Latest news with #AdvocatesforTransEquality
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘He Is Working to Erase Us': A Trans Activist on the Real Reason Trump's Budget Bans Trans Care
Ash Lazarus Orr (he/they) has served as the press relations manager at Advocates for Trans Equality for two and a half years. He has been an organizer in West Virginia for over a decade, focusing on the intersectionalities of gender-affirming care and abortion access. They're also an abortion storyteller for We Testify and Planned Parenthood. Transgender rights are once again on the chopping block for Republicans' political gain. The House's proposed budget in the so-called 'big, beautiful bill' includes measures that would deny life-saving, medically necessary, and evidence-based transition-related health care to trans people of all ages — banning it from Medicaid (where an estimated 152,000 trans Americans are enrolled) and no longer requiring Obamacare plans to cover it. This bill intentionally puts trans people's lives at risk, and is just the latest in a series of calculated attempts to divide and distract the American people, while dehumanizing some of the country's most vulnerable citizens. More from Rolling Stone Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Move to Expel Foreign Students Trump Resumes Effort to Destroy Economy Trump's Tax Bill Would Decimate the Affordable Care Act The bill is being sold to the public as a set of historic tax cuts. But in reality, it's not about fiscal responsibility: It's a cruel strategy by anti-trans, extremist politicians to push trans, nonbinary, and intersex people out of public life. From our workplaces and schools to our health care, housing, and basic freedoms, the Trump administration and its allies are working to erase us. They are trying to make it harder just to exist, let alone thrive. Let me be perfectly clear: transition-related health care — which includes everything form hormones and puberty blockers to voice therapy, mental health support, and gender-affirming primary care — is health care. It is safe and essential, backed by decades of medical research, and supported by every major medical and mental health association in the United States. It's recognized as being safe and effective, and essential. These proposed cuts are flying in the face of medical consensus. Stripping away health care for anybody is un-American. Denying trans people access to medically necessary care goes against the most basic values that this country was founded on: freedom, dignity, and the right to pursue life and liberty. Health care is a human right for everyone — including trans people. Along the same lines, bodily autonomy is a core American value. Like all Americans, trans people and their families should be able to go to their medical providers and not have politicians interfering in these deeply personal medical decisions. We must be free to pursue, alongside our doctors, the medical care that lets us survive and flourish. This proposed ban undermines our fundamental right to privacy and self determination. Unfortunately, this bill is only the beginning. It's part of a broader political agenda and calculated strategy to fuel fear, blame marginalized communities, and distract the public away from the real causes of economic hardship — corporate greed, failing infrastructure, and chronic under-investment in public services. Instead of tackling these problems, Republicans are continuing to fuel manufactured outrage to score political points, because this administration wants people pointing fingers at their neighbors instead of holding the powerful accountable. In practice, this ban on transition-related health care would do nothing but disrupt an already overwhelmed health care system. The very people who are already most vulnerable to systemic discrimination and economic instability are now being potentially stripped of access to life-saving care, and it's all for political show. If passed, this bill is going to affect every single person that is utilizing Medicaid. It will disproportionately impact folks who live in low-income, rural, or spread-out regions. We are going to see so many folks who are already residing in health care deserts — which are continuing to grow year by year — lose access. People will suffer because of this. Though we have been singled out in this bill, trans people are just like everyone else you know. We are your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues. Like every other person in this country, we deserve access to health care. This is a moment to choose to be on the right side of history. Lawmakers must reject bigotry and show leadership by defending access to trans health care — not take it away from vulnerable communities. Again, this is not just about trans people: laws like this one, if passed, will impact every single person using programs like Medicaid, and those who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. I strongly encourage folks to reach out to their senators and demand that they vote no on this bill. Because trans people deserve equal rights, and to live our lives fully and authentically. As told to Elizabeth Yuko Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
Axios
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Justice Department sues Maine for allowing transgender athletes in girls sports
Attorney General Pam Bondi is suing Maine's education department Wednesday after the state refused to bar trans athletes from girls' sports in accordance with an order from President Trump. The big picture: The standoff deepened last week when Maine's attorney general refused to sign an agreement to force the state education agency to change its policy on transgender athletes. Maine argues Title IX does not prohibit schools from allowing transgender girls to participate in girls' sports. Driving the news: "They must not be reading the same Title IX that we're reading," Bondi said at a Wednesday press conference announcing the lawsuit. She said her office is seeking an injunction and is considering whether to "retroactively pull" federal funds from the state "for not complying in the past." Bondi said, "We have exhausted every other remedy. We tried to get Maine to comply. We don't like standing up here and filing lawsuits." Zoom out: The Department of Education on Friday announced it would move to pull Maine's federal education funding and was referring its Title IX investigation into the state education department to the DOJ. "I hope Governor [Janet] Mills will recognize that her political feud with the president will deprive the students in her state of much more than the right to fair sporting events," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said at Wednesday's conference. Riley Gaines, who has emerged as the activist face of anti-trans sports participation, also spoke at the press conference. In 2022, Gaines tied a transgender woman for fifth place in a college swimming event, losing to four other cisgender women. The other side: Mills vowed in a Wednesday statement to "vigorously defend" Maine against the DOJ's civil lawsuit. "Today is the latest, expected salvo in an unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law," her statement read. Mills continued, "This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states' rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law." What they're saying: Ash Lazarus Orr of Advocates for Trans Equality, described the suit as "another example of the escalation in the federal government's attacks on trans youth" in a statement to Axios. "This lawsuit, rooted in the Trump administration's discriminatory executive order barring trans women and girls from participating in women's sports, is a malicious and baseless move that puts politics over students' rights," Orr said. Catch up quick: The back-and-forth began earlier this year with a brief clash between Trump and Mills during a National Governors Association event. After Trump threatened to revoke the state's funding if it did not comply with his order, Mills replied, "we're going to follow the law," before adding, "See you in court." Trump answered, "Good, I'll see you in court."
