

The Kansas letters arrive amid an accelerating nationwide campaign to strip transgender people of accurate identification documents. The Trump administration has barred transgender Americans from obtaining passports that reflect their gender identity, a policy the Supreme Court allowed to take effect in November. The Social Security Administration has similarly stopped permitting gender marker updates. At the state level, Florida, Texas, Indiana, and other states have moved to block gender marker changes on driver's licenses or birth certificates. But Kansas appears to be the first state to go further than simply blocking future changes—it is actively invalidating previously issued documents and demanding their surrender.

As a result of this extreme anti-transgender law, the state of Kansas has seen its status deteriorate to a "Do Not Travel" warning in the EITM Trans Risk Map. Transgender people should exercise extreme caution when traveling through the state, and those already living there should take immediate steps to legally protect themselves in the face of laws that could strip their driving privileges, expose them to criminal penalties, and subject them to thousand-dollar bounties simply for using a restroom. For most transgender people who do not already live in Kansas, the risk is now too great to travel there at all.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7691718

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/29122

PBD Podcast

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On Tuesday, the president of the billionaire-backed Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, appeared on the influential far-right PBD podcast to discuss gender-affirming care. During his appearance, he echoed usual far-right anti-transgender talking points, including linking being transgender to being inherently violent. Then, the conversation turned towards what the Heritage Foundation was working on when it comes to the future of transgender people. It was during this shift that Roberts darkly announced that his solution to being transgender was simple: "You outlaw it," and that the organization was working to ban gender-affirming care at all ages through an incremental process he described as "radical incrementalism."

"But where there continues to be disagreement is on what you do with adults. At Heritage, we believe that so-called transgender surgery is bad for anybody because of what you saw in Rhode Island yesterday," said Roberts, referencing a domestic violence shooting at a Rhode Island ice rink the day before. "There does seem to be a mounting body of evidence that suggests a correlation between that surgery at any age, mental health issues, and increasingly, although we're running the numbers on this at Heritage, acts of violence. We have to come to grips with that as a society, in a way that transcends left versus right, because this really is about the human condition." "How do you address this, though?" replied host Patrick Bet-David. "You outlaw it," Roberts responded.

Then, when asked if transgender adults should have their medication taken away, Roberts endorsed the idea, stating, "We like that idea, too. One of the reasons is that we not only work in coalitions, but we often work toward an ultimate goal via incremental steps—sometimes people will call us radical incrementalists. We're willing to take a quarter of the enchilada if we can keep working there. So if that's the kind of thing that policymakers can agree on left and right, Heritage would be fully supportive of that, knowing that ultimately we have an ideal position that would be much stronger than that."

See the clip here:

The Heritage Foundation is the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, which calls for cutting federal funding for gender-affirming care for both children and adults and equates being transgender to pornography. The organization has been a driving force behind anti-transgender legislation nationwide, with its staffers directly assisting in the drafting and promotion of state-level care bans and its analysts testifying in statehouses. Heritage is funded through a web of dark money networks, including DonorsTrust, which gave the foundation $365,000 specifically earmarked for "Going On Offense On Gender Ideology." Its board includes billionaire conservative megadonor Rebekah Mercer, while board member Sean Fieler has funneled at least $18 million since 2010 to anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ organizations, including a group that supported Uganda's law criminalizing homosexuality with the death penalty.

The organization's open call for gender-affirming care bans for all ages echoes earlier conversations among conservative legislators in places like Ohio and Michigan for similar policy goals. In a leaked Twitter Space from January 2024, legislators behind anti-trans bills, including Representative Gary Click of Ohio—the sponsor of the state's youth care ban—openly discussed how their plan was to end gender-affirming care for everyone. "In terms of endgame, why are we allowing these practices for anyone?" asked Michigan Representative Josh Schriver, in a conversation referring specifically to adults. Click, who has ties to the Heritage Foundation, confirmed the strategy: "We have to take one bite at a time, do it incrementally." Roberts' language on PBD is strikingly similar—his "radical incrementalism" and willingness to "take a quarter of the enchilada" mirrors Click's "small bites" almost word for word, suggesting a coordinated long-term strategy towards adult care bans.

It is significant that the conversation happened on the PBD podcast. Hosted by Patrick Bet-David, the show reaches millions through its combined YouTube channels. The podcast has provided a platform for far-right figures to promote conspiracy theories and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, including guests who have argued that homosexuality is a "worldview" being "inflicted" on children. That the head of the organization behind Project 2025 chose this venue to openly call for outlawing gender-affirming care for adults suggests a growing comfort by the organization to be more open about its plans.

