cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/12157444

I will be in Aragon.

I'll be there in likely two months from now.

Any DIY stuff or services in Spain, in particular Aragon or Zaragoza?

thanks

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/59456

Photo by Pete Alexopoulos on Unsplash

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Last month, the Texas Republican Party held its biennial convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, where over 4,000 delegates assembled to elect new leadership, adopt an official platform, and set legislative priorities for the upcoming legislative session. Delegates overwhelmingly elected D'Rinda Randall as the new state party chair, carrying 25 of 31 Senate District caucuses in what political scientists described as a further rightward shift driven by the MAGA wing's primary victories. The platform attracted national attention, but one section of it went unnoticed: a set of anti-trans provisions that, if enacted, would be among the most draconian in the country—including a ban on all gender-affirming care up to the age of 26 that extends to legal name changes, an absolute prohibition on transgender people working or volunteering in public schools, and a ban on private businesses expressing any support for transgender people.

"Gender Identity Ideology in Schools: The official position of the Texas schools shall be that there are only two genders: biological male and biological female, which are immutable and cannot be changed. We support the total prohibition of so-called social transitioning. We oppose transgender normalizing curriculum, library materials, and pronoun use. We support the prohibition of transgender individuals from serving in any school district positions, including in volunteer roles, and mandate the exclusive use of pronouns corresponding to a person's biological sex at birth.”

Plank 116 of the platform goes on to call for banning any curriculum, library materials, or extracurricular offering that "adopts, supports, or promotes gender fluidity or transgender ideology" and prohibiting school staff from "engaging in sexualized drag activities, crossdressing, or transgenderism."

The platform also calls for the criminal prosecution of parents of transgender youth under child abuse statutes—something Governor Abbott has already attempted, directing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families of trans children in 2022. Plank 150 states: "Any agency, individual, or other entity promoting, performing, or facilitating gender-transitioning or gender-modification of a minor child shall be criminally prosecuted for child abuse and exposed to civil actions, enjoying no immunity regardless of profession, relation, or standing." Importantly, the platform does not stop at minors. Plank 149 extends its prohibitions to legal adults as old as 25, banning all gender-affirming "medical or mental health intervention for persons between the ages of 18 and 26," including not just surgery, puberty blockers, and hormones, but even "assigning name and/or pronoun changes.”

See the section of the platform here:

The platform also targets the private sector. Under the heading "Religious Freedom for Business," Plank 203 calls for removing laws that "force business owners and employees to violate their conscience, sincerely held beliefs, or core values"—providing legal cover for businesses to discriminate against transgender people. But for businesses that want to be supportive, the platform offers no such freedom. Plank 203(c) goes further than any state party platform in the country, calling for an outright ban on businesses expressing support for transgender people:

Lastly, the platform does not just target transgender people—it targets LGBTQ+ people broadly. Its section on homosexuality opens with a declaration that would not be out of place in the 1950s: "Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice." Plank 152 endorses conversion therapy for people of "any age with identity disorder or unwanted same-sex attraction"—a practice condemned by every major medical organization in the country. Plank 208 declares the party is "opposed to same-sex parenting, intentionally subjecting a child to the loss of their biological father or mother, and other non-traditional definitions of family." And Plank 211 calls for nullifying Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, stating it "has no basis in the Constitution." Taken together, the platform reads as a blueprint for rolling back not just transgender rights but decades of LGBTQ+ civil rights progress.

“I think the most concerning part is that the Texas GOP wants to cut off mental health support for trans people between the ages of 18 and 26. Because of AG Ken Paxton’s aggressive weaponization of the law, Texas is already the only state that bars that kind of mental health care from trans minors in direct violation of the Supreme Court’s recent conversion therapy ruling. Having been personally affected by the prohibition a couple years ago, it gives me chills to think of what will happen if the ban is extended even further,” says trans journalist Aleksandra Vaca, a resident of the state, in a quote provided to Erin In The Morning.

Many of these provisions are not new. The 2024 Texas GOP platform already declared homosexuality "an abnormal lifestyle choice” and already called for criminalizing anyone who facilitates youth transition. However, it is clear that the policy platforms are escalating in the Texas Republican Party. And the party has a track record of turning its platform into law—SB 14 banned youth care in 2023 and SB 8 restricted bathrooms in 2025. Transgender people in Texas, meanwhile, have to sit and wait to see which draconian policy from the platform gets implemented in 2027 due to a party that seeks to make the conditions of life impossible for transgender people.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8802567

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/57846

Ted Eytan // Flickr

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Between the 1940s and 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations targeted Americans for their beliefs, their associations, and their speech. The mechanism was not primarily criminal prosecution—it was investigation, subpoena, and the threat of institutional destruction. Its goal was compliance through fear. That fire burned through Hollywood, through the federal government, and through universities, before finally being recognized for what it is today: one of the most extreme government overreaches in American history, wielding extraordinary powers to persecute a disfavored group. Now, the federal government is engaged in a structurally identical campaign—but this time, it is waged against transgender people and the institutions that serve them, targeting hospitals with subpoenas, threatening organizations and nonprofits with funding cuts, and hauling medical societies before kangaroo courts in an attempt to beat them into submission. And with a lawsuit filed yesterday against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in a transparently forum-shopped court in Texas, the administration has turned toward its most prized target of all: the central organization that advocates for trans healthcare worldwide.

