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

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

Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via NBC News

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

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

308KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Wpath Memorandum Opinion

199KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

So, its been a while for me ( 10 years ) that IK I'm a transgender women ( 23 rn ) but how ever because of my family ( they are religious ) and my country government nu-written law I couldn't hrt. All I need is approve of a therapist so my family would buy their words, but every therapist I went tries to convince me that I'm just Gay or Bisexual etc, the last therapist I went accepted in total but she said to me that she needs to take a test from me just to be sure :D . and that stuff is pushing me into a very big confusion what is they are right and I'm not trans? and if so why this feeling and dysphoria never went down?

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5710134

A new sci-fi thriller short film, with Matrix co-director Lilly Wachowski serving as executive producer, features an all-transgender-women cast.

The 18-minute film, Dolls, marks the directorial debut of trans filmmaker Geena Rocero, and the cast includes Yên Sen, Arewà Basit, Macy Rodman and Vas Eli, as well as the director herself.

Described as a trans-coded take on 70s cult classic The Stepford Wives, the new film follows Yan, a private investigator who infiltrates a suspicious dating workshop for transgender women after being hired to find a missing girl.

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5682496

The island nation of Cuba will now allow transgender people to change the gender markers on their government-issued identity cards without having to undergo “bottom surgery,” a legal change long sought by the country’s trans and nonbinary communities.

On July 18, the country’s National Assembly of People’s Power (NAPP) approved a law allowing people to change their gender markers without first requiring a court-approved document proving that applicants had undergone genital affirming surgeries.

This new law is one of several recently approved by the NAPP to update the technology and policies of the nation’s record-keeping system. Cuba’s new Civil Registry code will now recognize unmarried couples’ emotional unions or cohabitation agreements, providing some legal recognition of various domestic partnerships.

Full Article

It's one of the CSDs where Nazis tried to interfere massively, unfortunately.

Translation

proud and courageous - never quiet again

maxine cho is a korean-american trans girl. her best friend is michael larsen, a norwegian-american trans boy.

maxine's parents, mr. and mrs. cho, are very supportive of maxine as they don't care how their daughter identifies, while mr. larsen... not so much. (mrs. larsen loves michael anyway though).

one night, maxine and michael go to bed and maxine thinks "i wish i had his body." michael thinks, "i wish i had her body".

when michael wakes up, he realizes he's in maxine's bed, in maxine's house! maxine realizes the same. not just that, but they're now in each other's bodies.

like, that's such a cis girl think to think your parents were hiding from you the fact that you were secretly a dude, right?!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/28573541

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/28573520

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/28573462

Hey fam, I’m reaching out because I’m really unwell and things have been overwhelming. I’ve just been diagnosed with malaria, typhoid, and peptic ulcers. The clinic bill is about $250, and I can’t afford it on my own right now.

On top of that, I’m still dealing with the constant pressure of eviction threats from the government, and this sickness has knocked me even further down when I already felt like I was barely holding on.

I know many of us are struggling, but if anyone is in a position to help even just a few dollars or a share it would mean the world to me. The support link is on my profile.

Thank you for seeing me. In care and trans solidarity

https://gofund.me/bd40a4f9

random question. i'm ftm and i go by jay. i'm fine with going by jay but i use a different name irl.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8418579

I want an avi with a trans flag or symbol in the background.

I can always use Canva, I suppose, but what should my avi be, dammit? I want Kirby but Kirby's a boy, I think.

I want a girl avatar.

The UK's EHRC recently opened a public review period for their new Code of Practice for following the Equality Act of 2010.

Despite previous claims that this judgement does not reduce trans rights, its new Code of Practice tells a different story.

I spent 8 hours reading through the entire Code of Practice, analysing it and writing up my feedback. Like all the trans people who organized a Mass Lobby over this, I also concluded that this new guidance was horrific. See Trans Solidarity Alliance's guidance on this situation.

Amongst many other dangerous and belittling statements about "biological sex" and how trans people should use services that align with their sex at birth stated throughout the entire thing, it clearly states in Section 13.3.19 that single sex services cannot lawfully include trans people of a matching gender. Asserting that this would amount to discrimination against cis people of the opposite sex.

Picture this: You're a trans person that has suffered domestic abuse. You seek a support group to help you. You find a women's support group friendly to trans women. A gender critical finds out about this, and asks a cis male friend to threaten to sue the support group for discrimination. The support group is forced to make a difficult decision: become trans-exclusionary, leaving you with no support or go to court on the matter.

This EHRC views the complaint by the cis man, here as completely lawful and in following with the Equality Act, an act meant to protect minorities, and urges organizations to not include trans people because of it.

It bases its entire guidance on the idea that trans people are not their acquired gender, and it's ok to pry into and treat them as their birth sex.

“I feel no threat from any trans person that might be in the toilets, I’ve never felt threatened by a trans person as it turns out.”

I'm seeing headlines that Republicans quietly posted a report proving trans healthcare saves lives and simultaneously seeing that Utah Republicans stand by the ban(1) and are misquoting the report's conclusions.