Gender-affirming care bans have been increasingly targeting adults. In 2023, Florida's SB 254 banned nurse practitioners from providing gender-affirming care, resulting in 80% of trans adult care being eliminated overnight. That same year, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an emergency rule targeting transgender people of all ages with requirements so onerous they amounted to a de facto ban; it was blocked in court and withdrawn after roughly three weeks. In 2025, Puerto Rico signed the most extreme care ban in the United States or its territories, criminalizing care for anyone under 21 with penalties of up to 15 years in prison. And of course, Trump’s recent executive orders ban gender affirming care to the age of 19.

One thing is clear: gender-affirming care bans have never been about science, despite attempts by far-right organizations to launder their lobbying efforts through pseudoscientific hate groups and overseas "reviews." Rather, it’s always been about hate. That much is made clear by the openly-stated agenda of a billionaire-funded political machine that has always been working towards one goal: the elimination of transgender people from public life. The only thing that has changed is that they are now saying it out loud.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7678790

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28787

Idaho Capitol // Wikimedia Commons

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In the modern anti-transgender panic, several states have passed laws banning transgender people from restrooms consistent with their gender identity. Early bills focused primarily on K-12 schools, but the scope quickly expanded. Some states extended bans to even private colleges and universities. Others adopted sweeping “government building” prohibitions, barring transgender people from restrooms in all publicly owned facilities—a far broader category than it sounds, encompassing airports, rest stops, and other everyday spaces. A few states went further still, adding punitive enforcement mechanisms; Florida, for example, attached criminal penalties to its ban. Yet one category remained largely untouched: private business bathrooms. That exception is now collapsing. Multiple states are advancing a new generation of bathroom bills that would extend these bans into private businesses for the first time.

The first clear sign that private business bathrooms could be targeted came this year in Kansas. At the end of January, the state passed SB 244 and HB2426 through a rushed “gut-and-go” process designed to bypass portions of public hearings. The legislation drew attention for several reasons, including provisions revoking the driver’s licenses of transgender people and forcing them to obtain new ones reflecting their assigned sex at birth. But another provision—first identified by Erin In The Morning and later confirmed by legal and advocacy organizations in Kansas and nationally—was even more alarming. The bill appeared to create a mechanism allowing so-called bathroom bounty hunters to sue transgender people encountered in any restroom, whether in a government-owned building or a private business. With little warning, Kansas had advanced what looked to be the first measure directly threatening transgender people’s access to private business bathrooms.

Although the bill was vetoed, Republicans hold enough seats in the Kansas Legislature to potentially override that veto. If they do, the measure would take effect quickly. Transgender Kansans would not only be forced to scramble for updated identification documents reflecting their assigned sex at birth, but would also have to navigate daily life by mapping trips around the availability of gender-neutral bathrooms. Any transgender person who simply continues using the restroom they have always used could face lawsuits seeking substantial damages from individuals eager to weaponize the law for harassment—or profit.

Now, it appears these kinds of bills are spreading. In Idaho, a separate measure—House Bill 607—is scheduled to be heard in committee today and similarly targets transgender people’s access to private business bathrooms. The bill would allow lawsuits against any “place of public accommodation” that permits transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity. While it does not include the criminal penalties or explicit bounty-style provisions seen elsewhere, its practical effect would be sweeping: private businesses across the state could face legal risk simply for allowing transgender people to use the restroom. The scope of bathroom bans is no longer confined to schools or government buildings. It is expanding.

Erin In The Morning has identified additional bills in state legislatures across the country. In Indiana, HB 1198 would apply to any public restroom—whether privately owned or government-run—and would establish criminal penalties for anyone who “knowingly or intentionally enters a restroom that is designated to be used” by someone of a different assigned sex at birth. In Missouri, HB 2314 would weaponize the state’s Human Rights Act against private businesses that allow transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity, effectively turning a civil rights law into a tool for restricting transgender rights. And in Idaho, yet another proposal would not only bar private businesses from permitting transgender people to use certain restrooms but would also impose criminal penalties on violators.