The lawsuit, brought by the FTC and the attorneys general of Texas, Alaska, Iowa, and Nebraska, alleges that WPATH has violated the FTC Act by engaging in "deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce"—weaponizing federal consumer protection law, statutes designed to go after companies selling snake oil and fake cancer cures. The complaint alleges that WPATH "provided the means for medical providers to make false and unsubstantiated claims to parents in order to sell pediatric medical transition services," and that this makes them a target under consumer protection laws. This is despite the fact that WPATH sells nothing—it is a nonprofit medical advocacy organization that publishes guidelines based on its assessment of the available science, advocating for a transgender patient population that governments and medical institutions had historically forsaken. Its advocacy has led to expanded insurance coverage for transgender healthcare, recognition by every major American medical organization that gender-affirming care is legitimate medicine, and an infrastructure of clinical standards that thousands of providers rely on. For this—for succeeding in its mission—the government has deployed an unprecedented legal theory to destroy it.

Or, mostly unprecedented. During the Red Scare, the federal government targeted organizations and individuals not for crimes but for their published views. In 1949, Owen Lattimore, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, was accused by McCarthy of being "the top Russian espionage agent.” The evidence was Lattimore's published academic writings on China policy, which McCarthy deemed too sympathetic to communism. Lattimore was indicted over testimony about his scholarly work—charges that were eventually dismissed, but not before his reputation was destroyed and he was placed on leave. The government simultaneously maintained a Hollywood blacklist that affected more than 300 people in the entertainment industry—actors, screenwriters, directors—none of whom were convicted of crimes. The government weaponized its investigatory powers specifically to make it impossible for anyone in a position of institutional influence to associate with, employ, or support people whose views ran counter to the government's preferred ideology. This is exactly the architecture we are seeing deployed against transgender healthcare today: the government is threatening any organization that opposes its stance on transgender people, the blacklist is developing in real time, and anyone who pushes back is investigated.

So, too, is there a parallel in the choice of tribunal. During the Red Scare, McCarthy chose the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations because it gave him maximum control—everyone on the committee was sympathetic to his crusade. The FTC's forum shopping follows the same logic. The government first targeted WPATH with subpoenas in Washington, D.C.—the natural venue for an action by a federal agency headquartered there. When that failed, when Judge Boasberg found "extensive evidence of animus and wafer-thin justifications" behind the investigation, the government did not accept its loss. Instead, it ran to the Northern District of Texas—where Trump-appointed Judge Mark Pittman and George W. Bush appointee Reed O'Connor handle virtually every civil case, and where the administration has already centralized its legal campaign against gender-affirming care. The venue justification? WPATH was originally incorporated in Texas in 1980, even though it actually operates out of Illinois and its principal place of business is in East Dundee, outside Chicago. A 46-year-old incorporation filing is the thread on which the government hangs its choice to bypass the D.C. court that already ruled against it and bring its case before a judge it knows will be sympathetic.

Not that this justification even matters, because the government is weaponizing the same forum-shopping playbook against hospitals across the country. The DOJ has been issuing criminal grand jury subpoenas to hospitals demanding lists of doctors and trans youth. When the government attempted to enforce similar subpoenas in the states where the hospitals actually operate, it lost virtually every time. So what was the tactic they used afterwards? The DOJ “based its investigation” in the Northern District of Texas—convening a grand jury there to subpoena hospitals in New York, Rhode Island, and elsewhere—specifically to land before Judge Reed O'Connor, another reliable conservative appointee. Even a federal judge acknowledged from the bench that "it's pretty clear to me that this was shopped to Texas." Harvard Law's Alejandra Caraballo called it "a blatant unlawful effort by the DOJ to intimidate providers of gender affirming care to trans youth by engaging in judge and forum shopping." The rationale is extraordinary: if you base an investigator in Texas, you can use a Texas grand jury to demand the private medical records of children treated at a hospital in Manhattan. The government lost in the courts that play fair. So it found one that wouldn't.

This campaign extends far beyond medical organizations and doctors, but into all organizations for any perceived political or social support of transgender people people. During McCarthyism, the government did not just investigate suspected communists—it demanded that institutions purge any association with disfavored views. Federal employees were screened for loyalty. Teachers were forced to sign oaths. Libraries were pressured to remove books. The goal was not just to punish the accused but to make the ideology itself unspeakable in public life. The Trump administration is executing the same strategy against transgender people.

The administration’s latest proposed federal rule would evaluate every federal grant recipient in America—not the grants themselves, but the recipients—for promotion of "gender ideology," defined as any acknowledgment that gender identity differs from sex assigned at birth. It has already forced the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to erase all references to transgender people from its materials and ordered it to deadname transgender children in its missing persons reports. It pressured RAINN, the nation's largest anti-sexual-violence organization, into removing all support for LGBTQ+ survivors. It has scrubbed federal websites of scientific studies on transgender health, removed data on transgender populations, and erased the word "transgender" from the Stonewall National Monument—the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Republican-controlled states have in some cases barred transgender teachers from classrooms. During the Red Scare, the Attorney General maintained a list of "subversive organizations." Today, the federal government is building something just as powerful: a regulatory infrastructure that treats the mere acknowledgment of transgender people as grounds for institutional punishment.