Download the report from the Utah State website where it's hosted.

When I clicked the "Download Report" links from Firefox, the file that downloads doesn't open as a readable report. That may be a problem on my end though.

(1) Utah Lawmakers Stand by Gender Care Ban After Study Refutes Reasoning

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30622199

Note that I believe this has not been ratified yet, but is set to be voted on this coming week.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29084869

Thankfully, this amendment has been voted down. If I had known about this Lemmy community I would have posted it there. I will post these here from now on 🙂.

Link to a Reddit post by an activist I know.

But to summarise, Amendment NC21 to the Data Use and Access Bill would require sex to be defined as "sex at birth" for all identity verification requests.

This includes people who have changed their sex legally, which will now be separately catalogued.

This means that all kinds of people, including (potential) employers, landlords, government staff etc. will be able to look up these details about you.

This amendment will be voted on on the 7th of May, so if you're in the UK please badger your MP to vote against it (template email in the Reddit post)

Trans, broke, and homeless…I’m so hungry, I haven’t eaten much the past few days. Trying to raise some funds to get some food. Thank you so much for your kindness!

To Send Me a Donation:

Venmo Username- BlessedBiKindness https://venmo.com/u/BlessedBiKindness

CashApp Tag- $paresumluv

PayPal Username- bigwixi

Facebook Messenger- DM me for details

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/4639970

URGENTLY NEED HELP BAILING MY TRANS (M2F) BEST FRIEND OUT OF JAIL ASAP! THEY'VE BEEN WRONGFULLY PUT INTO THE MENS SIDE IN GEN POP, SO THEIR SAFETY IS IN JEOPARDY! PLEASE READ!! AND THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY DONATED TO HELP OUR FRIEND!!

My best friend who goes by "Rachel" (Not their legal name, therefore not their arresting name) Hexbear Username- allthetimesivedied [they/them, she/her], Was arrested about 2 weeks ago when the police stopped to ask them why they were asleep in their car in a parking lot...Unfortunately their tags were expired, and they had 2 warrants in 2 counties. We are trying to bail them out, but with the cost of their bail, their fines/fees, and the cost for new tags for their vehicle, we need about $1,000 total. So far we've only raised about $180. Please, if you can afford to donate anything at all, we would be SO grateful. Or even just sharing this post if you can't afford to donate would help, as well! Thank you all so much for your continued support, Let's bring Rachel home!!!

~Ashlee

Ways To Donate:

CashApp Ca$hTag- ashleeillest

Venmo- ashleeillest

Paypal Username- ashleeportland

For more information or questions (Or other ways to send donations if any of the above options don't work for you) please DM me!!!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7572635

I should consider this...

I wonder if Virginia has anything like this.

Unsurprisingly Sullivan bases her review on the immutable binary nature of sex. Just to remind readers, this is a statement of belief rather than evidenced fact. Indeed organisations representing over 3,500 scientists said precisely this in response to President Trump’s executive order stating that sex is both binary and immutable.

But Sullivan then states boldly that all research should ask about “biological sex” – another term which has no clear definition in science or in law – regardless of whether how you were born is relevant to the topic being investigated. She takes issue with what seems like a perfectly reasonable set of questions in an NHS staff survey, matching a trans-inclusive way of capturing relevant data.

Some of her recommendations touch on NHS protocols and use of data. When someone transitions into a different gender, they get given a new NHS number, because the NHS has viewed ‘sex’ as immutable for IT purposes. The individual’s old NHS record is then added as a note to the new record, but that means it cannot be searched other than visually. The ‘sex’ marker is used to automatically call you into various screening programmes. F means you get called for cervical and breast cancer screening, while M leads to prostrate checks. These may or may not be relevant for a whole bunch of people, not just trans people.

This has been an issue for as long as I can remember. As a computing professional with experience in managing data, I was involved in conversations with NHS people 15 years ago about the need for more granular data (for example whether someone has ovaries or not) and why couldn’t the ‘sex’ marker be amended, and it wasn’t a new conversation then. Each time NHS people said that changes were being considered, but the cost of implementing them would be high.

geteilt von: https://lemmy.ml/post/27438770

The left is getting killed on the trans sports issue [^1] [^2]

Do you have any data backing this? And what analysis goes with the data?

Don't let me be misunderstood: Rights are not defined by majorities, otherwise you could have a white majority voting on the humanity of black people, and wolves voting on the right of sheep not to be eaten.

On the other hand, the public's views are heavily conditioned by misanthropic, anti-democratic propaganda, that shifts the window of acceptable discourse, and excludes people from a set of fundamental freedoms that cisgender people take for granted. As a consequence, the ubiquitous genocidal discourse against trans lives, if left unchecked leads (and this is by now not a prediction but a historical fact) to erosion of rights of women, blacks, indigenous, disabled, and every other citizen. Because these freedoms are not "special" to trans people, but are mere extension of legal scholarship and the rule of law. The ongoing American fascism is not an overreach of "legitimate concerns" but it is profoundly, structurally embedded in challenging the legitimacy of trans people. This is why TERFism was initially deemed "unworthy of respect" by British courts: because it goes against TONS of legal precedent.

