Latest news with #AmericanPrinciplesProject
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Last-minute change to GOP tax bill targets trans care
A last-minute change to the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill Act would ban Medicaid funding for 'gender transition procedures,' after an amendment expanded language affecting minors to include adults. That was a coup for social conservative groups like the American Principles Project, which urged House Republicans to make the change, sharing a poll that found 66% support for it. But it has not been a major focus of Democratic opposition during the recess, as they made a broader case against changes like work requirements that would remove people from state-run Medicaid coverage entirely. 'Government should never insert itself between patients and providers. Insurers, whether public or private, should cover all medically necessary care, including for transgender Americans,' Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., the first transgender member of Congress, said in a statement to Semafor. 'Just as I have done my entire life, I will continue to fight against discriminatory bans on coverage of gender affirming care, which every major medical association calls medically necessary.' There's no official estimate of transgender Americans who use Medicaid; studies from UCLA have pegged the number at a little more than 200,000. Coverage for gender medicine, including hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, was first implemented under the Obama administration, and Trump ran in 2020 on rolling it back. And the new provisions worried even some Democrats who had been advocating for their party to find a compromise on some trans rights issues. Jonathan Cowan, president of the centrist Third Way think tank, argued for those compromises this week, but told Semafor that the coverage ban was simply cruel. 'What's next — a federal health care registry in which you have to get the Trump Administration's approval for any and all of your family's medical treatments?' Cowan said. 'It's not thoughtful or nuanced but extreme and Democrats should be criticizing Republicans for trying to take away parental choice and for denying basic health care rights to trans adults.' Democratic politics right now is about opposition to the OBBBA and its Medicaid cuts. The uniform Republican response is that they are not cutting Medicaid for 'vulnerable' people; that they're actually strengthening it for those people by pulling able-bodied adults off the rolls with work requirements. The gender medicine ban, dropped into the bill at the 11th hour, does not comport with that. It's a social conservative project, designed to roll back coverage of transgender healthcare, which they believe was foisted on the country by unethical doctors and a rapacious pharmaceutical industry. 'With the international medical consensus turning against gender ideology, and voters firmly on our side, now is the perfect time for Congress to ensure our government no longer subsidizes these controversial practices,' conservative leaders from APP, the Family Research Council, and the Family Policy Alliance, wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson. How are Democrats responding? Somewhat tentatively. They are not rushing out with press releases to denounce this part of the bill. As she told me before getting elected last year, McBride thinks that transgender people are better off when Democrats defend their rights as fellow citizens, not as a special interest group. 'They're on Social Security, they're on Medicare, and we know that Donald Trump and JD Vance would seek to gut those programs,' she said, before it was clear who would win the presidency. The Democratic position, right now, is that the bill can still be defeated. But if Republicans do wrangle the votes in the Senate — they can lose three GOP senators and pass it — will the language be removed? Would four Republicans agree to do that? Social conservatives, who once struggled to get their party to care about this, believe that they wouldn't. And hundreds of thousands of lives would change. A new Gallup found Republican support for same-sex marriage, and Republican acceptance of 'gay or lesbian relations,' falling to the lowest levels this decade. That change isn't due to Donald Trump, who supported legal same-sex marriage in all of his campaigns. But it has tracked with Republican campaigning against transgender rights and 'gender ideology,' which the party embraced in 2021 after years of wondering about its political impact.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Planned Parenthood using 'loophole' to get minors gender transitions without parents' OK: watchdog
FIRST ON FOX: The conservative watchdog group American Principles Project is sounding an alarm over what the group is describing as a "massive loophole" being utilized by Planned Parenthood to give transgender hormone therapy to minors. In a wide-ranging report chronicling how Planned Parenthood is propping up the trans agenda, the American Principles Project accused the group and its affiliates across the country of manipulating the definition of contraception in order to provide transgender hormone therapy to minors without parental consent. "Using contraception as a 'gender-affirming' treatment is a massive loophole," the report stated. "Most states allow minors to consent to these contraceptives on their own, and many states allow minors to do so without even notifying parents." Undercover Investigation: Planned Parenthood Prescribing Hormones To Minors With Minimal Oversight Some blue states, like Washington, Oregon and Minnesota, have laws permitting minors to obtain puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones, for the purpose of transitioning genders, without parental consent. However, most states do require parental consent in order for minors to access these drugs, while others take an even stricter approach of