cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8441411

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/48048

Photo by Delia Giandeini on Unsplash

On Wednesday, the Trevor Project released a massive survey of LGBTQ+ youth, with one of the largest subsamples of transgender people of any survey previously recorded. The survey, which questioned 16,667 respondents, included over 10,000 trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer respondents. The survey found harsh experiences among LGBTQ+ people and especially transgender people, including high rates of bullying and harassment, difficulty accessing healthcare, and nearly a third of respondents saying anti-LGBTQ+ policies had made them or their families consider moving to a different state. Among the most significant findings, however, was the impact of access to gender-affirming care on transgender youth: transgender and nonbinary young people who wanted hormones to support their gender transition but were unable to access them were nearly twice as likely to report a past-year suicide attempt compared to those who were currently taking hormones.

"Transgender and nonbinary youth who reported being unable to access hormones to support their gender transition or expression were nearly twice as likely to report a past-year suicide attempt compared to those who were currently taking hormones (15% vs 8%)," reads the report. The finding is consistent with a growing body of peer-reviewed research linking anti-trans policies to worsening mental health outcomes. A 2024 study published in Nature Human Behavior—the first to establish a causal link between anti-trans laws and suicide risk—found that state-level anti-transgender laws increased past-year suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth by as much as 72%, with the highest increases among those under 18. The CDC's own Youth Risk Behavior Survey has documented similarly elevated rates, finding that over half of transgender high school students seriously considered suicide and more than a quarter attempted it during the rise in anti-trans legislation. Taken together, the evidence points in one direction: restricting access to gender-affirming care is harmful for transgender youth.

Difficulty in accessing hormones and suicide risk

Importantly, the survey also showed that the vast majority of transgender youth do not have access to or are not taking hormones or puberty blockers. Among transgender and nonbinary respondents aged 13-17, only 10% reported taking hormones to support their gender transition. Among those 18-24, the number rose to 44%, still less than half. Just 3% reported taking puberty blockers. These numbers run counter to the political narrative that transgender youth are being rushed into medical intervention. The reality, according to the survey's own data, is that the overwhelming majority of transgender minors are not receiving hormones or puberty blockers at all.

For transgender youth who do have access to care, there is enormous anxiety over whether it will continue. Of the transgender and nonbinary youth currently taking hormones, 87% reported being concerned about losing access. Ninety percent of all LGBTQ+ youth said recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies, and debates caused them stress or anxiety, and 94% of trans and nonbinary respondents answered likewise. Worse, 32% of LGBTQ+ youth said these laws and policies had made them or their families consider moving to a different state altogether. That finding is consistent with broader migration data: a Movement Advancement Project/NORC poll found 400,000 transgender people had relocated since the 2024 election alone.

The survey comes amid an unprecedented wave of attacks on transgender youth and their ability to access care. Over the last two years, the Supreme Court has greenlit a suite of anti-trans policies, including in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Several states, all Republican-controlled, have now banned such care. The Trump administration has gone further still, issuing the Kennedy Declaration to threaten hospitals' federal funding for providing care—a policy that caused more than 40 hospital systems to shut down their trans youth programs. Meanwhile, anti-trans pseudoscience groups are attempting to launder misinformation about care and push conversion therapy-like practices at major medical conferences. This survey cuts through the false claim by the far-right that their efforts are somehow protective of youth. Denying transgender youth who want hormones clearly does not help them, but rather, is associated with nearly double the rate of suicide attempts.

Gender-affirming care saves lives. A Cornell review of more than 51 studies found that such care significantly improves the mental health of transgender people. One major study reported a 73 percent drop in suicidality among trans youth who began treatment; another found a 40 percent reduction in actual suicide attempts in the previous year. Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in April 2024 showed puberty blockers sharply reduced depression and anxiety. Abroad, a German review backed by 27 medical organizations endorsed gender-affirming care for youth, and a recent French medical consensus did the same. The evidence has driven a historic resolution from the American Psychological Association—representing 157,000 members—formally condemning bans on trans care.

“Given the current climate in our country, it comes as no surprise that many LGBTQ+ young people are reporting high rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Similar to previous research, this national survey demonstrates that LGBTQ+ youth experience these negative mental health outcomes not because of who they are, but because of how they are mistreated by others,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, in a press release. “These young people report they are being bullied, discriminated against, and debated about by politicians simply for being themselves. While many of these results are difficult to read, this year’s data point to a hopeful reality for LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S., too: When LGBTQ+ young people report they have welcoming and supportive communities, spaces, and people in their lives, their risk for attempting suicide lowers significantly. As adults and allies, this is our call to action: we must continue to vocally and visibly show the LGBTQ+ young people in our lives that they belong, exactly as they are.”

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

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8479606

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/48379

Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via NBC News

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Last night, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted preliminary injunctions in two parallel cases—Endocrine Society v. FTC and World Professional Association for Transgender Health v. FTC—enjoining the Federal Trade Commission from enforcing civil investigative demands against the two leading medical organizations on transgender health. The judge ruled in both cases that the FTC likely violated the organizations' First Amendment rights and engaged in unlawful retaliation against them for their protected speech supporting gender-affirming care. Boasberg further found that the Trump administration and the FTC had pursued the organizations based on "extensive evidence of animus" and "wafer-thin justifications" for their demands. For now, the private communications, internal deliberations, and member information of these two organizations are protected from the Trump administration's escalating campaign of government censorship and retaliation against the medical institutions that support transgender people.

