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Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
It can be a scary time to be trans, but there's joy in living with authenticity
"Trans euphoria is a reality, a very, very strong reality. And as much negative news is out there, I think there needs to be as much transgender euphoria and joy celebrated, honored, respected, spread out into the world.'— Aspen Paskal The latest news about trans people in America is rarely positive. Executive orders coming out of the White House curtail the public lives of trans people more and more each day. Discrimination and harassment are rampant as are the stories of violence and suicide. We can predict that more trans people, especially trans women of color ― already more at risk than other groups ― will be murdered. And that is often compounded by gender dysphoria, the distress some people feel when their bodies or presentations — or society's perceptions of them — don't align with their gender. While it's a scary time in history to be trans, there are countless transgender and gender nonconforming people leading everyday lives full of joyful resistance. And just plain joy — the kind all humans feel in large ways and small, the kind that comes from taking a risk, achieving a goal, helping others or enjoying nature. Joy can, and should, be accessible to everyone. More from Freep Opinion: As a gay couple, we worried about acceptance in conservative Michigan town Ximón Kittok (they/them) says it's 'vital' to focus on trans joy, now more than ever. 'It offers that important counter narrative to what a lot of the media out there is focusing on,' Kittok said, 'which is the misinformation around trans identity and trans experience, or tragedy narratives around how tough it is to be trans.' As executive director of the Grand Rapids Trans Foundation, Kittok knows this well. 'I think focusing on gender euphoria is a beautiful thing,' they continued. 'Transness is about coming into yourself in a really authentic and meaningful way.' For Kittok, who is genderqueer and nonbinary, that means asking themselves the kind of questions many of us ask, even if we're not trans or gender nonconforming: Who am I? How do I want to show up in the world? How do I want to show up to myself in a way that feels very liberating? 'Despite all of the negative legislation and media coverage, people are continuing to come out as trans because it is that life-saving and life-affirming,' Kittok added. More from Freep Opinion: I'm a gay man in Detroit. Celebrating Pride feels more important than ever. New research from Swinburne University and Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia backs this up. Reframing how trans people see themselves can improve mental health outcomes. And it's not just the fault of the government and the media. Even the medical establishment sometimes focuses too much on transness as marked by gender dysphoria and feeling out of place in one's body, Kittok says. 'Shifting the narrative to something that is more focused on gender euphoria can sort of depathologize the experience,' Kittok said, 'where it's less about what's wrong and more about finding what feels right.' Given that gender dysphoria is a feeling of distress, gender euphoria, conversely, is the feeling of comfort or happiness some trans people feel when their gender is affirmed. People sometimes experience gender euphoria when their body aligns with their gender or when others use the correct name and pronouns for them. One trans advocate in the Swinburne University study compared gender euphoria to 'being able to breathe without having to think about it, when — maybe for years — you had to think about every single breath.' For some, it's about being addressed properly for the first time. For others, it's hormones or surgery that help people feel more comfortable and in alignment with their identity. It might be the first time a trans person wears clothing and presents oneself to the world in a way that feels authentic. At the Grand Rapids Trans Foundation and out in the community, Kittok often witnesses trans and gender diverse individuals experiencing validation in their authentic selves for the first time. Sometimes, that happens in a courtroom. 'We have helped hundreds and hundreds of trans people through their legal name change process,' Kittok said. 'And as part of that, for our organization it's important that we provide emotional and moral support.' They explained the law recently changed, and that navigating any legal process can be daunting. Talking to a judge can also feel daunting, so folks using the Foundation's services are asked if they would like someone to accompany them and be a 'friendly face.' 'The moment when the judge says, OK, your name is now officially, you know, 'your name,' and they sign the document, the level of just joy and ecstasy that people experience in that moment where their name is officially changed is a really beautiful and powerful moment,' Kittok said. 