It is worth noting that, so far, anti-transgender bathroom bans have had uneven real-world enforcement. In K-12 schools—where administrators wield significant authority—they have been highly effective at policing transgender students. In colleges and public buildings, however, enforcement has been far more sporadic, with only a handful of documented expulsions from restrooms in states like Texas and Florida. But this next wave of legislation could fundamentally alter that balance. By targeting private businesses and imposing civil or criminal liability directly on transgender individuals, these bills move enforcement out of institutional hands and into the realm of lawsuits and vigilantism. And history offers a warning: once a new anti-trans legal strategy gains traction in one state, it rarely stays there.

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gif"s artidote is seeking an antidote to toxicity through art, music, community events, discussion, activism, mutial aid & solidarity.

to that end i have set up a collective.

check it out here, and if you're inspired, come join me!

https://opencollective.com/gifs-artidote

through my personal activities as a 🏳️‍⚧️ artist, blogger, student crim/psy & community activism i am seeking to create a (local & global) community collective to de-toxify human behaviour by starting with my self & encouraging others to do the same.

i live by my motto: change the world, start with your self.

read more on my website's home,- & about pages.

i am working on a manifesto but due to my own limitations that's a work in progress.

i need others' contributions & i am only just starting out so if you like my ideas, come join me & contribute.

i am based in teesside, north yorkshire, england & this initiative is starting in my own local community, but my aim is to create a global network of people who commit to the manifesto we create, debate & maintain together.

i only take the initiative, & set out a basis, but as we grow this #collective, through discussion & debate based on anarchist principles, i hope the collective will take lead & develop independently. 🏳️‍🌈

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7607832

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26257

Photo by ev on Unsplash

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In 2024, whistleblowers familiar with internal discussions at the Tavistock gender clinic in the United Kingdom revealed to the Good Law Project that employees were privately alarmed by a spike in suicides among transgender youth following severe restrictions on care in the aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling. This information was never made public, with administrators concerned that it could cause reputational damage to the clinic. Following the Good Law Project's reporting, the UK government commissioned a report, known as the Appleby Report, that claimed there were only a handful of suicides and denied any increase, with many anti-trans political figures and activists then patting themselves on the back and absolving themselves of any blame. Now, after years of fighting for the data, the Good Law Project has received responses to freedom of information requests from the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) and discovered that the government report significantly undercounted transgender youth suicides: deaths rose roughly fivefold in the immediate aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling, with a devastating 22 trans kids taking their own lives in a single year.

The data, obtained through a freedom of information request to the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database, paints a devastating picture. Between 2019 and 2025, 46 trans children under the age of 18 died by suicide in England. The year-by-year breakdown is stark: 5 in 2019-20, 4 in 2020-21, 22 in 2021-22, and 10 in 2022-23, with the remaining spread in the later years. The massive spike in 2021-22 follows directly on the heels of the Bell v Tavistock ruling in December 2020, after which NHS England imposed restrictions on gender-affirming care for young trans people. By contrast, the Appleby Report—the government's official response to inquiries from whistleblowers about rising suicides—examined only the narrow pool of youth who had actually become patients of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock, finding just 12 total suicides over six years including adults. The NCMD data captures nearly four times as many deaths among children alone. Importantly, for later years, suicide reports have not been completed, and it is likely that some of the numbers for later years will rise significantly.

The gap between the Appleby Report, which was used to absolve the government of any culpability in trans youth deaths, and the Good Law Project's freedom of information request is no accident, but rather, a deliberate framing choice. The Appleby Report only examined patients of GIDS. But in the aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling, wait times for GIDS appointments skyrocketed, now sitting at an estimated average of 25 years. Youth who were suffering no longer saw a pathway to gender-affirming care. Referrals stalled. Diagnoses became increasingly impossible to obtain. As restrictions piled on, these young people saw their future pathways to obtaining gender-affirming care shuttered in front of them. These youth were ignored in the Appleby report.

More alarming is what appears to be an explicit attempt to cover up trans youth suicide deaths. Those who seek to restrict gender-affirming care also seek to restrict any information showing those restrictions may lead to harm. Among the far right, claims have emerged that transgender youth are in no danger of suicide from the withdrawal of gender-affirming care, but this could not be further from the truth. Numerous studies have shown high suicidality among trans youth and increasing suicidality in places where anti-trans legislation has taken root. Rather than report honestly on the impact of their policies, the UK government appears to have tried to cover it up.