"On this preliminary record, with extensive evidence of animus and wafer-thin justifications lacking evidentiary support, [the Court] finds that WPATH is likely to demonstrate a causal link between its protected speech and the FTC's issuance of the CID,” said the judge in the WPATH ruling. In the parallel Endocrine Society ruling issued the same day, the judge went likewise found similar violations: "The Court finds the same systemic targeting of proponents of medical treatment for gender incongruence at work here. The Society is the latest casualty in some Executive Branch agencies' bid to investigate hospitals, medical providers, and charitable organizations that support transgender health. The CID's focus on academic and medical speech, combined with the FTC's paucity of logic or evidence pointing to a genuine investigation, confirms the conclusion that the CID was likely issued for a retaliatory purpose."

The cases center on Civil Investigative Demands—administrative subpoenas the FTC issued to both organizations in January 2026, demanding sweeping and unprecedented access to their internal operations. The FTC ordered the organizations to turn over decades of internal communications about their clinical guidelines on gender dysphoria, every educational and advocacy material, every financial record, and the names of every member who had ever helped develop claims about gender-affirming care—potentially thousands of people. The CID to WPATH alarmingly reached back to 1979, the year WPATH was founded. The CIDs are part of a sprawling Trump administration campaign to suppress speech about transgender people and crush the institutions that provide it: the Kennedy Declaration, which drove more than 40 hospital systems to shutter their trans youth programs before a federal judge vacated it as unlawful last month; CMS proposed rules that would bar Medicare and Medicaid-receiving hospitals from providing such care entirely; and DOJ subpoenas to hospitals across the country, which federal judges have repeatedly quashed as "smokescreens" for retaliation. The FTC's CIDs were the latest weapon in that campaign.

The organizations challenged the demands in federal court. Last night, they won. Boasberg ruled that the CIDs were retaliation against WPATH and the Endocrine Society for their protected speech in support of gender-affirming care, and that the FTC's campaign against them was rooted in extensive animus. Among the evidence the judge cited to show extensive animus towards transgender people was: Trump's executive orders denouncing gender identity as "subversive" and "false ideology" and labeling gender-affirming care "mutilation"; FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson's pre-appointment memo pledging to "fight back against the trans agenda" and investigate "the doctors, therapists, hospitals, and others" providing such care; senior FTC staff publicly accusing medical associations of "malpractice" and calling journalists covering trans issues "partisan morons"; and the FTC's July 2025 workshop "The Dangers of 'Gender-Affirming Care' for Minors," at which speakers called gender dysphoria "science fiction" and "the foundational fraud" and described their work as a "battle of good versus evil." The judge also noted that one workshop participant—who explicitly recommended investigating medical associations to make them "start losing members" and "lose revenue streams"—was subsequently hired by the FTC.

The judge also ruled that the CIDs were designed to chill protected speech regardless of whether the FTC ever pursued formal enforcement. "The CID and the accompanying threat of future enforcement sit as a Sword of Damocles suspended over Plaintiff's head," Boasberg wrote. "To mix weaponry metaphors, the Society alleges that the FTC is using its investigative demands as a cudgel, 'inflict[ing] concrete and ongoing injuries that suppress speech,' regardless of any later enforcement action." The judge grounded that conclusion in a recent D.C. Circuit ruling, Media Matters for America v. FTC, in which the appellate court blocked another retaliatory FTC subpoena—that one targeting the progressive media watchdog group over its reporting on advertisements appearing next to white nationalist content on Elon Musk's Twitter platform. Citing that precedent, Boasberg wrote that Congress would never have intended to give an agency "license to run roughshod over a party's First Amendment rights." With that, he blocked the FTC from enforcing the subpoenas against WPATH and the Endocrine Society while the cases proceed.

"WPATH welcomes the Court's decision to grant our request for a preliminary injunction against this unlawful and retaliatory investigative demand by the FTC. We are hopeful that this preliminary injunction will prevent further harm to the First Amendment rights of WPATH and its members. For more than 50 years, WPATH has been committed to developing guidelines informed by established scientific standards, expert consensus, and patient-centered values. WPATH's dedication to this mission and the patient population it serves remains unwavering," WPATH said in a emailed statement Thursday evening.

"The D.C. District Court ruling is an important victory that recognizes medical guidelines are a valued resource that allow doctors to support patients in making decisions about their care. This ruling sends a powerful message that government efforts to pressure the medical and scientific community to abandon evidence-based practices are not permissible. In addition to affirming the Endocrine Society's First Amendment right to speak freely on matters of public health, the court recognized the chilling effect the government's actions have on the Society's work and the harm to public interest. This decision is a helpful step in ensuring the Endocrine Society can continue to advance endocrine health and patient well-being by providing clinicians with medically sound, evidence-based information," the Endocrine Society said in its own statement to the Advocate.

A third parallel case—brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which received its own CID from the FTC on the same day as WPATH—remains pending before Judge Christopher R. Cooper, another Obama-nominated judge on the same D.C. District Court.

You can find the WPATH and Endocrine Society rulings here:

Endocrine Society Memorandum Opinion

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Wpath Memorandum Opinion

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/46731818

I started this as a review of the book "It came from Something Awful" by Dale Beran, as part of my quest to understand online harassment in the context of Gamergate and the rise of alt-right. It turns out this topic overlaps with other points of interest right now, for instance the age-verification moral panic, and the TERF talking points of J.K. Rowling. This lead me to the question, what is this term "identity" we use so broadly, in such politically volatile phrases like "gender identity" and "identity politics".