'I think name changes tend to be sort of a rite of passage for the trans community in a lot of ways.' Baddie Brooks (she/her), a vocal artist, musician and first-year music teacher who lives in Ypsilanti, talked about her own experiences with gender euphoria. Brooks was recently named Miss Trans Michigan 2025 by Trans USA National Pageantry, a 501c3 organization whose pageants emphasize advocacy for the trans community. It's like a weight has been lifted, Brooks says. 'It almost feels like you had an elephant on your chest and then it just lifts suddenly.' That can happen naturally when people use Brooks' correct pronouns or she is treated with respect in the workplace. When people refuse to do 'the bare minimum,' Brooks says, it's sad. 'I definitely get nervous every time I start a new job, because I never know if the environment is going to be accepting or not. I'm thankful to be in the current position I'm in as a music educator as well as a performer, because, you know, whenever you have an employer who's not accepting, it's very disheartening.' As a performer and pageant winner, Brooks has chosen to lead a very public life. And a large part of her confidence stems from the joy she finds in being and expressing her authentic self. Brooks enjoys the glamor of pageantry, noting that she's a big fan of drag pageants. Miss Trans Michigan piqued that interest, she says, 'Because it was rooted in advocacy for the trans community. And everyone who's competing is trans.' Brooks first experienced gender euphoria as a student at Eastern Michigan University where she studied journalism, public relations and music. 'I think one of the first moments that I experienced joy is the first time that I got my makeup done,' Brooks said. 'Their name was Morgan, a friend that I went to school at Eastern with. It was my first time wearing makeup and I kind of did it in secret, because I just wasn't allowed to do that in the home that I grew up in.' That was the first time, Brooks said, she was able to express her femininity. Brooks performed at Ferndale Pride May 31, and continues touring festivals all over the state and beyond. Separately, Brooks' 16-track album, released in 2023, is the basis of her Reclamation Tour, which, not coincidentally, has a lot to do with trans joy. 'On my tour, people will expect the full creative storytelling of reclamation,' Brooks said. 'So the story will center around how queer and trans people are able to reclaim their identity and how there is power in reclaiming who you are despite society's expectations, despite bias, discrimination.' Like Brooks, Aspen Paskal (he/him) is an educator. Over the course of his career, he has worked with youth in communities across the country. Recently, Paskal was laid off because the grant that supported his work was cut 'due to the political situation.' Paskal is taking it in stride, perhaps because at 61 he has faced greater personal challenges, and remains remarkably positive. Gender euphoria is something he's very attuned to. 'For me, it's a meditation practice,' said Paskal, who was born in Detroit and returned two and half years ago after a long hiatus. 'So when I first get up in the morning, I'm going to actually support and honor me being trans in the world, and what a gift it was for me to take 40-plus years to realize that I was a trans masc person.' Sharing that inner joy and direct experience is part of Paskal's practice, too. He explained by positing a few questions: 'Sometimes being trans, there's ways that you have to figure out, how can I access that trans joy more often? How can I bring it into my daily life? How can I bring it into my relationships with people that I love? How do I bring that trans joy to people that I might be having some disagreements with because they're misgendering me or they're not using the pronouns or respecting the pronouns that I use?' Paskal has gone through many life changes over the last few years in the aftermath of the death of his father at the age of 102. At that time, Paskal decided to return to Detroit to live in the home he grew up in. A profound moment occurred one day, when Paskal, who is a master gardener, was tending a plot at a community garden in Berkeley, California, his home of more than 35 years. 'I was just filled to the brim with sadness,' Paskal says, 'grieving the loss of my father, grieving the loss of not being in Detroit, grieving the loss of a relationship that had recently ended. So there had been a number of things that I brought directly into the soil, the compost of the plot. And I just cried.' Then Paskal asked the universe for a sign, to show how he could go through the grief and sadness and still remain rooted to the planet. At that moment, out of that place of sorrow, Paskal envisioned a well-rooted tree with many interconnected roots. And he recognized the roots as belonging to a colony of trees: Aspen trees. 'I knew immediately that that was my name: Aspen,' Paskal said. 'And out of that interconnected place, it was like I just walked through a brand new door. There was sunlight just streaming down everywhere. And I realized that the life that I had been carrying around in my body for so long finally was starting to emerge. And from that, I realized that it was time for me to leave the Bay Area, believe it or not, and come back to my roots, Detroit. And it was the best decision I've made in my entire life.' Ellen Knoppow is a writer who believes in second acts. Her work has appeared in Pride Source/ Between The Lines, The Philadelphia Gay News, Our Lives Magazine and Oakland County Times. In 2022, Ellen received the award for Excellence in Transgender Coverage from NLGJA: The Association for LGBTQ+ Journalists and a 2024 Michigan Press Association award for her coverage of government and education. Submit a letter to the editor at and we may run it online and in print. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: For Pride, trans Michiganders share joy in their identities | Opinion