Long story short, in the times of "Der Stürmer" you could have said that the majority of German did not think Jews should be married to Germans. So what? So much for the argument that we should sacrifice human rights of ANY group because they are unpopular.

ALL protections exist so that UNPOPULAR groups enjoy the rights that the majorities take for granted. Outside that logic there is only fascism.

It is much like segregation (which, surprise, is coming back again) and apartheid: The Feelings of uneasy white people sharing bathrooms and sports with black people, are of no importance whatsoever, because, simply, segregation is dehumanizing and unjust.

By extension, what you suggest is morally corrupt and inhumane, and it is deeply fascist in its very conception.

Now, we are arriving at the data. Bear with me.

You people hand-wave a fucking lot when you suggest that trans rights are so unpopular that they have lost you elections, when there have been multiple arguments that Democrats barely touched on the topic, apart from being loosely against killing trans people in pogroms and LUKEWARM at that. So your argument amounts to little more than "Fascist discourse is more trendy so let's do that instead", which is not JUST the Ratchet effect: it is "being complicit to actual genocide".

So you HAND-WAVE about an IMAGINARY regular person (who is that fucking nazi?) to whom we must bow under all circumstances? Fuck that populist tactics, and fucking educate people.

But does this IMAGINARY nazi-enabling regular Joe even exist?

And what studies you cite for him not being able to revise being a shit person

Views differ even more widely along party lines. For example, eight-in-ten Democrats say they favor laws or policies that would protect trans individuals from discrimination, compared with 48% of Republicans. Conversely, by margins of about 40 percentage points or more, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to express support for laws or policies that would do each of the following: require trans athletes to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth (85% of Republicans vs. 37% of Democrats favor); make it illegal for health care professionals to provide someone younger than 18 with medical care for a gender transition (72% vs. 26%); make it illegal for public school districts to teach about gender identity in elementary schools (69% vs. 18%); require transgender individuals to use public bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth (67% vs. 20%); and investigate parents for child abuse if they help someone younger than 18 get medical care for a gender transition (59% vs. 17%).

Which is from Pew which others like you like to point to as a general "trans rights unpopular with our voter base", but if you actually read you will see that you can even find a small percentage of Republicans that are not vehemently against trans rights. And let's not forget that the percentage of Democrats against trans rights would be very much different if Democrat's media outlets weren't fucking complicit in amplifying genocidal "gender critical" misanthropy, and there weren't a score of fucking "leftist" intellectuals adopting their talk points, when there was ZERO voice given to the marginalized trans scholarship. So, this consent you talk to is manufactured by complicit Democrats to start with.

You would not make this argument unless you wanted to appeal to the Republican voter base, but doing so only shows that it is voter trends that guide your politics and not principles, and in fact, you are willing to enable crimes against humanity to appeal to a fascist voter base. This is unscrupulous and misanthropic.

Instead of succumbing to extremely well-funded racist and nazi propaganda, a principled political advocate with such means and resources as the Democrats could help alleviate what is a systematic attack to decent society and inclusive democracy. Therefore, your advocacy ultimately paints the Democrats as a manufactured opposition, and essentially a fascist party, once it does not stand for human rights, as it never were.

Centrists should be actively considered agitator agents for fascism at this point. Like, have you clowns even considered that your voter base might want you to grow a fucking spine and stand up for human rights, with trans rights front and center? Because I only see your democratic voter base being alienated by your flirt with fascism.

[^1]: In the original response, this "Trigger Warning" was prepended Trigger Warning: Get a pack of Kleenex and load your favorite Daily Wire playlists to have handy, because this is not going to be a light read for a self-proclaimed intelligent centrist.

[^2]: The discussion in question: https://lemmy.ml/post/27381625 , and the comment in question: https://lemmy.ml/post/27381625/17379633

tw: transphobia

omg, she’s actually so rude. i probably won’t talk to her again and haven’t for a while. she (16f) doesn’t like me for some reason (18ftm) and has actually created alt accounts impersonating my/her friends

::: spoiler tw: slurs, mentions of sa, false accusation

i’m certain these are alts of hers, clare says she doesn’t even have a snapchat acc. i blocked emma but it still makes me mad. and what does she mean im not a real man?? :/

• 🐈‍⬛[system alter], (he/him)

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/26403120

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/26403018

You do not have to be Jewish to apply.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/22882552

I'm 30, transfem, and to be quite honest, I feel my will to live slowly slipping away. I'm trying to find the willpower to finish my PhD thesis and to get into a better living situation after that, but I find myself frozen and wanting to curl up into a tiny ball of nothingness instead. And there are LOTS of reasons for that, mostly centered around trauma, guilt, and shame.

I don't think I can fit everything I need to say in a succinct post, so if it isn't against the rules, would any of you fellow girlies be willing to shoot me a DM and give some advice? I don't think I can really explain without having a back-and-forth conversation... thanks in advance. 🏳️‍⚧️💜