The book describes the trajectory from 4chan to the first Trump administration. The author was also the executive consultant for the documentary "The antisocial network". Reading the book I was initially more interested in the early days of 4chan, rather than Beran's exercises with interpretations based on Herbert Marcuse and Hannah Arendt. I admit I skipped pages and pages of those, because I was bored to death, and his cursory semantic simplifications painfully sucked my mind void.

However on the second part I started disliking his work more and more. At some point he introduces the idea that Tumblr was 4chan's "evil sister". Beran although he is validating transgender people's identities seems to be squarely right wing and he discreetly shows his allegiance to the alt-right. So perhaps his simplistic semantics on consumerism and identity were not simply innocent exercises in critical theory, but could have the potential of being weaponized. If not the author himself then others certainly have done so. The modern fascist narrative has it that young people spend an excessive amount of time online, in echo-chambers that make them think they are cats and dogs, or "another gender than they really are", and there is an "epidemic" and a "social contagion", by the same people who don't believe neither in "germs" nor "such a thing as a society".

And it all boils down to that multifaceted word "Identity". It can be as specific as a government issue identifying document, or as vague as the contents of a troubled teen's diary (or online musing for that matter). As passing as a pop culture fad, or as stable a glorified national identity. Yet very few people have seriously tried to even define what it is.

Why does the right avoid the definition of identity?

The basis of the 4chan-Tumblr comparison was all about identity: the genetic pariah identity on one side, the one who has accepted and endorsed the narratives of masculine identity as a law of nature; on the other, the silly women who have endorsed what corporate marketing department had brainswashed them into: embracing different identities, exploring different identitites, wear and then toss different identities as decorative tags.

But what is identity? Is it a T-shirt with punk-band logo that we can one day just forget and put on the corporate uniform of "business casual"? A set of descriptive labels one ascribes to oneself? Or is it a deep sense of self-hood?

The right has investments in their own identities too. What about the masculine identity, often willing to kill if it is threatened, or national identity, that is ready to commit atrocities for matters of pride? Let's stay with national identity for a second. It requires nationalist schooling and a police state to inculcate. Enforcing a different national identity on anyone is broadly understood an act of cruel oppression. But the right is bound to eliminate everything "psychological", thus it needs to reduce national identity to a spontaneous expression of one's genes. This requires romantic narratives that reinforce the illusion of genetic continuity, and well defined racial groups as natural kinds. In the current climate of the anti-transgender moral panic we tend to forget that one of the greatest grievances of the right has been the abandonment of racial theories by anthropologists and historians alike. And in order to get back to their patriotic narratives they have no choice but to undo all science.

From debunked race science to MAGA political strategy

Debunked race science was quite popular on 4chan a decade ago, and now it is part of the fascist US Government's agenda. Beran hardly mentions the racism involved in the phenomena he discusses (for good measure, compare with the book "The Cruelty is the Point" by Adam Serwer, which makes the case that racism is the best explanation of the rise of Trump, and it is also written around Trump's first term). What is now hot in 4chan? Last week's special in '/sci/' was whether phrenology and physiognomy were "fine" sciences that were tossed away due to "political correctness". Many comments agree. This is typical. Psychology and psychiatry are painted as the greatest hoaxes and enemies, resounding the Nazi notions of "Jewish disciplines". Many people thought this to be unremarkable, sharing themselves the debunked premises of naive empiricism, until they were shattered too by the anti-science Trump administration, regardless of their status as disciplines of astrophysics, meteorology, climate change science, etc.

But it is also funny to read this book, which was written to explain Trump's first presidency, under the light of the recent revelations about 4chan's /pol/ origin and function. There is now evidence that Steve Bannon as a right wing strategist saw the potential of mass manipulation and contacted Jeffrey Epstein to introduce him to Christopher Poole. Poole very soon after that conceded to allow '/pol/', the neo-nazi, racist-science board that is now said that paved the way to the second term of Donald Trump. In fact some say that he was re-elected by the generation who were at one time the troubled, sexless teens finding their identity on 4chan. The author accounts for Steve Bannon's sponsoring of Milo Yiannopoulos as an early alt-right agitator, but he is unaware of how well connected Bannon was, and what was in fact generating the phenomena he describes.

Fascist strategists who want to manipulate teens into being recruited as their stormtroopers don't want them to read psychology. They don't want them to even think about identity exploration. They want them to think about a great past that was clean-cut and uncomplicated. They instill fear for the novel and the unknown. They cultivate the worship of a leading personality (The_Donald) as an expression of their own self. The author attributes the endorsement of Trump by the nihilistic youth on 4chan to his promise of "winning", that resonated well with those convinced they are losers. Heck, you don't want any of these sheeple going to fucking therapy, do you? (Some analysis suggests that No Nut November was also a fascist psy-op. Good authoritarians know that it is important to control sex in order to manipulate people.)

We should not forget we are talking about teens here. The author describles 4chan and Tumblr as opposites in the following way: The former, a counterculture suspicious of the assimilation of every other counterculture by corporate marketing departments. So suspicious that it denied all values (1990s nihilism leading to the aughts "layers of irony"). The latter (Tumblr goes to college), privileged customer on route for the next reshuffle of the middle class, Karening the fuck out of their universities to cater to their self-serving values, just like customers asking for fancy tops on their expensive fair-trade coffee, rejecting the expensive commodity if it is not exactly to their liking.