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
As a gay couple, we worried about acceptance in conservative Michigan town
My husband and I were married two years ago this August, after dating for 11 years. Neither of us had been in a hurry to tie the knot. We've always had a loving and easy relationship, and formalizing it didn't seem all that changed in June 2022, when I was infected with COVID-19 and double pneumonia. After spending nine days in the hospital, I returned home to recover. As my husband was hooking up my oxygen, it struck me — this was the most important person in the world to me. He was, and still is, the kindest person I know. I looked at him and said, 'Do you want to get married?' He said, 'Sure.'The next year, we had a small wedding attended by close friends and family, and we started to plan for the future. One of those plans included buying a cottage on a lake. We focused our search on the Irish Hills region of Michigan, not far from our home in Detroit. But we ended up falling in love with a house on a beautiful and peaceful lake in Hillsdale, Michigan, just outside the Irish Hills. More from Freep Opinion: Democrats better hope Michigan Gov. Whitmer changes her mind about presidential run To be honest, we were surprised. So were most of our friends. Hillsdale is known as one of the most conservative areas in Michigan. Our friendship circle in Detroit is diverse, and mostly leans progressive. After the purchase, I had questions: Would we fit in? Would we be accepted as a gay couple? Would we feel welcome, and find other LGBTQ+ people? Yes, we probably should've asked those questions before buying. But the truth is, we were taken in by the countryside's beauty — we both grew up in rural areas, and it felt like coming home. Now, after 15 months in Hillsdale, we couldn't be happier. We've built a community of friends from across the political spectrum, and have met other LGBTQ+ couples on a nearby lake. One of our neighbors is Japanese, and we trade information about favorite restaurant and grocery stores in the metro Detroit area. And the most important lesson I've learned? Our neighbors in Hillsdale are just like our neighbors in Detroit. They're kind. They work in all sorts of jobs. They have families. They look out for each other — and for us. Our neighbors in Hillsdale ― like in Detroit ― have keys to our house, and take the trash out or bring the can up when we aren't there. We realized we don't have to necessarily be in a community of LGBTQ+ people. We just needed to be in an accepting community. More from Freep Opinion: Ghost of Brooks Patterson and specter of Donald Trump collide in Oakland County Soon after buying the house, there was a storm and tornado warning. I contacted one of our neighbors to check on the house. She texted back an image of a rainbow over our house and the comment, 'It must be a sign of welcome to the neighborhood.' In today's uncertain world, we've found a sense of comfort here that mirrors what we feel in Detroit. Our experience in Hillsdale has challenged the assumptions I once held about 'red states' vs. 'blue states,' or conservatives vs. liberals. Most people, it turns out, fall somewhere in the middle. Some lean left on certain issues; others lean right. But what I've seen is that at the end of the day, what really matters is how we treat each other. I hope that one day soon, we can all move past the constant divisions and labels. Let's focus on relationships, on building community, and — perhaps most importantly — simply being kind to one Dick is a proud gay man living with his husband in Detroit's East English Village, and part time in Hillsdale, Michigan. He spent 18 years with the City of Detroit, most recently as Chief Operating Officer. He joined Wayne State University in the fall of 2024 as Sr. Associate Vice President and Deputy Chief Business Officer. Submit a letter to the editor at and we may publish it online and in print. Like what you're reading? Please consider supporting local journalism and getting unlimited digital access with a Detroit Free Press subscription. We depend on readers like you. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan gay couple finds home in conservative Hillsdale | Opinion
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Musk-Trump spat on X is a distraction from the failures of DOGE