Axios
04-04-2025
- Health
- Axios
Trump uses child abuse awareness proclamation to bash transgender people
President Trump 's decision to target transgender care in a proclamation declaring April National Child Abuse Prevention Month "betrays" the month's purpose, LGBTQ advocates said. Why it matters: Framing the trans youth experience as "abuse" further stigmatizes an already vulnerable community, as the Trump administration tries to erase trans people from American life through policies limiting access to health care, careers, sports, education and more. Driving the news: Trump's Thursday proclamation singled out transgender care, labeling it a form of child abuse without acknowledging the most common risk factors for neglected or abused children. "It is deeply disingenuous for Trump to use National Child Abuse Prevention Month as a platform to attack and stigmatize the trans community," Ash Lazarus Orr, a spokesperson for Advocates for Trans Equality, told Axios. Reality check: Gender-affirming care is supported as both medically appropriate and potentially life saving for children and adults by major medical associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association. Drugs like puberty blockers are temporary and reversible. They are given to trans youth and non-trans youth who experience early onset puberty. What they're saying: Trump's proclamation "is vile and upsetting but importantly it is just a press release," Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project said in a statement on Instagram. "It does not change the law or direct any agency action. But it does continue to suggest that the government is moving towards efforts to explicitly criminalize trans life and support of trans people." "Using the language of 'child protection' to justify the oppression of trans youth betrays the very values this month is meant to uphold," Orr said. "Denying trans youth medical care won't change who they are." Threat level: Trump wrote that "a stable family with loving parents" is a safeguard against child abuse, but most victims are abused by a parent, according to the National Children's Alliance. By the numbers: In 2022, a reported 434,000 perpetrators abused or neglected a child, per the alliance. 76% of children were victimized by a parent or legal guardian in substantiated child abuse cases, meaning that child protective services agencies determined that abuse or neglect occurred. Zoom out: Trump in January signed an executive order to defund youth gender-affirming care and a separate one threatening funding for K-12 schools that accommodate transgender children.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Washington, an afternoon of solidarity for trans rights
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of people gathered Monday at the National Mall to recognize Transgender Day of Visibility. College students stood alongside veterans, federal workers, retirees and concerned family members. They packed umbrellas for the spring rain and brought Pride flags, too. They held up handmade signs that read 'Trans by the grace of God' and 'Trump is stealing our future.' As members of Congress stood in front of the U.S. Capitol to list all the ways the Trump administration is harming their trans constituents, they listened. Both speakers and attendees said this fight belongs to them, regardless of their gender identity. One cisgender woman in the crowd, a 48-year-old federal employee, joined to support her family. Her daughter is trans and so are a few of her nieces and nephews, she said. On her lanyard at work, she wears a trans butterfly pin and another with a rainbow encircled by the words, 'you're safe to be you around me.' As a federal employee, the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the uncertain political environment for federal workers, said she has watched the Trump administration erase thousands of jobs and billionaire Elon Musk's task force take over federal agency buildings. The final line crossed, the moment that would push her over the edge, would be if she's asked to take off her pins. 'I would resist against that,' she said. 'And I hope that I wouldn't lose my job over it, but this is more important than my job, honestly, even though we're a single-income family. I've been working with the federal government for 20 years. But it's just that important.' Trans Day of Visibility, or TDOV for short, was created to give trans people a day of joy. It's a day to celebrate being out and unapologetically trans, nonbinary or gender non-conforming. But as the last five years have brought rising anti-trans political attacks, TDOV has also become something else: a day of loud resistance. As the Trump administration tries to make it harder for trans Americans to live openly without fear of harassment and discrimination, more trans people — and their allies — see this day as a form of protest. 