banning the medications for minors outright, regardless of whether their parents approve or not. The American Principles Project points to a "Gender Affirming Care Patient Guide" from Planned Parenthood's Mar Monte chapter, the national organization's largest affiliate serving parts of central California and northern Nevada. Read On The Fox News App In both states, parental consent is required for minors to access any type of medical intervention aimed at aiding a minor's gender transition, but it does permit minors to obtain various forms of contraception, such as birth control, without it. "People 15 and younger who have periods can come to us for birth control options to stop periods," the patient guide on "gender-affirming care" states. It then notes in the following sentence: "Parent/guardian consent is not required to get birth control." A 2022 case study from Seattle Children's Hospital, which has come under scrutiny for providing transgender medical care to minors, highlights the case of a 14-year-old biological female who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and was "very distressed by bleeding cycles" that the patient began experiencing at age 12. Anonymous Democrats Confess To Time Magazine Their Party Is Too Extreme On Abortion, Trans Athletes Despite the minor patient's gender dysphoria, the child did not want to fully transition into a male. Rather, according to the case study, the female patient was identified as "non-binary" and expressed that she did not want to be subject to the effects of testosterone, such as a deeper voice and facial hair. As a result, the child was given hormonal-based birth control to stop her periods, which the case study said resulted in better mental health for the patient and opened them up to pursuing top surgery in the future. In addition to blocking periods, certain types of birth control can also suppress testosterone production, according to the Endocrine Society. This makes contraception a viable route for gender-dysphoric biological females who may not want to experience the impacts of testosterone but want to blunt their female-sex maturation, as described in the above case study. It's also a viable mechanism for biological males who want to block their body's natural testosterone production, according to the Endocrine Society. "While patients under 18 cannot receive hormone therapy, they may have a consultation with a provider to understand treatment options and to receive medications to stop their periods (if desired)," Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest states on its "Gender Affirming Care" web page. The explanation also appears on a FAQ page under the website's "About Us" section. "The fact that Planned Parenthood is actively finding and exploiting legal loopholes to begin transitioning minors behind their parent's backs is downright disgusting," Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project told Fox News Digital. "There is nothing this organization will not do to make a quick buck at the expense of our children and families." Hospitals Nationwide Challenge Trump's Executive Order On Transgender Treatments For Minors According to the American Principles Project's report, around 80 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics offer some form of "gender-affirming care," which the group says has outpaced abortion services. The report goes into other extensive details about how Planned Parenthood has prioritized sex-change procedures for young people, which Schilling remarked "isn't healthcare" but rather "an ideological crusade that undermines families and exploits vulnerable youth." "Planned Parenthood's recent shift to becoming a leading provider of so-called 'gender-affirming care' exposes their radical agenda to reshape society, starting with our unborn children and now targeting the next generation with dangerous, life-altering medical procedures," Schilling said. "Our report reveals that Planned Parenthood now prioritizes irreversible transgender treatments—often without parental consent—OVER their other services, with an estimated 120,000 transgender medical visits annually and growing," he continued. Their materials, from activity books promoting gender ideology to chatbots targeting kids as young as 13, are designed to sexualize and indoctrinate the next generation." Click Here To Download The Fox News App In a statement to Fox News Digital, Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest's President and CEO, Jenny Black, insisted that its health centers "operate under the highest medical standards," and said that any accusation it is violating state law "is completely false." "We strongly denounce the dangerous spread of disinformation about life-saving gender-affirming healthcare that is fueled by rampant transphobia," Black said. "We will continue to provide safe and legal health care to those who rely on us for access to quality and compassionate care." Planned Parenthood's Mar Monte chapter did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for article source: Planned Parenthood using 'loophole' to get minors gender transitions without parents' OK: watchdog
Fox News
3 days ago
- Health
- Fox News
Planned Parenthood using 'loophole' to get minors gender transitions without parents' OK: watchdog
