Bill package would ban gender-affirming care for minors in Michigan
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A package of bills banning gender-affirming care for minors has been introduced in both chambers of the Michigan legislature—causing controversy and splitting public opinion.
'Well, we are going to oppose it with every fiber of our being, because it's cruel, callous, dangerous, and it's discriminatory.' That's what Jay Kaplan, a staff attorney of the LGBTQ+ Project of the ACLU of Michigan, said in response to the bills introduced by State Sen. Thomas Albert (R-18) and State Rep. Brad Paquette (R-37) that would ban gender-affirming treatment for minors.
Jay Kaplan speaks with 6 News over Zoom. (WLNS)
Lawmakers want to ban gender-affirming treatments for minors because they say the procedures have negative or even consequential side effects and outcomes. These lawmakers have introduced House Bills 4466 and 4466, as well as Senate Bills 289 and 290.
Paquette went even further to explain that children could file a lawsuit against their doctors up to 20 years after the initial treatment, which could result in doctors losing their licenses.
Former case manager of the Washington University Transgender Center Jamie Reed spoke at a press conference in Lansing Wednesday, saying that the effects these treatments have on the body can be permanent and long-lasting, which is why lawmakers need to step in.
'It is critical that legislative bodies step in to protect children in this state from these dangerous and reckless practices,' said Reed.
Jamie Reed speaks at a press conference in Lansing. (WLNS)
Reed said that she was once allied with these treatments, but now is completely against the system that the university followed when treating transgender children.
'I was complicit in harming patients because the protocol itself harms patients,' said Reed. 'There is no safe or legal way to sterilize the child, and there is no safe way to medically disrupt the function of the endocrine system.'
The bills don't have complete bipartisan agreement, with at least one lawmaker, State Rep. Emily Dievendorf, voicing opposition to the legislation.
Dievendorf said in a statement to 6 News that 'this package represents more attacks on our kids that ignore science and facts, go against best practices for medical care, and aim to dehumanize our most vulnerable neighbors. (What is…) especially offensive today is that the neighbors targeted for hateful rhetoric are now our children. This package is going nowhere fast and exists solely to defend hate and bigotry. Let's make hate abhorrent again.'
Tess Miller, member of St. Johns Call–In Coalition and mother of a transgender son, says this is the reason she is not seeing any progress with her son's doctors, because of the fear that they may lose their license or might not be able to give consistent treatment altogether.
Miller says she doesn't see gender affirming care for children as harmful, but as necessary care to ensure her child can be who he is meant to be.
Tess Miller speaks to 6 News in-studio. (WLNS)
'When my son came out as trans in 2020, I realized that no matter how comfortable I was making him out in the world, if he wasn't feeling comfortable on the inside, then there was a chance he might not be able to go on and live a healthy, productive life,' said Miller.
Activists say the legislation is a distraction from lawmakers who want to single out the transgender community rather than work on more pertinent issues, such as affordable housing or grocery prices.
'What are you doing to solve the real problems for the residents in the state of Michigan?' said Kaplan. 'Do your job and quit bullying transgender youth – they are some of our most marginalized and vulnerable populations. Who make up less than half a percent, maybe 1% at most of Michigan's population.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
24 minutes ago
- New York Times
BlackRock Is Accused of a Plot Against Coal. The Firm Says That's ‘Absurd.'
Did some of the biggest investors in the world buy up shares in coal companies to force them to produce less coal? An unusual lawsuit in Texas claims that investment firms including BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street did just that, illegally colluding with one another to reduce coal production as part of a conspiracy to fight climate change. In a federal court in Texas on Monday, a lawyer for BlackRock told a judge that the claims 'defy economic reality' and that the lawsuit should be dismissed. 'The complaint ignores that the coal market has been declining for decades for a host of reasons well before this alleged conspiracy,' said Gregg Costa, a lawyer with the firm Gibson Dunn, speaking on behalf of all three defendants. A lawyer for Texas, which filed the suit late last year along with 10 other states, said BlackRock's chief executive, Laurence D. Fink, has written in the past that corporations should set targets for greenhouse-gas reductions. For coal companies, that means 'reducing output,' said the lawyer, Brian Barnes of the firm Cooper & Kirk. Texas, a major oil- and gas-producing state, has taken aggressive action against financial companies over climate issues, including enacting a law that bars state entities from doing business with investment firms that the comptroller says are boycotting energy companies. In January, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, and 10 other state attorneys general sent a letter to financial institutions warning that their policies on climate and environment, as well as diversity, 'could lead to enforcement actions.' As power has changed in Washington, financial firms have walked back their messaging and participation in climate action groups. The complaint in the Texas case noted that BlackRock and State Street had already withdrawn from a trade association known as Climate Action 100+. (Vanguard had not been a member.) The firms have also exited the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, which had been a target of criticism from the right. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNET
27 minutes ago
- CNET
CNET's Tariff Price Tracker: What I've Found Watching 11 Key Products for Changes
A trade court has ruled Trump's tariff barrage illegal, but the possibility that prices could climb remains real. James Martin/CNET I've been keeping tabs on several popular products on a daily basis for CNET's tariff impact tracker, watching for price hikes amid President Donald Trump's import tax agenda. Most prices I've been looking at have remained stable so far, aside from notable increases for the Xbox Series X and a budget-friendly 4K TV, and the occasional discounts during big sale periods, which is currently the case for some popular earbuds and an affordable soundbar. With all that said, the broader impacts of these import taxes are still on the horizon, unless a trade court ruling against them gets to stay in place. The Trump administration has, unsurprisingly, decried this ruling -- which said Trump had no authority to set tariffs as he has been -- and moved swiftly to request that the Supreme Court strike it down. We'll see how that ultimately plays out but, for now, the possibility that the president's tariff policies will lead to price hikes remains likely. That's why I'm continuing to monitor several key products you might want or need to buy soon, to keep track of the potential tariff impacts. CNET Tariff Tracker Index Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you'll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. We'll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It's all in the name of helping you make sense of things so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET's guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession. Now Playing: Should You Buy Now or Wait? Our Experts Weigh In on Tariffs 09:42 Methodology We're checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled "Now" and showing the current price. For the past months, we've gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple's official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering for each year: the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we'll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause. The 11 products we're tracking Mostly what we're tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs -- along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn't produced in the US to any significant degree. The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists. Below, we'll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting. iPhone 16 The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500. Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you'll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you'll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830. Apple's been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn't move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now. Apple's flagship device is still the top-selling smartphone globally, as of Q1 of this year, although new research from the firm Counterpoint suggests that tariff uncertainty will cause the brand's growth to stall a bit throughout the rest of 2025. Duracell AA batteries A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you'll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we're tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon. Samsung DU7200 TV Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they're an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET's pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. Xbox Series X Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft's Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes -- the company cited "market conditions" along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that "certain" games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80. Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US. AirPods Pro 2 The latest iteration of Apple's wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. Earlier in the year, they tended to hover around $199 on the site, a notable discount from its $249 list price, but the price is currently the much more enticing $169, so move fast if you want an affordable pair. (Or maybe just wait for the rumored AirPods Pro 3.) HP 962 CMY printer ink This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 -- where it stayed for most of 2025 -- to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we're still tracking that item. Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank Anker's accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET's lists of the best portable chargers. While the price has remained steady throughout the year, it is currently on sale for $13, or 50% off, for a limited time. Bose TV speaker Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. This product has been one of the steadiest on this list in terms of price throughout the year, but it's currently on sale for $199, potentially as part of Amazon's Memorial Day sale. So, if you're looking for an affordable, tariff-free TV speaker, now might be the time. Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won't let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET's overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump's tariffs. Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag) Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity -- I'm certainly drinking too much of it these days -- and because it's uniquely susceptible to Trump's tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth's equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the "Coffee Belt." Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season -- little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years. All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. Other products As mentioned before, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we're still keeping an eye on: Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places -- including Amazon impending release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. impending release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven't been featured with a graph yet: Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer's largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump's tariff plans were ramping up in April. Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus's Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company's upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
CBS News
27 minutes ago
- CBS News
Ex-Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do sentenced to 5 years in prison for bribery
Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, who pleaded guilty last year to taking bribes and directing COVID-19 relief funds to a nonprofit where his daughter worked, was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison. Do resigned his seat on the board as part of a 2024 plea deal where he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit bribery. The 62-year-old received the maximum five-year sentence. Between 2020 and 2024, Do "used his position as the supervisor for Orange County's First District to steer millions of dollars to his personal associates in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes," prosecutors said in their sentencing brief. The supervisor took bribes to cast votes that funneled more than $10 million in county contracts to the Viet America Society, where his daughter Rhiannon worked. After going to the nonprofit, monthly payments were made to his daughter, totaling $224,000 by 2024. She used that money to buy a $1 million home in Tustin and Do and his family received more than $700,000 in bribe payments, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Do used the money to pay property taxes and to pay credit card debt. "The scheme essentially functioned like Robin Hood in reverse. Mr. Do and his conspirators stole money from the poor to give to themselves," former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada said earlier. The prosecution argued that Do should receive harsher punishment for his corruption, as such crimes are "an assault on the very legitimacy of government." "The scheme was far-reaching and premeditated, and the defendant had no qualms about pulling others into his criminal enterprise, including his own children," prosecutors said. Also on Monday, a new co-defendant in the case, 61-year-old Thanh Huong Nguyen of Santa Ana, is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and concealment of money laundering. Nguyen operated the Hand to Hand Relief Organization. Do's associate Peter Anh Pham, 65, of Garden Grove, who ran VAS, was also indicted on single counts each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud bribery and six counts each of wire fraud and concealment of money laundering. Pham's whereabouts are unknown and federal prosecutors say he is considered a fugitive. Do's attorney, Paul Meyer, released an apology statement on his behalf following the announcement of his plea deal last year. "It is appropriate to convey Andrew Do's sincere apology and deep sadness to his family, to his constituents and District 1, and to his colleagues," the statement read. Do's attorneys continued to detail the former supervisor's remorse. "He has watched the complete destruction of his career, reputation, his life and that of his family," his attorneys said. "…In short, Andrew Do's life has been destroyed by his own acts."