This chapter in American history will be remembered alongside the darkest abuses of government power against disfavored groups. What is happening now to transgender people is structurally identical to those prior abuses. The administration has rejected every check on its power: when courts rule against it, it moves to friendlier courts. When medical organizations push back, it investigates them too. WPATH is its latest target. But this will not stop with WPATH. It will continue until transgender people have nowhere left to turn for care, for recognition, or for the basic dignity of being acknowledged as human beings—unless, as in every previous era of persecution, enough people recognize what is happening and say “enough.”

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I am not trans, but, time after time, I always seem to really get along with anyone that isn't heterosexual. I'm a man, who is attracted to women, but I seem to really share many things in common with such people, like a recent co-worker.

I like open source, I like poetry, I love anime, films, many different music genres, drama and art, philosophy, the beauty of the universe, etc . . . . . . . that are all things I struggle to find in common with most other hetero folks.

I just wanted to know if, well, this is relatable to anyone, like, does anyone have non-trans friends that they get along with much more that the average person, or is this strange?

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8725363

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/55604

Photo Credit Corey Saunders

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New York City has been ground zero in the fight over Trump's campaign to scare hospitals into dropping gender-affirming care for trans youth. When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, he promised to fight back—showing up to protests outside NYU Langone, pledging $65 million for gender-affirming care, and vowing to use every lever of city power to protect trans New Yorkers from federal intimidation. Since taking office, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled: no enforcement action against the hospitals that shuttered their programs, no fines from the Commission on Human Rights despite complaints open for over a year, and no public accounting of the promised funding. So when Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin announced Friday that the city would open its first-ever direct-care clinic for transgender people, it seemed like the administration was finally delivering. It isn't. This morning, Erin in the Morning can confirm that Mayor Mamdani's new clinic will deny care to anyone under 19 years of age—adopting the exact age cutoff from Trump's anti-trans executive orders.

"Transgender, gender-nonconfirming, and nonbinary New Yorkers deserve age-appropriate health care that is affirming, respectful, and considerate of all their needs. That’s why, for the first time later this summer, the NYC Health Department will be expanding services to provide gender affirming hormone therapy to adults 19 years of age and older at our Corona Sexual Health Clinic. As with the other clinic services, gender-affirming hormone therapy will be offered at no to low cost and regardless of immigration status. We look forward sharing more details upon launching the pilot,” said a NYC health Spokesperson in a statement to Erin In The Morning.

The confirmation comes after a city council budget hearing on Friday, where the exchange that first surfaced the clinic also revealed the administration’s reasoning. Councilmember Tiffany Cabán asked Commissioner Alister Martin—the city’s top public health official, appointed by Mamdani in January—whether the city would be expanding gender-affirming care. Martin announced the direct-care clinic, calling it “one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step.” But when Cabán pushed back, pointing out that trans youth are the ones most under attack right now—noting that there are “almost no providers” left for youth the entire city—Martin indicated the clinic would not serve youth, citing the need to “strike a balance” between providing care and avoiding “clawbacks from the federal government.” This morning, EITM can directly confirm that the age cutoff is 19—matching the Trump administration’s executive order threshold, not the standard legal age of adulthood in New York. See the exchange:

Commissioner Alister Martin: “It’s incredibly important that we get the messaging right here and that we lean in on the comms and the campaign here, but it’s also important to deliver for people and to provide the services they need. And we’re excited to say that pretty soon we’re going to be able to offer gender-affirming care directly at our clinics. We have a clinic that will be opening up in Corona which will offer gender-affirming hormone therapy for adults. It’s like one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step, and we’re proud to not just stop there. We’ll continue moving forward with this.”

Councilmember Tiffany Cabán: “Can I ask a follow-up on that? Particularly because that’s a really big deal, but also—we’re seeing this devastating decrease in services for youth, and especially youth under 13, 12—like, there are almost no providers who provide that care. And the one or two that do is obviously under attack from the federal government. So is there going to—are you thinking about an expansion in that youth care? Because I’m talking to parents all the time and they don’t know where to take their children.”

Commissioner Martin: “As you can appreciate, the balance that we have to strike is—we are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth, as well as making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give. And so there’s much more to come on this, trying to sort of figure out that right balance. We’re eager to work with you on this, but rest assured we are working on this and we’re trying to figure out how to do this.”

The news comes amid mounting questions about Mamdani’s commitment to the promises that helped elect him. During his campaign, Mamdani held a Trans Community Town Hall where pledged to invest $65 million in gender-affirming care. That pledge involved “public hospitals and community clinics,” indicating to many that he could begin opening direct care clinics for youth being forced out of hospitals. His platform also explicitly pledged to hold the hospitals that deny transgender youth care accountable for their capitulation to Trump and to “use every single tool” to stop them from complying with Trump’s illegal executive orders.

Those pledges have largely evaporated. Journalist Aviva Stahl reported for Prism in March that the $65 million was nowhere in the city’s preliminary budget, and as of June, advocates who reviewed the executive budget say the money is still not there. The Commission on Human Rights complaints against NYU Langone and Mount Sinai have sat open for over a year with no enforcement action, and the agency has refused to comment on them in response to questions by Erin In The Morning. And now, Mamdani’s own health commissioner is using the very same rationale NYU Langone and Mount Sinai used to deny trans youth care—fear of federal retaliation.