“Those of us in or close to the trans community have been to the funerals of those we love. And we have wept together for those we have been unable to save on Trans Day of Remembrance. We know the truth – we see it with our own eyes. And, to us, the decision by Wes Streeting to commission a review into suicides which downplayed the scale of these tragedies was unforgivable. His report denied the reality of trans deaths, as Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers denied the reality of trans lives,” reads the Good Law Project report.

The UK government fought hard to keep transgender suicide data from the public, and now, two years after its attempt to bury the deaths of children, that data is out. Even what has been released is limited: the NCMD’s own response indicates that its methodology may not capture all transgender youth suicides in the country, meaning the true toll is likely higher. But what is now known is the grisly impact that anti-trans restrictions have had on the youth of England. And in the United States, where a similar effort to restrict gender-affirming care is underway across the nation, it is likely that similar devastation is unfolding, unreported and silent.

You can view the Good Law Project’s report here, and the NCMD and UK government data responses here and here.

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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/45515599

I know someone who is transfem and she's really sad that she lost her hair and she's handling it very unhealthily by being antisemitic online. How can I help support her. I tried reaching out but she blocks me when I do. I also tried reaching out IRL but she just yells at me and tells me to go away. I've seen her crying in the bathroom touching her scalp and it's really hard for her but I don't know what to do.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7496507

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23727

Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital // Dane Meyere

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The MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, notified patients on Monday that it would be closing its pediatric gender health clinic due to political and legal attacks on trans-affirming care. It will begin winding down operations immediately.

“Over the last year we have worked to find options that would allow us to continue to care for this important group of patients. But recent developments at the Federal level now threaten to cut off Medicare and Medicaid payments to MultiCare’s entire health system if we continue offering these services,” the message sent to patients, signed by MultiCare CEO Bill Robertson, reads. “Without those payments, our organization would cease to exist.”

Patients who are 18 and older will be redirected to their primary care physician for hormone replacement therapy, while minors already on puberty blockers or HRT will have to consult their health care team for options—seemingly outside the MultiCare system. A spokesperson told Erin in the Morning that behavioral health care, such as psychotherapy, will continue to be offered.

The stoppage is “due to recent escalations at the federal level to eliminate medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria for minors nationwide, as well as investigations and significant penalizations of health care organizations that provide such care,” the spokesperson confirmed.

Numerous health care institutions are indeed [being probed by federal authorities](https://19thnews.org/2026/01/gender-affirming-care-youth-hospitals/#%3A%7E%3Atext=Health+and+Human+Services+%28HHS%2Clegal+in+all+three+states.%29, and the ensuing litigation can indeed be costly. However, the Trump regime has yet to actually make good on its threat of successfully withdrawing Medicaid and Medicare funding from a hospital for providing gender-affirming care.

At the same time, the majority of MultiCare patients rely on Medicaid and Medicare. This includes more than 300 primary, urgent, pediatric, and specialty care locations across Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, as well as 13 hospitals.

MultiCare told Erin in the Morning that this loss of funding could undermine the entire health system’s ability to operate.

“We recognize how important this care is to our gender health clinic patients and have a sense of the impact this will have on you and your family,” MultiCare’s CEO said in his Monday message to patients.

In September, doctors at Mary Bridge Children’s gender clinic stopped accepting new patients or writing new prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormone regimens. This was devastating for parents like Sierra, a mom from Kitsap County whose 12-year-old daughter is transgender. Pseudonyms have been provided due to safety and privacy concerns surrounding Sierra’s child.

“Based on my interactions with the medical staff at Mary Bridge, they’re heartbroken,” Sierra told Erin in the Morning. “They don’t support what the leadership is doing, although all of us, including me, understand they need federal funding in order to stay open.”

Sierra says many families like hers, especially in progressive areas of Washington, figured their care would be safeguarded from federal threats by state anti-discrimination laws.

“Trans children are the sacrificial lamb here,” she said. “In order to keep the show going, that’s what’s happening.”

However, what arguably amounts to an appeasement strategy simply falls short. If trans kids are deemed acceptable collateral, anyone could be next. We already know that Trump is also waging war on vaccines, mental health medications, and abortion, to name just a few kinds of care on the chopping block.

“People like me—maybe they don’t have trans kids, but they’re very liberal, very progressive—think, ‘Well, we’re in Washington, so we’re okay,’” Sierra told Erin in the Morning.

“That’s absolutely false. No one is safe until everybody is.”