Theories of Identity

There is no real treatment of the notion of identity, and it is no accident that there is a fair amount of psychological theory on identity. For instance older theories have it that (self) identity crisis is a developmental stage, emerging in adolescence, and resolution of said crisis can take different forms: among which foreclosure - endorsing a given identity; moratorium - extended exploration of identities and difficulty committing to one; and other states of identity, but I cite as most relevant the ones the author implies by his descripton of 4chan versus Tumblr. So, for example, Lily Alexandre recently revisited her 2021 video about the "millions of dead genders" of Tumblr. The extended vocabulary of genders is a matter of what fits best, and what grows on each person. (For instance "trans girl" has no real semantic difference from "transgender woman", it is just preferred by some people and not by others, as a self-descriptor). We have also seen the understanding of identity as a "set of self-descriptor labels" in another essay: The one on Hans Georg Moeller, who also hinted to the same problematic notion of "social contagion due to being extremely online" and over-obsessing with labels. As Alexandre points out, being trans and/or gay, and/or autistic, comes with doubt, denial, and other coping mechanisms, and young people coming to terms with their body and their gender might have given rise to this extended vocabulary. And that's OK. We need those safe spaces for people to figure themselves out.

The case for assertively protective third places

Gender diverse youth (but also youth in the spectrum, youth going through trauma and mental health issues, youth in high risk homes, and others) can go through exploration, and internet communities will provide a safe space for exploration, for which there is a healthy amount and a less healthy amount. Support networks both on- and off- line are critical determinants of what this amount is. Discussing Tumblr, the author makes the void argument that the "radical acceptance of all identities" is as bad as 4chan's toxicity.

Radical acceptance is a prerequisite for both safety and growth. And his argument, typically a last resort of teacher's pets in philosophy lectures, takes the form of the self-referential paradox: "Boohoohoo. They don't accept those who are not radically accepting every identity". Some journalist wrote a couple years ago stated that GenZ is the most accepting of LGBT. "But they are intolerant of those who are not as acccepting, and this is a paradox they are unwilling to acknowledge. Curious. We are very intelligent". Well, all these people missed a critical lesson in logic: self-referential propositions are prohibited (Russel & Whitehead). And a lesson in history: If you let the intolerant in, you will have a nazi bar (Karl Popper, paraphrased by me).

You see the results: radical acceptance leads to places like Blahaj. Safe no matter what. If you want to be safe you can go there. Live and let live, or get the fuck out. 4chan, on the other hand, chased out furries and other weird subcultures, ostracized Anonymous as too leftist, to end up being manipulated into being a literal nazi bar celebrating the suicides of trans people. And serving as a breeding ground for the global rise of fascism. Yet the author presents perceived safety as a matter of "feelings", devoid of the scientific "reason" that is needed in academic departments. "This is unsafe because we say we feel unsafe", he says.

Milo Yiannopoulos and the manufactured free speech crisis in academia

The author is somewhat lenient to the academic educators, but he thinks should use their authority to reprimand the rowdy students. Their hesitation, Beran says, is understandable because they regularly debate fine points and often have to shift their previously held beliefs under the light of new arguments and/or evidence. However this isn't by accident. Rather it is the exact series of paradigm shifts that have cause academia to "have a liberal bias". This is the very process fascists want to undo, and the real reason they are not simply anti-democracy but inherently anti-science. It goes back to first principles. Nevertheless not all cognitive shifts are created equal, but as soon as they happen in the realm of the social or the psychological, the fascist crowd will find a strong advocate in these very same departments: the privileged, male-dominated, and aggressively gatekeeped "hard" sciences, echoing the sexist "reason/feelings" antithesis.

Many forget that before the manufactured "free speech crisis" around Yiannopoulos or TERFs at campuses, we had agitators like UCSB's Tooby and Cosmides and neoliberal talking head Daniel Dennet fighting "Science Wars", way before "Culture Wars", brandishing a hardcore flavor of rape-enabling genetic determinism and social darwinism, targeting social studies and humanities, and attacking population genetics for challenging the notion of race. As early as the Reagan era, the right has been targeting universities, considered as breeding grounds for Democratic voters, legislators and judges, in their strive to achieve total deregulation and corporate unaccountability.

Your critique of identity politics can be either radical or just concern trolling

But the author takes a "vantage centrist" position. Let's forget all this relevant background. Let's not go deep into what cognitive shifts in science are. Let's not go too deep into all this. Let's stay on online youth subcultures, 4chan and Tumblr. It was the latter, according to him, that "went to college". But he poses as a serious journalist, who has outgrown 4chan, and had a brief passage through Tumblr, before getting himself a college education. He distances himself from the toxic cesspool. He uses extravagant and outlandish specimen of college identity politics as straw-men ("are babies dressed up as Mulan racist?"), saying that there are serious problems of social injustice that are neglected. "Identity politics" is painted as simply performative despite the fact that he is literally writing about the Black Lives Matter era, and the discussion around systemic injustice was everywhere. Most notably it was the subject of critical race theory, a future target of another right wing moral panic, which served as a preliminary stage of Trump's second term.

On that account, he is not different from this pick me girl, who says to her primarily young white male audience: "Anyone remembers cultural appropriation? What was that about? No one talks about it now" and "you put the real issues under the table" by whitewashing your speech. And they are right to an extent: Identity politics is not even left-wing, and it is whitewashing inequality. Media representation and vocabulary can only go so far.

But people like these make a misleading argument that can appeal to feelings of social injustice in anyone: There are real problems and we are just covering them up. Then are you folks ...radicals? You want to tackle on systemic racism and sexism on the institutional level, and you think political correctness is hypocrisy? So are you organizing a general strike? Are you following the leadership of black trans women in organizing said general strike? (No, you think these are just made-up labels, save the racial supremacy).