It is a far cry from when Mamdani stood at a rally outside NYU Langone in March 2025 and declared: “We have seen NYU Langone comply with illegal executive orders out of a fear of their so-called biggest donors. Let us remind them that the city is also one of their biggest donors. Let us remind them that they do not pay a dollar in property tax, [and that] we are a city that is ready to use every single tool to assure compliance with city and state human rights laws.”

Mamdani is not powerless here. He has significant leverage over Health + Hospitals—the largest public municipal healthcare system in the country, with 11 hospitals, more than 70 clinics, and eight existing Pride Health Centers. He controls the board. He can demand H+H absorb displaced trans youth patients tomorrow, with significant power behind those demands. He has the Commission on Human Rights, which can levy fines of up to $250,000 per violation against hospitals that deny care in violation of city law—complaints against NYU Langone and Mount Sinai have been open for over a year with no action. He has a campaign pledge to coordinate with AG James, who has already told NYU Langone that no federal law requires them to stop. He also promised $65 million to this community. The tools are there. The legal authority is there. The money was promised. What is apparently missing is the will to use any of it for the kids who are the most under attack.

It is important to note that in a recent appearance on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, a parent of a trans child asked Mamdani directly what his administration is doing for her kid. Mamdani cited a $15 million investment in gender-affirming care over two years. But there are virtually no public details on what the $15 million funds, which agency controls it, which patients it serves, or when it will go into effect. And two days after that interview, Commissioner Martin announced a new clinic that would be adults only, using Trump's executive order age cutoff of 19, and told the city council that the city was afraid of federal "clawbacks"—raising the question of what, exactly, the $15 million "unlocks" for trans youth if the administration's own policy for a new clinic is to avoid serving them. EITM has reached out to multiple NYC agencies and press contacts for the mayor's office and has received no response on whether the adults-only clinic is intended to be part of the $15 million pledge—which is also, notably, a fraction of the $65 million Mamdani campaigned on, and which, as of today, does not serve youth.

Opening a city-run gender-affirming care clinic is, on its own, a meaningful step. But when the clinic adopts the Trump administration's age cutoff, when the health commissioner cites the same federal fears as the private hospitals the mayor protested against, and when the promised $65 million remains unaccounted for while trans kids in the largest city in America are told there is almost nowhere left for them to go, the step is as likely to be seen as a betrayal as it is a meaningful advancement of his promises.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8563700

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51268

Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT

PORTLAND, Ore. – Around 300 high school students dressed in gowns, costumes and elaborate makeup danced until their feet hurt to music from DJ Aspen blaring through the speakers, their smiles and laughter filling the air at this year’s annual Queer Prom.

The Native American Youth and Family Center’s Two-Spirit program has hosted the event for four years since taking a hiatus during the pandemic.

“My ultimate goal with this is creating a space for queer youth, especially Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQ+ youth, to be unabashedly themselves, to truly not have to worry about the way that they’re being perceived, but just be able to celebrate themselves, celebrate each other, and to showcase the fact that we’ve always been here — Indigenous, trans, queer, we’ve always been here. We’re not going anywhere,” said Kiara Wehrenberg, Tlingit and the Two-Spirit program coordinator at the center. Wehrenberg coordinates Queer Prom.

As prom season is well underway, Queer Prom is a space built for students from all backgrounds to have a space centering joy, in Portland.

“Queer Prom is so unique and so special,” said this year’s emcee, Dr. Poison Waters, an iconic Portland drag queen. “There are people in this country that wish they could come to a Queer Prom.”

Planning Queer Prom

Wehrenberg worked with youth from the center’s Two-Spirit program to find a theme and organize a prom built for them. The group made pamphlets for a swag table during the May 15 event, that offered a resource guide, information about the term Two Spirit and a list of Two-Spirit powwows across the country

This year’s prom theme was “Superheroes vs. Villains Edition” and students showed out in all kinds of costumes. From Captain America and the Joker to fantasy inspired looks include elf ears and elaborate makeup. The theme extended beyond dress as projected graphics all around the room feature comic book inspired illustrations.

Food, catered by Brittinie Love and her company Cooking with B. Love, took the superheroes versus villains theme to the next level. The menu featured items such as “Gotham Fire Beef Skewers” and “The Green Goblin Spring Rolls” with mocktails like “Radiant Recharge” and “Arctic Blast.”

Planning for Queer Prom began as soon as last year’s ended, according to Wehrenberg. This began with reaching out to vendors and event venues, such as AVENUE Portland, where this year’s prom took place.

“I think Queer Prom is just a beautiful place for connection,” said Marvin Colbow, whose drag name is Marvin Killboy, a senior at Benson Polytechnic High School. “I just went to my own prom, and I did not feel the same amount of connectivity that I feel here with my fellow transgender and queer people.”

Wehrenberg reached out to Queer-Straight Alliances and Indigenous Student Unions across Portland and beyond to open up the event to youth across the city, beyond youth at the center’s Many Nations Academy.

“Queer specific spaces are necessary across the board,” said Ellen Whatmore, a teacher at Franklin High School and the school’s co-advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance. “Having an opportunity to shine and be in the spotlight and be celebrated is unparalleled.”

Whatmore attended Queer Prom dressed in a Medusa-inspired look, as an event volunteer and also helped advertise the event to Franklin students after receiving an email invitation from Wehrenberg.

Guest Appearances

A few hours into the dance, students were interrupted from tearing up the dance floor when Dr. Poison Waters invited two other drag performers from Darcelle’s XV out onto the dance floor.