'My call to action today is to get involved,' Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director for Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), said on stage at the rally. 'Register to vote. Vote in all those local elections that everyone else ignores. Run for office yourself. If you want a different style of activism, volunteer at your local LGBTQ+ community center. Mentor a trans kid. Start a trans bookclub. Protest outside a courthouse. … Don't just watch things happen, make things happen. History is made by those of us who take the initiative to show up.' Other speakers, including Democratic members of Congress, made similar calls to action, urging trans people and their allies to resist the political attacks against them. Those lawmakers stressed that rolling back trans rights is just a stepping stone to attacking other marginalized groups — and that coming together is required to defend against those assaults. That's the message that New Hampshire state Rep. Alice Wade, a transgender woman, delivered from the stage on Monday. The stakes of these anti-trans attacks are deadly, she said, and they affect everyone, Republican or Democrat. On Election Day last year, outside her local polling place, Wade said she met a Republican volunteer who confided that his son's death the previous summer had kept him from engaging much in politics. It was hard for him to talk about it, the volunteer told Wade. But by the end of the night, he was ready to open up. 'Right about the time the polls had closed, I started to pack up my things, and he pulled me aside and he asked me a question, 'Are you transgender?' And I said, 'Yes.'' That was the invitation he was looking for. He shared with Wade that his son was a transgender man who had taken his own life. He then asked about her experiences as a trans woman and what could have contributed to his child's suicide. 'I shared how deeply painful it can be for trans people to go through life in a society hostile to our very existence and how transitioning saved my life six years ago,' she said on stage. 'Long after he left, I couldn't stop thinking about that conversation. About a father just trying to understand his child and cope, and how much pain could be avoided if we didn't treat trans people like political weapons.' From 2018 to 2022, the number of suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth in states that passed anti-trans laws increased by as much as 72 percent, according to a study published last fall. And when the presidential race was called for Donald Trump on November 5, calls and texts to a leading LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention organization exploded in a massive outpouring of anxiety over the election results. In the crowd on Monday, trans people who have been living in that heightened state of fear since Election Day felt a moment of reprieve and solidarity. Fenyx Mackenzie, a 22-year-old student at Howard University, stood with 21-year-old Miles Sanchez on the National Mall, wrapped in an embrace under a trans pride flag while listening to the speakers. Seeing a united crowd standing up for trans rights — including many cisgender people and people from older generations — made an impression on them. 'Everything has been very stressful recently, so having this sort of event is nice,' Mackenzie said. 'It makes it a little bit less scary and isolating.' For the past few months, it feels like every marginalized group is being targeted at once, Sanchez said — and it's all happening so quickly. They're not sure what to do, they said; just going through the motions of everyday life is a challenge. They've been looking for a sense of community. At this rally, they finally felt that. The Trans Day of Visibility rally was organized by the Christopher Street Project, a transgender advocacy group, and co-hosted by LGBTQ+ and civil rights groups including the National Organization for Women, the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates for Trans Equality. Speakers from Congress included House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York and Rep. Sara Jacobs, co-chair of the Transgender Equality Task Force. The post In Washington, an afternoon of solidarity for trans rights appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Will Democrats fight for trans rights? Their first big test just played out in the Senate.