Elon Musk stepped down from his position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on May 30, only months after promising to transform government by cutting trillions of dollars from the federal budget and eliminating so-called 'waste, fraud and abuse.' Just a week later, Musk's relationship with President Donald Trump ― the man Musk spent nearly $300 million to elect — went up in flames, as Americans watched the drama unfold in real time on X and Truth Social. Trump publicly denounced Musk as 'disloyal' for criticizing the president's signature legislative effort, the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' while Musk called the bill a 'disgusting abomination' and openly called for Trump's impeachment. The spectacle of the richest man in the world and the president of the United States exchanging insults online may be remembered as DOGE's final chapter in the public imagination. But it should not obscure the damage Musk wrought when he commanded one of the most powerful positions in the Trump administration. More from Freep Opinion: Democrats better hope Michigan Gov. Whitmer changes her mind about presidential run To start, Musk's promised savings never came. The DOGE website currently claims to have saved the public $175 billion through a range of actions like eliminating 'fraud and improper payment' and cancelling grants. But even that sum — which is believed to be falsely inflated through a combination of guesswork and suspect arithmetic — is less than 3% of the federal budget, and less than 9% of the $2 trillion in cuts Musk promised upon assuming his role. In other words, DOGE failed on Musk's own terms. What did materialize is an unprecedented attack on public institutions, beginning with the people who carry out the work of public service. According to the latest data, around 260,000 federal employees have either been forced out, been slated for cuts, or chosen to leave their posts since DOGE began its work. These aren't faceless 'bureaucrats.' They are the people who test our water for contaminants, inspect our food for harmful bacteria, and ensure air travel is safe, among other public services. The department with the highest number of planned terminations is Veterans Affairs, with up to 80,900 personnel serving our nation's veterans slated for future cuts, according to the New York Times. Many of these jobs are health care workers who care for veterans directly. More from Freep Opinion: I'm a gay man in Detroit. Celebrating Pride feels more important than ever In cutting both people and programs that provide essential services, DOGE attempted a bargain that Michiganders are painfully familiar with: treat government like a business, and attempt to cut public services to balance the books no matter the risks to public health, the economy or democracy. During our state's era of emergency management, decision-making power in several cities and school districts like Flint and Detroit shifted from democratically elected local officials to appointees of the governor. In Flint, a series of emergency managers focused on cost-cutting to address the city's financial crisis, including the ill-fated decision to switch the city's water source. The result was the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in American history. Flint should have been a warning to the country that 'efficiency' without regard for public welfare is a dangerous proposition. Yet DOGE was a far more extreme expression of this logic. Like Flint, the DOGE experiment is a grave warning about what happens when democracy is treated as a private enterprise rather than a public trust, when billionaires think they know best what people need in their own communities. And while it may take decades to account for the potential harms DOGE's actions might produce, we are already seeing some. Here in Michigan, DOGE reportedly canceled $394 million in federal public health grants, money that ultimately supports local health initiatives statewide. These cuts are not abstract. They will be felt in people's bodies and the broader society. Local health providers will have to cut back on critical services such as vaccine administration and interventions for substance use disorder. According to a 2019 study, every dollar invested in public health departments yields as much as $67 to $88 of benefits to society. DOGE also cut $15 million in AmeriCorps funding for our state, impacting programs that offered tutoring, support for seniors, and assistance for homeless residents. At a time when Michigan ranks 34th in the nation in overall child wellbeing, students in more than 60 school districts may see tutoring support disappear. This begs the question: Who ultimately benefited from Musk's relentless cutting? The clear answer is Elon Musk, who is $170 billion richer since endorsing Trump in the summer of 2024, even accounting for the drop in Tesla's stock attributed to the public backlash over DOGE's actions. (How this most recent fiasco will affect Musk's bottom line remains to be seen.) Meanwhile, DOGE spent months attempting to 'delete' entire agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which stops predatory banks from scamming veterans, seniors, and consumers in general. And it destroyed the IRS' ability to audit wealthy tax cheats, forcing workers and families to shoulder more of the nation's tax responsibility. DOGE has also made us less free. The initiative's most significant legacy may be what the writer Julia Anguin described as 'a sprawling domestic surveillance system