What do you do about those "Real issues" then? Are you urban guerillas? Probably just whining about political correctness ruining comedy, appropriating the term free-speech to justify bullying and other oppressive speech and non-speech acts.

This concern trolling by the alt-right is a very insidious stance to take, and one I could never see without the weight carried by the dismissive and expansive use of the term "political correctness" that you can now find everywhere. In the end of the day, these tirades conclude that the "problems", never named as systemic racism and sexism are to big or too embedded to tackle with. It is like they're saying "At best we should go-slow about them, for the time being do-nothing, not even using verbal assurances that we acknowledge these disparities are really there. This makes us free thinkers."

Wait. Where do these methods come from?

There are some serious questions on demographics here. Are all our problems really down to a couple million NEETs? Then there are the methodological issues. This idea of identity crisis as a manifestation of capitalist consumerism flows around in sociology. The argument goes, in the medieval times you had less identity crisis, then you have post-WW2 fears of nuclear annihilation, and many more roles you can choose from due to the technology advancements. Then you also have counterculture and you can choose an identity that is utterly adversarial to the mainstream society you grow up in, although there is a lot of interest in these fields to show that after all the home culture is inescapable and all foreign or opposing elements are assimilated by it.

These methods claim they focus on the systemic instead of reducing macro phenomena to the individual. But what they really do is analyzing the society as if it was an individual in-therapy, or taking an idealized individual and interpreting its meaning-making, or even taking oneself as the specimen, a product of their own culture, and presenting their own meaning making as a general one. I am not trained in sociology, but these are the options I have seen in practice in similar studies.

As far as his academic endeavor is concerned, I think his treatment of counterculture is incomplete unless he outlines the definition and characteristics of "identity". Caelan Conrad dissects a segment in Rowling's manifesto that leads many people to claim that she is a trans man in denial, and gay shows that the excerpt in question is masterfully crafted to frame the very definition of being trans as a manifestation of teenage angst, and therefore forming a circular argument. Rowling's obvious sleight of hand is that it leaves out gender identity and gender dysphoria, therefore comparing apples and oranges: trans teenagers are not anxious cis teenagers. A hint at trans men being women trying to escape patriarchy and taking the bait of "transgenderism". Central in Rowlings argument, and by extension all transphobes, and it is a denial of identity, a denial that trans people exist, and this has several vile consequences in itself: that trans people should be eliminated and those pushing the idea of gender identity are enemies of the state. Scary stuff!

Conrad points out that if identity is something deeply engendered with the self, and it is very important to correctly develop and protect, or it is a superficial optics and style endeavor that you can turn on and off. If identity is profound and permanent, no cis person can ever be tricked into being trans. The infamous Money experiments, often weaponized by the right, can in fact be read as evidence of the permanence and inevitability of some innate gender identity. And vice versa. If identity is not permanent and escape-able, then cherished religious and national identities can also be trivial and temporary. This is an endgame for the whole philosophical outlook of right-wingers. But there is a timing parameter to it as well. Young adolescents will explore their identities and gender diverse or gay and queer youth will exist, and if they don't have safe third places for it you will just have a medieval and/or fascist society.

What does this mean for self identity

Identity exploration by gender diverse young people has lead to a new moral panic that is bleeding through to legislation for age verification and mass censorship. As they did with the bathroom moral panic, advocates dismiss this panic with the (correct but understated) fact that exploration does not make kids queer, it just provides more broad and appropriate vocabulary to get know oneself. Yes, but this goes over the heads of the legislators and PTAs. There is a moral panic that will lead to censorship of places like the Fediverse, criminalization or de facto elimination of safe spaces. We now see the first steps of using the detransitioner playbook for autistic people, targeting another demographic whose lives are supported by these spaces.

Foreclosure, the fascist brand of approved adolescence identity, is going to be force-fed to us, as a route to the romanticized 1950s. There is an army of Brownshirts out there called ICE, and soon diverse identity and expression of any kind will be targeted, shoving all normalized people into non-pseudonymous, corporate platforms where each and everyone of their beliefs and attitudes will be algorithmically surveyed and manipulated. This is why it is important to scrutinize and read between the lines of similar white male authors pushing the ideas supporting and refining the premises of right-wing media circuses and moral panics, by diluting nuances and popularizing strawmen.

Their work is silently influencing a number of oblivious centrists and inoculates them to more nuanced analyses provided by activists and advocate organizations, thus establishing a silent majority that will stand on the fence in such critical legislations as trans youth health care and age-verification. Behind the petite-burgeois annoyance of multiple gender labels on niche social platforms, there is a similar reactance to multiple music genre labels. "This is too much information for me, I miss the simpler times when there was only rock, pop, disco, and jazz". The only difference being, if you apply your simplistic attitude to identity normalization you have a rotten, prescriptive society that crushes people for being different. Which is what the MAGA right wants.

Opinion: In an increasingly hostile world, New York City subway nights become a space where trans women of color keep each other in view and safe.

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/australia/p/827602/australian-psychological-society-supporting-the-mental-health-and-wellbeing-of-transgender-a

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8195377

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/40807

Childen’s Minnesota

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Some Minnesota families caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s war on trans kids can once again breathe a little easier, at least for now. Children’s Minnesota, a major regional hospital system, is reinstating the care it had paused on February 27 for transgender youth.

“The decision follows a federal court ruling that vacated a federal declaration attempting to restrict gender-affirming care,” a statement from the hospital, shared with Erin in the Morning, said.