FIRST ON FOX: The conservative watchdog group American Principles Project is sounding an alarm over what the group is describing as a "massive loophole" being utilized by Planned Parenthood to give transgender hormone therapy to minors. In a wide-ranging report chronicling how Planned Parenthood is propping up the trans agenda, the American Principles Project accused the group and its affiliates across the country of manipulating the definition of contraception in order to provide transgender hormone therapy to minors without parental consent. "Using contraception as a 'gender-affirming' treatment is a massive loophole," the report stated. "Most states allow minors to consent to these contraceptives on their own, and many states allow minors to do so without even notifying parents." Some blue states, like Washington, Oregon and Minnesota, have laws permitting minors to obtain puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones, for the purpose of transitioning genders, without parental consent. However, most states do require parental consent in order for minors to access these drugs, while others take an even stricter approach of banning the medications for minors outright, regardless of whether their parents approve or not. The American Principles Project points to a "Gender Affirming Care Patient Guide" from Planned Parenthood's Mar Monte chapter, the national organization's largest affiliate serving parts of central California and northern Nevada. In both states, parental consent is required for minors to access any type of medical intervention aimed at aiding a minor's gender transition, but it does permit minors to obtain various forms of contraception, such as birth control, without it. "People 15 and younger who have periods can come to us for birth control options to stop periods," the patient guide on "gender-affirming care" states. It then notes in the following sentence: "Parent/guardian consent is not required to get birth control." A 2022 case study from Seattle Children's Hospital, which has come under scrutiny for providing transgender medical care to minors, highlights the case of a 14-year-old biological female who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and was "very distressed by bleeding cycles" that the patient began experiencing at age 12. Despite the minor patient's gender dysphoria, the child did not want to fully transition into a male. Rather, according to the case study, the female patient was identified as "non-binary" and expressed that she did not want to be subject to the effects of testosterone, such as a deeper voice and facial hair. As a result, the child was given hormonal-based birth control to stop her periods, which the case study said resulted in better mental health for the patient and opened them up to pursuing top surgery in the future. In addition to blocking periods, certain types of birth control can also suppress testosterone production, according to the Endocrine Society. This makes contraception a viable route for gender-dysphoric biological females who may not want to experience the impacts of testosterone but want to blunt their female-sex maturation, as described in the above case study. It's also a viable mechanism for biological males who want to block their body's natural testosterone production, according to the Endocrine Society. "While patients under 18 cannot receive hormone therapy, they may have a consultation with a provider to understand treatment options and to receive medications to stop their periods (if desired)," Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest states on its "Gender Affirming Care" web page. The explanation also appears on a FAQ page under the website's "About Us" section. "The fact that Planned Parenthood is actively finding and exploiting legal loopholes to begin transitioning minors behind their parent's backs is downright disgusting," Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project told Fox News Digital. "There is nothing this organization will not do to make a quick buck at the expense of our children and families." According to the American Principles Project's report, around 80 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics offer some form of "gender-affirming care," which the group says has outpaced abortion services. The report goes into other extensive details about how Planned Parenthood has prioritized sex-change procedures for young people, which Schilling remarked "isn't healthcare" but rather "an ideological crusade that undermines families and exploits vulnerable youth." "Planned Parenthood's recent shift to becoming a leading provider of so-called 'gender-affirming care' exposes their radical agenda to reshape society, starting with our unborn children and now targeting the next generation with dangerous, life-altering medical procedures," Schilling said. "Our report reveals that Planned Parenthood now prioritizes irreversible transgender treatments—often without parental consent—OVER their other services, with an estimated 120,000 transgender medical visits annually and growing," he continued. Their materials, from activity books promoting gender ideology to chatbots targeting kids as young as 13, are designed to sexualize and indoctrinate the next generation." In a statement to Fox News Digital, Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest's President and CEO, Jenny Black, insisted that its health centers "operate under the highest medical standards," and said that any accusation it is violating state law "is completely false." "We strongly denounce the dangerous spread of disinformation about life-saving gender-affirming healthcare that is fueled by rampant transphobia," Black said. "We will continue to provide safe and legal health care to those who rely on us for access to quality and compassionate care." Planned Parenthood's Mar Monte chapter did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Axios
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Inside MAGA's fight for "Western civilization"