Dressed in a big, blonde wig with hot pink heeled boots and a matching hot pink ruffled robe, T’Kara Campbell Star made her way onto the dance floor. As “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus filled the speakers, she shed her robe to reveal a bright green body suit and matching sun hat decked out in fake flowers. Her performance was met with cheers as students formed a half circle around her. At the end of three songs, T’Kara Campbell Star invited a student dressed as Maleficent to the center of the floor to dance with her.

Following her performance, Ilani E. Nova made her way onto the dance floor, decked out with a black feather boa, thigh high leather boots and a black and tan body suit. She danced with the students, lip syncing to a compilation of Abba classics.

And of course, Dr. Poison Waters herself also performed, moving from stage to the middle of the dance floor.

As the night wore on, the dance floor remained full as laughter and song sing-alongs drifted through the air, mixed with the beats spun by DJ Aspen.

“I just see so much queer joy in our youth and I’m so happy and honored to be a part of this,” said Mitch Saffle, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a chaperone at Queer Prom and a data and evaluation support specialist at the center. “I’m so grateful to see that a space like this exists for our youth. Not only our queer youth, but our Indigenous queer youth.”

Later on in the evening, Yin Glossier, Dior Glossier and Deity 007 from PDX Ballroom brought vogue to the dance floor as students sat in a circle around the three performers, completely engaged.

Following their own performance, Yin Glossier explained a bit about the ball scene which started in Harlem in the 1920s, expanding in the 1970s and 1980s, when Black and Brown drag queens were not allowed to be at White drag queen pageants.

“So, as Black and Brown people do, we make our own shit,” Yin Glossier said. “In that, we have the birth of ballroom.”

They then explained some of the main categories that “Houses” of the ball scene compete in: fashion, body, sex appeal, face, vogue.

Students were then invited to compete in ballroom style, lining up to compete for “best dressed.” A hard decision on the part of the judges, composed of performers from Darcelle’s XV and PDX Ballroom. Ultimately a student dressed in a Master Shake, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, costume took home the prize: a pair of rainbow beaded earrings donated by the center’s Two-Spirit program.

For Wehrenberg, Saffle, volunteers and students an event like Queer Prom is so crucial for the community.

“Being able to have a space like this is really important because it provides an opportunity for us to come together in community and celebrate queer joy,” Wehrenberg said.

Wehrenberg expressed that so often when Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ stories are told in the media, it is through a lens of oppression and tragedy.

“It is also really important to highlight and tell stories of resilience and love and joy, because we all deserve to be seen as we are here, queer, trans, Indigenous, proud, strong and fully human, because only telling the stories of oppression and tragedy, in a way, strips us of humanity because it doesn’t highlight or show any understanding of the fact that we have whole lives and joy and love surrounding us too,” Wehrenberg said.

This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.

The post Queer Prom: A space for queer youth to be ‘unabashedly themselves’ appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8536301

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50433

Colorado Supreme Court // Jeffrey Beall

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Today, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Children’s Hospital Colorado to resume gender-affirming care for transgender youth, ruling 5-2 that the hospital discriminated against transgender youth patients when it shuttered its care program earlier this year in capitulation to Trump. The decision reverses a district court that had ruled against forcing the hospital to return to care and directs that court to issue a preliminary injunction restoring care while the case proceeds. Children’s Hospital Colorado was one of roughly 40 hospitals across the country that capitulated to Trump administration threats and ended their trans youth care programs. In its ruling, the state’s highest court held that the hospital’s fears of federal retaliation could not override Colorado’s civil rights protections for transgender people.

The case began in December, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a declaration claiming that gender-affirming care for transgender youth was “neither safe nor effective” and warning that hospitals providing such care could be excluded from federal health care programs including Medicare and Medicaid. Children’s Hospital Colorado halted its program in January, and four transgender youth and their families sued under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. A Denver district court judge found that the families would likely prove they had been discriminated against and that their children faced irreparable harm, but denied them relief anyway, reasoning that forcing the hospital to resume care could provoke catastrophic federal retaliation. As we reported in April, the families appealed directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Kennedy declaration was blocked in court for several violations of law.

In Monday’s decision, the court rejected the hospital’s central defense: that it had not discriminated against transgender youth but had simply declined to offer one category of treatment. The justices found that distinction meaningless, noting that the hospital continued to provide the very same medications, puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to cisgender youth while denying them to transgender patients. “Even without analyzing the disparate treatment between transgender and cisgender youth, CHC’s policy to suspend providing medical gender-affirming care explicitly discriminates against patients because of their gender identity,” the court wrote. “Gender-affirming care is inextricably intertwined with gender identity,” ruling that ceasing providing care was discrimination against transgender people and therefore illegal under state law.

The majority was equally direct in rejecting the hospital’s argument that it had merely been following the Kennedy Declaration. “Although CHC acted reluctantly and expressed no animus toward transgender patients, the action it chose to take in response to the Kennedy Declaration specifically targeted transgender youth patients,” the court wrote. “The Kennedy Declaration may have influenced CHC’s decision, but it doesn’t absolve CHC of responsibility.”