“We are contacting patient families that were affected by the temporary pause in certain services. Offering science- and research-based health care to transgender and gender diverse youth is part of Children’s Minnesota’s vision of being every family’s essential partner in raising healthier children.”

Of the Gender Health program’s 700 active patients, less than 5% were directly and immediately impacted, the hospital said. In other words, the federal government’s crackdown targeted a program that was serving only a few dozen minors with these specific treatments.

The care pause only ever impacted puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. Children’s Minnesota never performed gender-affirming surgeries specific to trans patients under 18 and psychotherapeutic interventions were relatively unaffected.

“This pause was difficult and hard news for all of our patients,” the statement continued. “The temporary pause was a decision we did not want to make. It was a decision we had to make due to conditions at the time.”

On Dec. 18, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services issued a declaration that dubbed gender-affirming care for trans minors as medically unsound, and could therefore be restricted. However, the March ruling from Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai found that Kennedy does not possess the legal or scientific authority to render an entire field of health care “not medicine.” Therefore, the Dec. 18 HHS declaration, which excluded providers of such care from participating in federal healthcare programs, was deemed unlawful.

Over 20 states filed a federal lawsuit in December, including Minnesota, against the Trump regime in response to the attacks on trans people’s health care.

Then, in April, the BMJ reported:

The coalition argued that the HHS declaration unlawfully sought to pressure providers by threatening their participation in federal health programmes including Medicare and Medicaid. Accepting this argument, Kasubhai said, “There’s a theme of break it and see what others will do” in the way that the HHS attempted to change national health policy on gender affirming care, using a public statement without allowing the necessary public consultation.

“That’s not a system or method committed to the rule of law,” Kasubhai added.

Now, Judge Kasubhai must decide “whether the federal government should be barred from using the declaration’s reasoning in any future action against hospitals, according to legal analysts,” Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication, reported on April 1. In other words, it’s weighing whether the declaration can be cited or used as evidence in a court of law in the future.

“That question, which could determine how much leverage the administration retains over healthcare organizations going forward, remains unresolved.”

Recently, the Department of Justice also sued the state of Minnesota over its trans-inclusive bathroom and sports policies in schools.

“We have been living in a world in Minnesota that is inclusive of LGBTQ people for a long time, and these issues have never been prevalent—it’s not been a problem until we had a federal government that decided that we had to eradicate these people,” said Rep. Leigh Finke, the first openly transgender member of the Minnesota Legislature and a founding member of its Queer Caucus, in an interview with Erin in the Morning earlier this month.

Pam Bondi, who had been leading the charge at the DOJ since Trump’s return to office, was fired from her position as the Attorney General on April 2. It’s not immediately clear who will take her place—or how they will maneuver the upcoming legal battles over trans rights coming down the pike.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8137710

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/39721

Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.

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During the Trump administration’s time in power, transgender students have lost the ability to fight for their Title IX protections against schools that discriminate against them. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has greenlit the targeting of LGBTQ+ students repeatedly this term. Maryland, though, appears poised to push back with a new bill that is rapidly advancing through the state legislature. HB 649, which has already passed the House of Delegates 100-35, would significantly expand protections for transgender students across the state, giving them a private right of action to sue schools that discriminate against them in "any program or activity"—a phrase borrowed directly from Title IX that would explicitly protect participation in sports, admissions, and access to school facilities and programs statewide. The bill was heard in a Senate committee yesterday.

The bill states that "an educational institution may not exclude an individual from participation in, deny a person the benefits of, or subject an individual to discrimination within, any program or activity of the educational institution on the basis of race, color, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or marital status" (emphasis added). The language is significant and expansive: the bill defines "educational institution" to include both public and nonpublic prekindergarten programs, elementary schools, secondary schools, institutions of postsecondary education, institutions of higher education, and any other educational program leading to a certificate, diploma, or degree—covering virtually every school in the state from pre-K through college.

The bill was brought at the request of Maryland's own Commission on Civil Rights. In its testimony, the Commission laid out the urgency in stark terms: the federal Office for Civil Rights, which has historically been the primary enforcement mechanism for students facing discrimination, has been gutted under the Trump administration. OCR complaints from Maryland residents surged to 130 in 2024—but after January 2025, the office effectively stopped processing them. Furthermore, when the administration does take action, it is against transgender students, not in favor of their rights. The ACLU of Maryland, which also testified in favor of the bill, noted that when the current president took office, many OCR complaints were dismissed without investigation. "With the dismantling of USDE and OCR, Maryland must fill the gap to ensure that the civil rights of all Maryland students are protected and upheld," the ACLU wrote.

The bill is notable for two reasons. The first is its use of the phrase "any program or activity" in its protection of transgender students. Maryland's existing nondiscrimination law, the 2022 Inclusive Schools Act, prohibits schools from "discriminating against” students based on gender identity—but does not explicitly guarantee the right to participate in all school programs and activities. The current vague language can leave room for schools to argue that barring a trans student from a sports team or denying access to facilities does not constitute discrimination. Only a handful of states have closed this gap. California's landmark 2013 School Success and Opportunity Act explicitly guarantees transgender students the right to "participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity." Connecticut similarly requires "equal opportunity to participate in school activities, programs, and courses of study" regardless of gender identity. Maryland's HB 649, by adopting the Title IX formula—"exclude from participation in, deny the benefits of, or subject to discrimination within any program or activity"—would place the state among this small group.