for the Trump administration ― the likes of which we have never seen in the United States.' In agency after agency, Musk and his lieutenants accessed the most sensitive data about Americans and handled it with reckless disregard. Information like Social Security numbers and bank accounts that once stood in the relative safety of government silos are now being merged to create more sweeping surveillance tools than ever before. They could be used to further crack down on immigrants' speech, or to simply make it easier to target political enemies. This is what we're left with. A public more exposed to harm — from preventable diseases, from corporate predation and scams, from toxins in our air and water—and a small group of wealthy elites more empowered to dominate our government and our democracy. Perhaps this is why a solid majority of Americans disapprove of Musk's job performance, arguably accelerating his departure from government. The American public deserves a government that is fit for purpose and delivers on its promises. But Elon Musk never intended to create that. DOGE was built on the fiction of Musk's mastery of all things, one of the many myths attributed to the ultra-wealthy. What it concealed was a public sector novice who failed to understand the basic mechanics of the institutions he railed against. On the day Musk announced his departure, a lawsuit against him and DOGE was cleared to proceed, accusing him of wielding unlawful power over federal agencies, contracts and data without democratic oversight. It was a fitting coda. Musk left behind no durable reform, only institutions hollowed out, public trust frayed, and a template for how easily government can be turned against the people it exists to serve. Even this spectacular fallout with Trump should not distract from the wreckage he leaves behind. Bilal Baydoun is Director of Democratic Institutions at the Roosevelt Institute, a national policy think tank devoted to building on the legacy of FDR. A version of this column was previously published on the Roosevelt Institute's Substack. Submit a letter to the editor at and we may publish it online and in print. Like what you're reading? Please consider supporting local journalism and getting unlimited digital access witha Detroit Free Press subscription. We depend on readers like you. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Elon Musk-Trump spat is a distraction from DOGE failures | Opinion
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
I'm a gay man in Detroit. Celebrating Pride feels more important than ever.
Robert M. Nelson here. A couple of years back, I wrote a guest column in this fine newspaper about what can feel like insincere corporate support for Pride — how it can be a performative act to maximize profit, that at its worst erodes the authentic queer experience, and at its best gives us a surface level of seen-ness, a mainstream support that often feels as thin as a dollar bill. Since I last wrote here, things have only gotten more worrisome for queer folks in America and are downright terrifying for our transgender siblings. Rights and respect for LGBTQ+ people had been moving forward for the last few decades, but now those rights are being peeled away. And the moment the political headwinds changed, support for LGBTQ+ Americans started to feel very flimsy. Pride has always had a special place in my heart, but this year i'm feeling it so much more. More from Freep Opinion: LGBTQ+ pride is being diluted by corporate rainbow washing Growing up, my parents and grandparents taught to me to believe in and to love America — a country, a place, a belief come to life ― an idea that in execution is often severely flawed, but ultimately strives towards the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, be they an immigrant, gay, queer, women, men, trans, fat, thin, old, Black, Asian, disabled or able-bodied. But it seems our government, and as such, we the American people, are no longer striving — our country is feeling like a scarier, far less hopeful place. You can feel it, too, can't you? The exhausting weariness of trying to get by in a country where the truth, science and so many people matter far less than they did a few years ago; where the future for anyone who isn't a billionaire ― and LBGTQ+ folks especially ― grows darker and darker each day. There are regular attacks on the middle and working classes through the increasing cost of living, cuts to Veterans Affairs, Medicaid and other health services and medical research. Attacks on trans and queer folks, and the executive orders policing the bodies of (mostly) women, transgender and non-binary people, seem to be the steps to a subjugation of queer people and, at some point in the not-so-distant future, of all women. Queer teen suicide ideation (already twice the rate of their straight-identifying counterparts) is up , along with the feeling that people just don't care about each other. And the odds of anything changing in the near term are down. Being an employed, white, gay, cis male with stable housing gives me some privilege, a bit of a shield against what's coming. But watching the erasure of trans folks, queer folks, women, people of color and more, I am