The most consequential portion of the ruling addressed whether federal threats could be allowed to override state civil rights law. The district court had reasoned that ordering the hospital to resume care would compel it to violate federal law. The Colorado Supreme Court flatly rejected that framing. “The trial court’s concern about opposing the public interest by ordering CHC to ‘violat[e] . . . federal law’ is also misplaced,” the court wrote. “Why? Because the Kennedy Declaration isn’t federal law.” The justices also refused to weigh the harm to transgender youth against the broader hospital population in raw numerical terms, a comparison the district court had used to side with the hospital. “We conclude that a Trinidad-style strict numerical comparison of affected individuals isn’t appropriate when the individuals seeking injunctive relief are part of a protected class and seeking an injunction because of discrimination based on that protected class,” the majority wrote. “Were it otherwise, minority groups would always lose. But that is not the law. On the contrary, that’s precisely why we have protected classes.”

The court found that the actual harm to transgender youth far outweighed the hospital’s speculative fears, describing in stark terms what the loss of care had done to the plaintiffs. “Petitioners and other transgender youth who sought such care from CHC were suddenly abandoned during a precarious time,” the court wrote, noting that the children had “experienced depression, and in at least two instances, suicidal ideation.” The justices detailed the case of one plaintiff, Danielle Doe, whose family had moved from Texas to Colorado for its protections for transgender people. “After learning that CHC could no longer provide her care, Danielle was hospitalized at CHC for a depressive episode,” the ruling states. “She wrote her mother a letter that expressed suicidal ideation, stating, ‘If I don’t see you again, I love you.’” By contrast, the court found the hospital’s feared exclusion from federal programs “speculative,” noting that no exclusion could occur without notice, hearings, and opportunities for judicial review, and that a federal court in Oregon had since declared the Kennedy Declaration unlawful and barred HHS from enforcing it.

Two justices dissented. Justice Brian Boatright, joined by Justice Carlos Samour, argued that the hospital had acted not because of its patients’ gender identity but because it faced “the risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, which would threaten the viability of its entire hospital system.” The majority was unpersuaded, holding that a “reluctant” act of discrimination compelled by a “third party” remains discrimination under Colorado law. With the decision, Children’s Hospital Colorado joins a growing number of hospitals, including Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego and Children’s Minnesota, that have moved to restore gender-affirming care after initially halting it under federal pressure. The ruling also answers the question many public officials have been grappling with in terms of state anti-discrimination law: whether vague federal threats, unaccompanied by any law or court order, are enough to nullify a state’s civil rights protections. The Colorado Supreme Court’s answer was firmly: no.

A full copy of the ruling can be found here:

2026 05 18 Opinion

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8537717

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50351

John M. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Colorado–

Lurking in the deepest bowels of Colorado, a coalition calling itself Protect Kids Colorado has mobilized to push three ballot initiatives onto the Nov. 2026 ballot, each draped in the rhetoric of child protection but rooted in the reactionary impulses of the ruling class. This campaign exemplifies a deeper contradiction within capitalist society: the selective outrage of Christian nationalist factions who proclaim to safeguard “girls in sports” from transgender participation, framing it as a defense of biological purity and fairness. Yet, this same moral fervor evaporates when confronting the systemic exploitation embedded in the capitalist order.

Led by anti-LGBTQ+ “activist” Erin Lee, the group submitted over 165,000 signatures for Initiative 110, which seeks to ban surgeries on minors aimed at altering biological sex characteristics, and to prohibit public funding for gender-affirming care. More than 170,000 signatures backed Initiative 109, mandating that schools and athletic associations define sports teams by physical anatomy at birth, effectively barring transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. A similar number supported Initiative 108, which would ramp up penalties for human trafficking of minors.

These measures, if passed, would not only restrict transgender youth from essential healthcare and fair participation but would also enforce rigid, state-sanctioned definitions of gender that serve to police bodies in service to outdated hierarchies.

Similar initiatives are proliferating across the U.S., with over 700 anti-trans bills tracked in 41 states for 2026, including bans on sports participation, healthcare, and bathroom access, highlighting a coordinated assault by bourgeois interests to divide the working class. In Missouri, ballot measures seek to enshrine bans on gender-affirming care for minors alongside abortion restrictions, using trans youth as pawns to simultaneously undermine reproductive freedoms.

Efforts in Washington, Maine, and Nevada also aim to put trans sports bans directly to voters, reflecting the ruling class’ strategy to legitimize discrimination through electoral theater, to the symphony of inflammatory, unscientific, and sensationalist disinformation campaigns via the media.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a leading Christian Nationalist, stands with her fans from Moms for Liberty-Wisconsin in front of the Capitol. (Moms For Liberty-Wisconsin)

These groups, often aligned with MAGA ideology, rally against transgender girls as existential threats while turning a blind eye—or worse, offering defenses—for capitalist pedophiles whose crimes are shielded by wealth and power. Consider the parade of high-profile figures in bourgeois circles, from financiers like Jeffrey Epstein to political elites entangled in abuse scandals, where accusations of child exploitation are dismissed as “fake news” or reframed as consensual indiscretions. The ruling class’ apparatus, including media conglomerates and legal systems, routinely minimizes these atrocities, allowing predators to evade accountability through settlements, NDAs, and influence peddling.

Capitalism thrives on the commodification of bodies, particularly those of the vulnerable, turning human trafficking and exploitation into profitable industries that bolster the accumulation of capital for the few. The hypocrisy is stark: Republicans accused of shielding pedophiles in the Epstein case, with Democrats charging that GOP refusal to release files protects the elite, while MAGA figures like Trump have been linked to Epstein yet face no reckoning from their base. Right-wing conspiracies like QAnon obsess over fictional pedophile rings among liberals, diverting attention from real abuses by their own, such as Capitol rioters convicted of child abuse who heckled police for “protecting pedophiles.”