The MAGA movement is no longer just fighting for President Trump. His most fervent loyalists are now engaged in what they see as a battle for " Western civilization" — a rallying cry for the modern right. Why it matters: The conservative ecosystem that has developed around Trump — and is touted daily in MAGA media — is key to understanding what's behind many of his policies. It also helps explain the right's zeal on certain issues. Zoom in: For MAGA loyalists taking this long view, "Preserving Western Civilization" is the new "Make America Great Again." They proclaim America as a Judeo-Christian country that's the successor to the great European civilizations of Greece, Rome and the United Kingdom. They see a modern " Western civilization" as one that prizes freedom, the rule of law as they interpret it, meritocracy and the nuclear family. It's a movement wrapped in nostalgia. That's why Trump's Make America Great Again slogan resonated: To many in the modern right, society was at its zenith in the 1950s — and the liberalism of the 1960s and '70s drove the decline of their ideal society. The movement sees today's DEI initiatives, expanded LGBTQ rights, fluid gender roles and illegal immigration as signs of a society run amok. Preserving Western values was a theme of Vice President Vance's major speech in Munich in February, when he decried censorship and mass immigration. Terry Schilling, founder of American Principles Project, a group that casts itself as "America's top defender of the family, told us: " Western civilization is the concept that there is a natural order of things, and that we have rights that come from God ... and there are rules." Zoom out: Critics say the Western civilization movement looks regressive and racist. Trump policy attacks on asylum-seeking immigrants, and on programs benefiting historically marginalized communities, help reinforce that image. The period of U.S. history the movement heralds included subjugation of women, segregation, and discrimination against nonwhites, those in the LGBTQ community and many others. Between the lines: The Western civilization movement sees the 1950s as a time in which society's rules of the road were fixed in values that were held by the country's founders. Its followers reject the notion that those values — and American traditions — should evolve. "Every fight is existential," said Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute, citing debates over LGBTQ rights and DEI. "Society crumbles under things like this. That's the lens through which we view all these things." The guideposts of the Western civilization movement run through MAGA media in ways large and small. Podcasters Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec recite dates on their shows with "the year of our Lord" and "Anno Domini." Social media posts lament the growing South Asian population in the United Kingdom. The growing pro-natalism movement encourages conservatives to have large families. Articles in far-right media tout marriage and children, and even advice for women on ways to be more "marriageable." In recent years, conservative activists have blasted college English departments for adding courses that focus on racially diverse writers, instead of staying focused on Shakespeare and Chaucer. Reality check: The far-righters in the Western civilization movement cast their cause as noble, but their language can be divisive and offensive. In MAGA media, Islam is referred to derisively in some contexts as "Mohammedanism." Some in the movement call for the deportation of immigrants who are in the U.S. legally if they don't assimilate to "American culture." Slurs such as "tranny" are flaunted. Critics say Trump set the stage for this by giving credence to strands of discrimination. "We should be open as Democrats about being proud of, and driven by, traditions like faith and democracy — and that Trump is savaging them," said Democratic strategist Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson in the Biden administration. "Tweeting pictures of yourself as the pope while promoting thugs with deep ties to Nazi sympathizers ... is anathema to the Judeo-Christian principles I was raised to respect," Bates added. Those in the movement deny that it's discriminatory — but acknowledge that it's exclusionary. "Civilization is exclusive," conservative podcaster Michael Knowles told Axios. "That's true of every place, and that's true of every idea. If you're Christian, then you're excluding the beliefs of Muslims. If you're Muslim, you're excluding the beliefs of Christians. Something has to define us." "This doesn't mean that a Muslim can't get along well in the West," he added. "But it does mean that if people from other backgrounds wish to come to the West, they have to get with the program." The bottom line: Supporters say the movement offers a preview of post-Trump conservatism in America.
Time Magazine
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Inside the First Major U.S. Bill Tackling AI Harms—and Deepfake Abuse
On April 28, the House of Representatives passed the first major law tackling AI-induced harm: the Take It Down Act. The bipartisan bill, which also passed the Senate and which President Trump is expected to sign, criminalizes non-consensual deepfake porn and requires platforms to take down such material within 48 hours of being served notice. The bill aims to stop the scourge of AI-created illicit imagery that has exploded in the last few years along with the rapid improvement of AI tools. While some civil society groups have raised concerns about the bill, it has received wide support from leaders on both sides of the aisle, from the conservative think tank American Principles Project to the progressive nonprofit Public Citizen. To some advocates, the bill is a textbook example of how Congress should work: of lawmakers fielding concerns from impacted constituents, then coming together in an attempt to reduce further harm. "This victory belongs first and foremost to the heroic survivors who shared their stories and the advocates who never gave up," Senator Ted Cruz, who spearheaded the bill in the Senate, wrote in a statement to TIME. "By requiring social media companies to take down this abusive content quickly, we are sparing victims from repeated trauma and holding predators accountable." Here's what the bill aims to achieve, and how it crossed many hurdles en route to becoming law. Victimized teens The Take It Down Act was borne out of the suffering—and then activism—of a handful of teenagers. In October 2023, 14-year-old Elliston Berry of Texas and 15-year-old Francesca Mani of New Jersey each learned that classmates had used AI software to fabricate nude images of them and female classmates. The tools that had been used to humiliate them were relatively new: products of the generative AI boom in which virtually any image could be created with the click of a button. Pornographic and sometimes violent deepfake images of Taylor Swift and others soon spread across the internet. When Berry and Mani each sought to remove the images and seek punishment for those that had created them, they found that both social media platforms and their school boards reacted with silence or indifference. 