The White House is continuing to target safe havens for trans youth—but the presence of institutions (or lack thereof) who are ready and willing to fight for the trans community has been consequential.

Hospitals, universities, and states that resisted executive overreach have not gone unscathed, but they have scored meaningful victories. A class action lawsuit in California successfully safeguarded patients’ data against a drummed-up subpoena aimed at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Maine sued and secured federal funding for school lunches in spite of Trumpian threats to cut it over the state’s defense of its trans students. And Boston Children’s Hospital took the feds to task after the Department of Justice came knocking. A judge quashed that subpoena in court.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7487398

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23542

Public Record // Kansas Legislature

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Anti-transgender bathroom bans have become increasingly common in red states in recent years. Most have focused on K–12 schools, targeting transgender children and forcing them to avoid using the bathroom for extended periods of time, though some have expanded to colleges, universities, and other public spaces. Until now, however, every state that has enacted such a ban has limited it to public buildings—an expansive category, to be sure, but one that still exempts private businesses—and few have included enforcement mechanisms aimed directly at transgender people themselves. That may be about to change. A bill now racing through the Kansas Legislature would not only authorize criminal charges and civil penalties against transgender people who violate the ban, but also empower private citizens to act as bounty hunters, seeking out transgender people in bathrooms—including private business ones—and suing them for substantial sums of money.

The bills, SB 244 and HB2426, have already been mired in controversy. Initially focused on driver’s licenses, Kansas Republicans used so-called “gut-and-go” procedures to rewrite the legislation while potentially bypassing public hearings. As amended, the bills would bar transgender people from updating the gender marker on their driver’s licenses, going so far as to revoke existing licenses and force individuals to surrender them in exchange for documents bearing an incorrect sex designation. The legislation also layers on sweeping bathroom restrictions that go far beyond those adopted in other states. According to advocacy leaders tracking the bills, the measures would now even empower private citizens to act as bounty hunters—entering private businesses to search for transgender people in bathrooms and sue them for alleged violations.

As written, the bill appears designed to apply broadly to public buildings rather than private businesses. In its definitions section, it refers to “government-owned buildings,” a category that spans everything from highway rest stops and municipal parks to the state Capitol, public schools, and public universities. Under the bill, any transgender person who enters a restroom that does not align with their sex assigned at birth would be deemed in violation—a penalty that could escalate to a misdemeanor carrying possible jail time. That provision alone would place the bill among the most extreme anti-transgender measures in the country, drawing direct comparison to Florida’s bathroom law, which similarly exposes transgender people to criminal penalties for using the restroom.

However, a separate section of the bills takes the bathroom ban and turbocharges it, pushing it into territory that would instantly make it the most extreme anti-transgender measure in the United States. That section creates a “private right of action,” allowing individuals to sue transgender people they encounter in bathrooms. Critically, nothing in the provision limits its application to publicly owned buildings. As written, it would not only be the first bathroom bounty law to target transgender people directly, but also the first to extend a bathroom ban into private spaces—effectively creating the nation’s first private bathroom ban if enacted by empowering bounty hunters to search for trans people in bathrooms.

See the following section:

Erin In The Morning has confirmed with multiple legal experts and state legislators that the bill would directly target transgender people in public and private bathrooms, something previously unreported on. “While the entirety of H Sub for SB 244 is concerning, Section 1(h) represents a particularly alarming escalation in anti-trans policies. The ambiguity of the bill’s language and where it applies creates the possibility that trans and gender nonconforming Kansans can be sued for using their preferred restroom, locker room, or changing room in any building, public or private. Without the option of single-person or family alternatives, this essentially forces trans people out of public life by denying us the right to even relieve ourselves or wash up,” says Isaac Johnson of Trans Lawrence Coalition.

“This provision creates a bounty-hunter scheme allowing anyone to sue transgender people for simply using a multiple-occupancy restroom. The result is a forced choice: find a single-occupancy facility, or face thousands in “damages” and attorney fees. Denying access to basic public amenities doesn’t just inconvenience people; it relegates them to second-class citizenship,” said Allison Chapman, Gender Justice & Health Equity Fellow at Lawyers for Good Government.