Christian nationalists, who denounce transgender rights as anti-biblical, conveniently ignore their own defenses of abusers, exposing the selective application of “morality” to maintain patriarchal control. The hypocrisy intensifies when examining the so-called “pro-life” stance of these reactionaries.

While they decry abortion as murder and push for draconian bans that strip women and girls of bodily autonomy, their policies accelerate the immiseration of the working class. MAGA forces, under the banner of family values, have systematically dismantled reproductive rights, gutted social safety nets, and opposed measures like paid family leave or affordable childcare, ensuring that forced births trap women in cycles of poverty and dependence.

This isn’t about life, it’s about control. In a system where labor power is extracted for profit, women’s rights are subordinated to the needs of capital reproduction. The bourgeois state enforces this through legislation that prioritizes fetal personhood over living workers, all while corporate overlords reap the benefits of a desperate, underpaid workforce. The proclaimed sanctity of life clashes with the reality of capitalist death—through wars, environmental devastation, and healthcare denial—that claims millions annually.

The post-Roe era has deepened inequities, with abortion bans costing the U.S. economy $173 billion annually, lowering women’s earnings, education, and health outcomes, particularly for Black women and the poor, while increasing poverty and single parenthood. Overruling Roe has not been “pro-life” but a continuation of government control over women’s bodies, eroding their autonomy and futures. Pro-life rhetoric, including claims of “feminism,” masks this assault, portraying restrictions as protective while dishonoring women’s dignity and rights.

Compounding this is the complicity of the Democratic Party, which postures as a progressive counterweight but capitulates at every turn. Facing an electorate manipulated by misinformation and economic anxiety, Democrats have increasingly thrown the transgender community under the bus, offering tepid defenses or outright concessions to gain votes from a misinformed public. Rather than mounting a robust pushback against these anti-trans measures, they prioritize electoral pragmatism, echoing centrist appeals that dilute class struggle into identity politics.

This betrayal stems from their role as the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie, managing capitalism’s crises without challenging its foundations. By allowing reactionary narratives to dominate, framing transgender rights as a wedge issue, they divert attention from the real antagonists: the exploiters who profit from division. The working masses, fragmented along lines of gender, race, and sexuality, are pitted against one another, obscuring the class antagonism that unites them against the owners of production.

Post-2024 election losses, Democrats have openly blamed their support for trans rights, with figures like Reps. Seth Moulton and Tom Suozzi arguing the party went “too far left,” splintering over issues like sports bans and DEI, and retreating from defending trans people in order to avoid offending moderates. This “reshuffling” cedes ground to the far right, prioritizing the hunt for votes over solidarity, and failing to achieve either. Kamala Harris, the candidate who, as an Attorney General in California, pursued transphobic interpretations of criminal justice, and who downplayed the importance of protecting transgender rights in the 2024 election cycle, did not go “too far left” but abandoned the laboring and popular masses of America who have long struggled for change and progress.

At its core, these phenomena reflect the material base of capitalism shaping its ideological superstructure. Christian nationalism, with its patriarchal and nationalist trappings, functions as a tool to maintain social cohesion amid economic decay. By scapegoating transgender individuals, it channels working-class frustrations—born of wage stagnation, housing crises, and job insecurity—away from the capitalist culprits and toward marginalized groups. Initiative 108’s focus on human trafficking penalties, for instance, appears noble but serves as a smokescreen, ignoring how capitalism’s global supply chains and austerity policies fuel trafficking networks. True protection for children and women demands dismantling the profit motive that breeds exploitation, not performative bans that reinforce bourgeois morality.

The path forward lies in recognizing these contradictions and building solidarity among the oppressed. Workers, regardless of gender, sex, or sexual orientation, must unite to expose how such campaigns perpetuate ruling-class dominance, divide us via chauvinistic and sensationalist spectacles, and inspire nothing but dismay and demoralization amongst the organized working class. Only through collective action—striking at the heart of private property and imperial control—can we forge a society where rights are not commodities but universal realities. In Colorado and beyond, the fight against these initiatives is about much more than transgender inclusion: it’s a front in the broader war against capitalist hypocrisy.

From The Red Phoenix via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8500566

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/49641

NYU Langone Health Site

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Earlier this week, Erin in the Morning reported that the Texas Northern District Court issued criminal subpoenas to multiple hospitals, demanding “information” on every minor to whom they provided gender-affirming care to since 2020. NYU Langone, located in and around New York City, has been the first and only institution to publicly disclose the receipt of such a subpoena thus far. On Wednesday, Langone released the subpoena full.

We have published the subpoena at the bottom of this article. Here’s what it says and what it means for Langone patients and families.

Langone sent a message via their patient portal Monday night that it was told to hand over the names of “providers and others who were involved in offering such care at NYULH in that timeframe.”

It also said the Department of Justice wanted “information” on trans patients that it served, but it did not elaborate further on what that means. The message from Langone said it “was one of several institutions” that received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas.

While around two dozen institutions received subpoenas during ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s reign at the DOJ, these grand jury subpoenas are an escalation. Those issued by Bondi were civil in nature; these entail a criminal investigation, which introduces the prospect of jail time as both a punishment if someone is convicted of a crime and as a potential enforcement mechanism for the subpoena.