'They just didn't know what to do: they were like, this is all new territory,' says Berry's mother, Anna Berry. Anna Berry then reached out to Senator Ted Cruz's office, which took up the cause and drafted legislation that became the Take It Down Act. Cruz, who has two teenage daughters, threw his political muscle behind the bill, including organizing a Senate field hearing with testimony from both Elliston Berry and Mani in Texas. Mani, who had spoken out about her experiences in New Jersey before connecting with Cruz's office during its national push for legislation, says that Cruz spoke with her several times directly—and personally put in a call to a Snapchat executive asking them to remove her deepfakes from the platform. Mani and Berry both spent hours talking with congressional offices and news outlets to spread awareness. Bipartisan support soon spread, including the sign-on of Democratic co-sponsors like Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal. Representatives Maria Salazar and Madeleine Dean led the House version of the bill. Political wrangling Very few lawmakers disagreed with implementing protections around AI-created deepfake nudes. But translating that into law proved much harder, especially in a divided, contentious Congress. In December, lawmakers tried to slip the Take It Down Act into a bipartisan spending deal. But the larger deal was killed after Elon Musk and Donald Trump urged lawmakers to reject it. In the Biden era, it seemed that the piece of deepfake legislation that stood the best chance of passing was the DEFIANCE Act, led by Democrats Dick Durbin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In January, however, Cruz was promoted to become the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, giving him a major position of power to set agendas. His office rallied the support for Take it Down from a slew of different public interest groups. They also helped persuade tech companies to support the bill, which worked: Snapchat and Meta got behind it. 'Cruz put an unbelievable amount of muscle into this bill,' says Sunny Gandhi, vice president of political affairs at Encode, an AI-focused advocacy group that supported the bill. 'They spent a lot of effort wrangling a lot of the companies to make sure that they wouldn't be opposed, and getting leadership interested.' Gandhi says that one of the key reasons why tech companies supported the bill was because it did not involve Section 230 of the Communications Act, an endlessly-debated law that protects platforms from civil liability for what is posted on them. The Take It Down Act, instead, draws its enforcement power from the 'deceptive and unfair trade practices' mandate of the Federal Trade Commission. 'With anything involving Section 230, there's a worry on the tech company side that you are slowly going to chip away at their protections,' Gandhi says. 'Going through the FTC instead was a very novel approach that I think a lot of companies were okay with.' The Senate version of the Take It Down Act passed unanimously in February. A few weeks later, Melania Trump threw her weight behind the bill, staging a press conference in D.C., with Berry, Mani, and other deepfake victims, marking Trump's first solo public appearance since she resumed the role of First Lady. The campaign fit in with her main initiative from the first Trump administration: 'Be Best,' which included a focus on online safety. A Cruz spokesperson told TIME that Trump's support was crucial towards the bill getting expedited in the House. 'The biggest challenge with a lot of these bills is trying to secure priority and floor time,' they said. 'It's essential to have a push to focus priorities—and it happened quickly because of her.' Support is broad, but concerns persist While the bill passed both chambers easily and with bipartisan support, it weathered plenty of criticism on the way. Critics say that the bill is sloppily written, and that bad faith actors could flag almost anything as nonconsensual illicit imagery in order to get it scrubbed from the internet. They also say that Donald Trump could use it as a weapon, leaning on his power over the FTC to threaten critics. In February, 12 organizations including the Center for Democracy & Technology penned a letter to the Senate warning that the bill could lead to the 'suppression of lawful speech.' Critics question the bill's effectiveness especially because it puts the FTC in charge of enforcement—and the federal agency has been severely weakened by the Trump administration. At a House markup in April, Democrats warned that a weakened FTC could struggle to keep up with take-down requests, rendering the bill toothless. Regardless, Gandhi hopes that Congress will build upon Take It Down to create more safeguards for children online. The House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing on the subject, signaling increased interest. 'There's a giant movement in Congress and at the state level around kids' safety that is only picking up momentum,' Gandhi says. 'People don't want this to be the next big harm that we wait five or 10 years before we do something about it.' For Mani and Berry, the passage of Take It Down represents a major political, legal, and emotional victory. 'For those of us who've been hurt, it's a chance to take back our dignity,' Mani says.