The bill is now being aggressively fast-tracked by Republican leadership in Kansas, with the explicit backing of Attorney General Kris Kobach and key amendments pushed through via a “gut-and-go” process that curtailed public input. A House vote is expected imminently, after which the measure would move to the Senate and then Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is widely expected to veto it. If passed, what follows would be the bill’s most consequential test: an effort to override that veto in a Legislature where Republicans currently hold a veto-proof majority, but where some may view the bill as too extreme. For transgender people in the state, that effort may be the most consequential in years.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7465062

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22907

Wikimedia Commons // WHO // Thorkild Tylleskar

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On Monday, the Trump administration published a new rule in the Federal Register that could affect more than $30 billion in U.S. foreign aid distributed to international organizations. The funding—supporting hospital clinics, HIV/AIDS programs, educational institutions, and more—would be conditioned on sweeping new restrictions barring “social transition” and gender-affirming care at any age, including therapy and counseling. While the administration has already frozen large portions of foreign aid, this rule would formalize those efforts and dramatically expand their reach, with potentially severe consequences for transgender people worldwide as the administration escalates its campaign against transgender lives both at home and abroad.

The rule, titled “Combating Gender Ideology in Foreign Assistance,” would impose sweeping conditions on U.S. foreign aid that effectively bar recognition of transgender people and the care they need to live safely and equally. It is modeled loosely on the Mexico City Policy, which restricts aid to organizations that provide abortion services, but goes significantly further. Rather than targeting specific medical procedures, the rule would apply broadly to any school, hospital, or organization receiving U.S. funding—or funded indirectly through partner organizations. Those entities would be prohibited not only from providing gender-affirming care to youth and adults, but from “promoting” such care at any age, including “social transition” and even counseling that acknowledges it as an option. In practice, the rule would attempt to force groups receiving U.S. aid worldwide to adopt extreme discriminatory policies toward transgender people as a condition of continued funding.

“The Department does not believe taxpayer dollars should support sex-rejecting procedures, directly or indirectly for individuals of any age. A person’s body (including its organs, organ systems, and processes natural to human development like puberty) either healthy or unhealthy based on whether they are operating according to their biological functions,” reads the policy. It goes on to institute specific bans for any organization receiving federal dollars internationally. Bans include:

• “The provision or promotion of sex-rejecting procedures or sex-rejecting social transition”

• “Committing resources, financial or other to increase the availability, or use of

  sex-rejecting procedures or sex-rejecting social transition”

• “Providing advice that sex-rejecting procedures or sex-rejecting social transition

  is an available option for treatment of gender dysphoria, or referring for, or encouraging individuals to consider, such activities”

Several more similar restrictions are outlined.

The rules also include pass-through requirements, meaning the restrictions would apply not only to primary recipients of U.S. funding but to any downstream organizations they support. In practice, that could force schools in countries receiving U.S. assistance to adopt anti-transgender policies of their own. The same would be true for clinics, including those serving HIV/AIDS patients, which often also provide LGBTQ+ health care or counseling related to that care. Under the rule, access to U.S. funding would hinge on enforcing those exclusions throughout the entire funding chain.

"This is about weaponizing U.S. foreign assistance to promote an ideological agenda," says Keifer Buckingham, managing director for the Council for Global Equality, in an interview with NPR. "This really represents a culmination of the Trump administration's ideological war on LGBTQI+ people, marginalized populations, people of color, women and takes it to a whole other level, exporting what has been a domestic crusade abroad.”

The policies also represent a significant escalation into two areas transgender rights advocates in the United States have long feared could eventually be pursued domestically: restrictions on adult transgender health care and limits on social transition. While the early phases of the Republican Party’s broad assault on transgender rights focused largely on youth and sports, recent efforts have increasingly targeted adult care. Attempts to impose similar restrictions through federal funding bills were rebuffed by Democrats, but the Trump administration appears to view global aid policy as a more permissive testing ground—arguing that formal legislation is unnecessary and that it has broader constitutional latitude when acting abroad.

This strategy—using federal rulemaking and funding threats—has also been central to how the Trump administration has targeted transgender youth domestically. By focusing on hospitals and schools that rely on public funding, the administration has repeatedly threatened to pull that support unless institutions agree to impose sweeping restrictions on transgender people. That approach has already been successfully weaponized, contributing to several pediatric hospitals ending their gender-affirming care programs and extracting concessions from universities on issues such as transgender sports participation and bathroom access.

The rule now will go for public comment. It will then go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

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

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

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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/7394190

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

Judge Kacsmaryk // Cspan

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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

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

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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.

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

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

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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.”

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