This newest revelation also shines a light on the increasingly common tactics of the Trump playbook: They cast a wide net and hope at least part of it will hold up in court.

Langone is located about 2,000 miles northeast of the Northern District of Texas, which is widely considered to be among the most conservative districts in the country. The choice to hold proceedings there was characterized by some experts as an abuse of the judiciary system.

“This is a blatant unlawful effort by the DOJ to intimidate providers of gender-affirming care to trans youth by engaging in judge and forum shopping,” Alejandra Caraballo, a Harvard Law instructor and trans legal scholar told Erin in the Morning, referring to the practice of bringing cases to districts that lawyers think will be most sympathetic to their cause.

Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones that the subpoena is “a blatant attempt to harass and intimidate medical providers based on this administration’s ideological opposition to transgender people.”

“This,” Minter concluded, “is mafia-type behavior.”

However, hospitals, patients, and state actors can try to fight back. New York has rigorous shield laws that protect gender-affirming care patients and providers from out-of-state prosecution. It creates significant barriers to overreaching subpoenas, court proceedings, and law enforcement. How this applies to a federal case post-Trump is an emerging area of law, with many questions yet to be answered.

Moreover, a case from the Northern District of Texas is a particularly dire escalation, both because it is among the most hostile courts in the country towards transgender people, and because grand jury subpoenas are far harder to challenge than the administrative subpoenas that courts have quashed before.

But as seen with institutions like Rhode Island Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, some hospitals are finding ways to resist Trumpian attacks on care. State actors and patients themselves have also gone to court to combat federal encroachments on care and potential hospital capitulation—such as with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Rady Children’s Hospital, both of which are in California.

For this newest case, here’s what we know so far.

1. **Doctors aren’t the only providers targeted by the subpoena.**The DOJ is requesting names of administrators, accountants, attorneys and even hospital volunteers involved in rendering gender-affirming care or billing for it through insurance.

Excerpts from the subpoena sent to NYU Langone.

2. **In addition to the names of providers, the DOJ wants the names and medical histories of every trans youth patient who received gender-affirming care from Langone since 2020. The DOJ also asserted that “de-identified information” is insufficient.**The request explicitly asks for patients’ names as well as any communications and “documents” relating to their care. This may include patient charts, medical and psychiatric notes, and detailed accounts of a patient’s medical history. It likely also includes sensitive information on patients’ families, such as addresses, and it directly asks for parental consent forms signed by caretakers.

3. **The Langone subpoena targets communications with and documents about pharmaceutical companies, drug manufacturers, and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH).**This isn’t surprising given the Trump Administration’s longheld assertion that “the gender industry,” as radical anti-trans activists call it, is some sort of wide-reaching apparatus tricking vulnerable children into needless medical procedures to turn a profit; further, it has fixated on WPATH, the premier organization for determining medical standards for trans people’s health care.

   The Federal Trade Commission hosted an event last year, as Erin in the Morning reported, laying out how it planned to target medical institutions—like hospitals, clinics, professional organizations, and drug manufacturers—by accusing them of medical “fraud.”

4. The subpoena interrogates matters of informed consent and any “medically unfavorable consequence” experienced by patients. This is emblematic of the administration’s wider efforts to gather data for the purpose of manufacturing scientific doubt about gender-affirming care—and empower those in the “detransitioner” political movement to sue their doctors, an endeavor that has mostly been unsuccessful thus far.

5. **The subpoena latches on to the term “sex-rejecting procedures,” an unscientific dogwhistle pushed by gender conservatives to describe and undermine gender-affirming care.**The term was popularized by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s screed against pediatric gender care, but one thing that makes this subpoena unique is that it also targets “voice modifications”—which could refer to surgical procedures to modify a person’s voice, but written this broadly, could in theory apply to simple voice training. It also calls affirming mental health care, such as psychotherapy, a “sex-rejecting procedure” when offered to transgender minors.

What comes next?

In short: We can’t know for sure.

Other hospitals may send out notifications to patients about the receipt of a subpoena in the coming weeks. New York’s shield law requires providers inform patients about any such pursuits within 30 days. For states without shield laws, the waters are murkier; criminal investigations are often much more opaque than civil ones. To this day, the full list of hospitals who received Bondi’s slate of administrative subpoenas is still not publicly known.

However, as per Law Dork’s Chris Geidner, even DOJ lawyers have acknowledged that the purpose of these subpoenas is to bully and intimidate hospitals and “to stop trans minors from being able to obtain gender-affirming medical care.”

This is a far cry from the concerns about medical “fraud” being touted by Trump propaganda. As per Geidner, one DOJ lawyer said, “[T]he policy is that the executive branch wants to reduce or eliminate gender-related care to minors [...] That [is what] this investigation is about.”

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Nyu Gj Subpoena (1)

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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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From Erin In The Morning via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11532321

Conitnuing on from here:

https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11502106

Kinda related to this set of questions from my last post:

Not sure what else to say except:

---

• What trans organizations and gender-affirming services can I access in Spain?

• Any organizations or services for Autistic folk like me?

• How should I go about starting veganism?

• What are good ways to build muscle now fast?

• Any BIPOC orgs in Spain?

• Communist or leftist orgs in Spain?

---

Anyway, I'm looking into the first one in particular.

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