Senate Democrats were unified on Monday in blocking a trans sports ban. The bill, which would have amended federal civil rights law to ban transgender girls from girls' sports in federally-funded schools, was Democrats' first test on whether they will fight anti-trans laws in a Republican-controlled Congress that has prioritized rolling back trans rights. That test could not come at a more crucial time for transgender Americans. About 20 federal anti-trans bills have been proposed or re-introduced in this new Congress, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. Democrats' ability to block those bills depends on their use of the filibuster — which is how they derailed this legislation on trans athletes on Monday. Sixty votes are needed to end debate in the Senate, so Republicans would have needed some Democrats on board to break through a filibuster and pass the bill. No Senate Democrats broke ranks to support the bill, although two did not vote. This show of support is a significant moment for trans advocates, who watched as Democratic state lawmakers and a few congressional Democrats responded to President Donald Trump's re-election by suggesting that their party had gone too far supporting trans rights. Caius Willingham, a senior policy analyst at Advocates for Trans Equality, credited Democrats' unified vote on Monday to a concerted effort by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups over the past few months to get constituents in front of lawmakers, especially Democrats who feel vulnerable in their upcoming bids for re-election during the midterms. 'We made sure that they heard from a constituent, that they talked to a trans person and heard firsthand from their constituents how S.9 would negatively impact them,' Willingham said, referring to the bill by its title in the Senate. 'Those conversations are incredibly important, and they definitely moved the needle.' On the Senate floor and on social media, Democrats spoke out strongly against the legislation. They pointed out the means to enforcing it is unclear, that it could endanger both cisgender and transgender girls by exposing them to invasive questions about their identities, and that the number of known trans student-athletes in K-12 schools and colleges is quite small. 'The small handful of trans athletes in PA in a political maelstrom deserve an ally and I am one,' Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said on X on Monday evening. 'Depersonalized as 'they/them' in a political ad, but are just schoolchildren. Empty show votes or cruelty on social media aren't part of a thoughtful, dignified solution.' Fetterman was referring to one of Trump's multi-million dollar anti-trans campaign ads, launched last fall, that ended with the tagline: 'Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.' The ad blasted Harris' support for gender-affirming care for incarcerated trans people and the Biden administration's efforts to protect trans student athletes. Shortly after Election Day, Fetterman described the ad as a powerful campaign tool. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, said on Monday that the proposed bill does not explain how it would be enforced — a similar conversation that played out on the House floor. In January, House Republicans skirted pointed questions from Democrats about how the bill would be enforced. 'The bill — which lacks a clear enforcement mechanism — could subject women and girls to physical inspection by an adult if someone from an opposing team accused them of being transgender,' Durbin said in a statement. 'It infringes on the privacy of girls and women and is a dangerous use of the powers of government to target student athletes of all ages.' The bill would make it a violation of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions, for schools to allow transgender girls to compete on girls' sports teams, which would put those schools' federal funding at risk. The law also defines sex based on 'an individual's reproductive biology and genetics at birth,' which would explicitly exclude transgender people from federal civil rights protections. Although President Trump has already signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding for schools that allow trans girls on girls' teams, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican sponsor of the Senate bill, noted on Monday that that order could be reversed by a future president — and that some states, like Maine, have refused to follow the president's order. He urged Democrats to join Republicans in supporting the bill, arguing that women's rights are being sacrificed for the sake of transgender rights. 'Are we going to sacrifice the rights of 50 percent of this country for the rights of a small few?' Tuberville said on the Senate floor on Monday. The Trump administration is expected to continue pushing against trans rights — and not just through policymaking. The list of the first lady's guests for the president's address to Congress on Tuesday includes the mother of a trans child who came out at school but not at home, which prompted a lawsuit from the family, and a former high school volleyball player who reportedly suffered a brain injury in a competition against a trans player. Senate Democrats' firewall against the bill comes after two House Democrats voted to support the bill in January. It also comes after Democrats in New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Texas took Trump's win in November as a sign that their party needs to step away from defending trans rights, particularly equal access in school athletics, for fear of losing voters. 'The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,' Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, told The New York Times in November. 'I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't think biological boys should be playing in girls' sports.' Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat, told the Times in a separate post-election story that Democrats need to change how they discuss issues affecting trans people. 'Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,' he said. 'I have two little girls, I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that.' Moulton later said in an MSNBC interview that although he views banning trans students from certain school sports as going too far, he believes that Democrats need to provide an alternative policy on this issue. He voted against the House bill to ban trans girls from school sports, as he did the last time that Republicans attempted to pass similar legislation in 2023. In New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Paul Sarlo told a local PBS station that trans women should be banned from playing women's sports. 'It's very simple. Males should not be participating in women's sports, whether it's at the rec level, the high school level, or the collegiate level,' he said. 'I think if we just talked a little bit more straight up, and had a little more practical common sense, we could've done much better at the polls. Elections have consequences.' Louise Walpin, a longtime LGBTQ+ activist living in New Jersey, was outraged as she watched Sarlo make these comments. This is a man she knows well. She and her wife worked closely with Sarlo from 2009 to 2013 to change his views in support of marriage equality — and now, because of his comments about trans women, she questions whether Sarlo ever truly supported LGBTQ+ rights. Trans women belong in women's spaces, Walpin said. As a 71-year-old cisgender lesbian, she views the attacks that trans people are facing as the same arguments that have been used against marriage equality and gay rights for decades. 'I really see so many parallels happening now in the trans community. The lack of dignity, the lack of equality, aside from the lack of actual rights just to exist,' she said. When she and her wife fought for marriage equality, they were told they were harming children and the family unit, and destroying America. Trans people are being told the same thing now, she said, and in response, some elected representatives are abandoning Democratic values. To Willingham, Monday's vote is a sign that the tide is turning. 'I think Democrats are now acutely aware that this is not just about questions of concerns about safety in women's athletics and opportunity. It's very clear that this is part of the larger attack to remove trans people from public life, and Democrats are seeing that,' he said. 'They've said, with this vote, 'Not on our watch.'' The post Will Democrats fight for trans rights? Their first big test just played out in the Senate. appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