Secondarily, the bill creates a private right of action. Under Maryland's current framework, a student alleging discrimination must depend on government agencies acting in their favor. HB 649 changes that. A transgender student experiencing discrimination in bathrooms, sports, dormitories, or any other school program would be able to sue the school directly in state court, without waiting for the state superintendent or the attorney general to act on their behalf. The National Women's Law Center Action Fund, which testified in support of the bill, called this pathway "critical for student survivors of sexual assault and LGBTQI+ students who may face greater hurdles in obtaining justice on federal civil rights claims." Any school that capitulates to Trump administration demands to roll back transgender protections may now face lawsuits directly from the students it harms, should this bill pass.

The bill has the support of Maryland's LGBTQ+ Caucus, which submitted a letter of support calling it a necessary step to close enforcement gaps in civil rights law. "For LGBTQ+ students, actionable nondiscrimination enforcement supports a safer school climate, better academic outcomes, and recognition and respect for gender diversity and sexual orientation as integral parts of students' identities," the caucus wrote. "Ensuring that LGBTQ+ students and educators are protected under state civil rights law helps educational environments become more inclusive, safe, and equitable for all."

The bill passed the House 100-35 on March 23 and has been referred to the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee, where it was heard yesterday. The Senate must act before the legislative session ends on April 13. If passed, the bill is likely to be signed by Gov. Wes Moore, who has signed the Trans Shield Act, the Trans Health Equity Act expanding Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, and declared Maryland a sanctuary state for transgender people.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8137444

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/39745

Topeka Capital Journal

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Samantha Boucher openly defied the state laws of Kansas when, in the presence of the Governor and the police, she walked into the bathroom in an act of civil disobedience.

Boucher is the founder and executive director of Trans Liberty and a transgender woman. The bathroom was in the Kansas statehouse. The morning was March 31st: the Transgender Day of Visibility.

The police showed her the way. Governor Laura Kelly, who Boucher encountered along the way, accepted a gracious thanks from Boucher. Kelly had tried to veto the bathroom ban bill that Boucher was now defying, but she was overridden by a heavily conservative state legislature.

“I think this would be extremely dangerous for a Kansan to do, but ... I’m more than happy to put myself at that risk if it means that somebody else doesn’t have to, because eventually someone would try this,” Boucher told the Topeka Capital-Journal. “I’m really interested to see what the attorney general chooses to do here.”

@topekacapitaljournal

The Topeka Capital-Journal on Instagram: "A transgender activis…

Boucher’s modest protest transpired as the state crackdowns on trans people escalated: banning them from using bathrooms in public buildings that don’t match their sex assigned at birth, instituting a “bounty” to incentivize snitching on trans people who use the “wrong” restroom and institutions that don’t sufficiently sex-check people at the bathroom door, and most notably, revoking transgender people’s driver’s licenses if they don’t match their sex assigned at birth. Those caught with the “wrong” gender on their driver’s license could face criminal charges, making it the most extreme anti-trans ID law in the country.

None of this deterred Boucher. “I commend her for calling attention to state-sanctioned discrimination and for her bravery in challenging those who support such discrimination to put their votes into action,” Rep. Abi Boatman of Kansas’ 86th district in Wichita, told Erin in the Morning.

Boatman is one of a handful of transgender state lawmakers in the country; she is not legally allowed to use the women’s restroom in her own place of work at the Capitol, and she cannot drive to work with an ID that accurately depicts her gender.

Boucher left yesterday a free woman, but Kansas authorities are investigating the matter.

Others are not so lucky. Transgender and cisgender people alike have been caught up in the anti-trans panic—people have been harassed and filmed in the bathroom, accosted by police or security guards, physically assaulted, and arrested after using the restroom, even in states with no such “bathroom ban” on the books.

Some of these instances have been planned protests; others were unsuspecting patrons and private citizens simply using the restroom. That’s because these laws rely on piecemeal enforcement, vigilante bathroom police, self-censorship, and above all, fear.

The political landscape is especially dangerous for Black and brown trans people, who face disproportionate levels of violence and police brutality.

As Boucher approached the restrooms on the second floor, she encountered Governor Laura Kelly, who was attending an unrelated event. Boucher told the Governor what she was about to do.

“In regard to SB 244, I will use the restroom 3 times, triggering a misdemeanor,” Boucher said. “I appreciate your veto.”

Kelly commended her—and apologized. “I am very sorry that you and others have been put in this situation,” Kelly said.

According to the law, Boucher could face criminal charges as well as a $1,000 civil penalty.

Boucher was the first openly trans federal campaign manager, as per her social media. In 2019, she oversaw Democratic candidate Kimberly Graham’s Senate campaign in Iowa ahead of the June primaries. She is the founder and executive director of Trans Liberty, a trans equality PAC.

“What I hope to have accomplished here, and in whatever I become embroiled in as a result, is making sure that the nation doesn’t forget that this is happening here,” Boucher said as per local press reports. “This is unprecedented, and it cannot be allowed to stand.”

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8129913

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/39411

ACCEPT Romania

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On Transgender Day of Visibility, a Romanian appellate court ordered the government to recognize a transgender man's gender identity on state documents—the first known court enforcement of a landmark 2024 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union. That ruling requires all member states to recognize legal gender changes obtained elsewhere in the bloc. The Bucharest Tribunal's decision is final and cannot be appealed. While the ruling directly applies only to transgender people who obtained gender recognition documents in another EU country, it sets a significant precedent in a nation that ranks dead last among all 27 EU member states on LGBTQ+ rights, according to ILGA-Europe's 2025 Rainbow Map.

The case centers on Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi, a transgender man with dual British and Romanian citizenship who was born in Romania and moved to the United Kingdom in 2008. Arian began his transition in the UK in 2016 and obtained a gender recognition certificate in 2020, while the UK was still treated as an EU member state during the Brexit transition period. Romania's own gender recognition procedure was not a viable option—the European Court of Human Rights found in 2021 that the country had no "clear and foreseeable" framework for gender recognition and had forced transgender people into an "impossible dilemma" by requiring surgery that was either unwanted or unavailable domestically. ACCEPT Romania estimates fewer than 50 people have successfully changed their civil status documents in the country in the last 20 years.

When Arian attempted to register his UK gender change with Romanian authorities in 2021, they refused. He sued. The Romanian court sent the legal question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a binding interpretation, and in October 2024, the CJEU ruled that Romania’s refusal violated EU law—holding that “gender, like a first name, is a fundamental element of personal identity” and that forcing a citizen to carry conflicting identities across member states was an illegal barrier to free movement.

Even after the CJEU's ruling, Romania resisted. When the case returned to domestic courts, three government agencies—the Cluj Personal Records Directorate, the Civil Status Service, and the General Directorate for Personal Records—appealed a lower court's order to comply. The Bucharest Tribunal rejected all three appeals on March 31, making the order final: Romania must recognize gender changes from other EU member nations.

"The legal process we accompanied Arian through over the past several years has, at last, reached a conclusion that does him justice. More than a personal victory, the ruling confirmed by the Bucharest Tribunal is a major step toward respecting the rights of all transgender people in Romania," said lawyer Iustina Ionescu in a press release by ACCEPT Romania. "Romanians who have obtained a final gender recognition decision in another member state will no longer need to go through Romania's arduous procedure. We call on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice to adopt a clear, fast, and accessible procedure for changing documents for all Romanian transgender citizens—regardless of whether they have lived in other EU member states—as the European Court of Human Rights has required since 2021 in X and Y v. Romania." (Translated from Romanian.)

The ruling has significance well beyond Romania. Because the underlying CJEU decision is binding on all 27 EU member states, the Romanian court's enforcement serves as a practical test case for how the principle will be applied across the bloc. ILGA-Europe's Senior Strategic Litigation Advisor Marie-Hélène Ludwig called the decision "a victory for the many trans people in the EU who are still refused identity documents matching their gender identity and are forced to live with different identities when crossing borders," adding that since "Romania has resisted implementing the CJEU ruling in the Coman case for eight years, it is particularly important to see a Romanian court giving practical effects to a CJEU ruling." The organization said it is now monitoring implementation in other EU countries. Three member states—Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia—have effectively banned legal gender recognition entirely through laws, court decisions, or constitutional amendments, all of which now run contrary to the CJEU's evolving jurisprudence.

The ruling does have significant limitations. It applies only to transgender people who obtained legal gender recognition in another EU member state—it does not help trans Romanians who have never left the country and remain trapped in Romania's domestic procedure, which the European Court of Human Rights condemned in 2021 but which remains unchanged. As the Reuters noted in its analysis of the underlying CJEU decision, "as the litigation in this case was focused on freedom of movement rights, it means the process for Romanian citizens seeking to change legal gender remains unchanged." Ionescu's statement directly addressed this gap, calling on the Romanian government to create a procedure for all transgender citizens "regardless of whether they have lived in other EU member states." ACCEPT has already begun distributing template legal forms for other trans people with cross-border documents to file their own requests.

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Today is about visibility—but also about existence, dignity, and truth.

Trans people have always been here, in every culture, across every era. Visibility isn’t about asking for permission to exist—it’s about refusing to be erased.

To anyone who is trans or questioning: you are not alone, and you are not “too much” or “not enough.” You are real, and you deserve to be seen, respected, and safe.

And to everyone else: visibility should come with action. Listen, support, defend, and stand alongside trans people—not just today, but every day.

Visibility matters. But what matters more is what we do with it.

🏳️‍⚧️

TL;DR Meta itself funds the conservative argument that the internet turns kids trans, and stands to gain power and money from this verdict.

This is a very good but lesser known YouTube channel, and I decided to post here and not in a tech-specific forum, because as you will see this is pretty much about trans people as well.

Taylor Lorenz (with Kat Tenbarge) make a coherent argument that the verdict consolidates Meta's business model and established power, for a minimal fine that is just an operational cost compared to what they stand to make out of it.

Moreover, they point out the verdict relates to:

• Ultra-conservative think-tanks, including The Heritage Foundation, which targets abortion and trans healthcare
• Censorship of abortion, feminism, queer, lgbtq+ and particularly trans topics, by online platforms including Meta
• Social contagion - Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria conspiracy theory - pseudoscience
• Age verification laws, KOSA, and similar approaches which are themselves funded by Meta, directly or indirectly

If you are not aware, recently a Reddit user published data showing that Meta's money is behind the "protect the children" age verification laws, probably in order to match devices to idenitities. They also bankroll some of the very same conservative outlets promoting censorship and roll-back of rights. As the creators say, Meta "does not profit from free-speech or abortion information", it profits from targeted advertisement.

A related video by the same creator is this one about the "new moral panic" that is build around this, and many more videos of hers. Deserves way more views.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/39936778

For everyone in the US here, there is currently a FDA petition to create a federal registry of all trans women taking HRT. The FDA is currently taking public comments supporting and opposing the petition. Here's a link on how to make your voice heard: https://transresilience.org/issues/fda-registry.

You can comment anonymously if you feel unsafe putting your name out there.

I've read some of the comments and most of them so far seem to be from transphobic ppl.

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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https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278186/gov.uscourts.dcd.278186.127.0.pdf