very worried — concerned, confused and worn-the-hell out. I fluctuate between thinking I, or someone I love, will be disappeared or sent to a gulag, and thinking I'm crazy for worrying about being sent to a gulag. (A gulag, an El Salvadorian prison … without due process under the law, we are all at risk.) More from Freep Opinion: Trump's attacks on your access to news are all part of Project 2025 I don't know what the future holds, but I do know this … from Patroclus and Achilles to me and that dizzyingly dashing bantamweight MMA fighter, queer love has been with us since before recorded time, and it cannot be erased. It's not going anywhere. Alas, queer hate, using the smallest minority as a scapegoat to rally against, has been with us for nearly as long. And that's why we have Pride. Pride Month is more than just a time to wave rainbow flags, show off cute outfits and watch a drag show while eating chicken-on-a-stick. At its very heart, Pride is an event to gather with people who care, with folks who are sharing the same oftentimes lonesome and frightening experience, a place for all who are marginalized to feel accepted, heard, and, for one weekend at Hart Plaza (or last weekend at Ferndale Pride or Hotter Than July next months in Palmer Park, or at the many Pride events across our state) at least, to be surrounded, supported and seen by people just like you. Just like me. Pride is a home, and you, queer reader, are Pride.I don't know what we can do to save or reclaim our country, but maybe it's the same as what we can do to save or reclaim our sense of self: Rally likeminded individuals to support, to vote, to come together, to shout, to celebrate ourselves, our authentic existence, our lives, our liberty, our pursuit of happiness, our very survival and … our Robert M. Nelson at the MotorCity Pride Parade on Sunday, June 8 at 12 p.m. Find more information about Detroit's Pride celebration at Submit a letter to the editor at and we may publish it online and in print. Like what you're reading? Please consider supporting local journalism and getting unlimited digital access with a Detroit Free Press subscription. We depend on readers like you. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: As a gay man in Detroit, LGBTQ+ Pride is important this year | Opinion
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's attacks on your access to news are all part of Project 2025
Ignorance is Donald Trump's best friend, which would explain why he is not a fan of a free press that strives to provide fair and balanced reporting of the facts. Fair and balanced media just doesn't work for what this particular president and his team of government wrecking balls seem to have in mind, because it doesn't provide the steady, rage-inducing diet of misinformation required by his base. Or maybe I should say, required to keep his base in line and on script. Just for one example, Trump claimed last month that the price of eggs had come down 'like 93%, 94% since we took office.' That's not just misinformation, that's a lie. The truth is that the price of eggs hit a record high in March. If the only information American voters had access to was provided by a fair and balanced media, I suspect Donald Trump might never have been elected. But instead, we are deluged daily with a firehose of misinformation and disinformation mixed in with actual truthful information that is misleadingly presented as "choice." This mainline infusion of lies and more lies has gained traction in MAGA circles as 'alternative facts,' thanks in large part to Kellyanne Conway, former counsel to President Trump, who used the phrase in a Meet The Press interview in January of 2017. Between that, and Trump's fondness for referring to news he doesn't like as 'fake news,' too many folks these days seem to believe there is no such thing as actual truth, just what you choose to believe. If we continue down the road that says the truth is optional, then Trump is just the beginning of our woes, not the end. I'm not saying I know precisely how to do it, but I do know that we've got to figure this out. Maybe it starts with understanding that Trump's attacks on media are part of a coordinated plan, laid out in, what else, Project 2025. More from Freep Opinion: Project 2025 is bad. Its successor, Project Esther, plans for the Rapture. According to a rather lengthy but highly informative piece written last year about what Project 2025 could mean for the media, the Brookings Institute reminded its readers of the following: 'Congress enacted the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act because they believed an educated and informed citizenry was in the public, local, and national interest.' Now compare that to Project 2025's views of public media: 'To stop public funding (of public broadcasting) is good policy and good politics. The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become 'a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,' but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism.' In 1974, not even a decade after the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office in disgrace after two young Washington Post reporters discovered that the president was trying to steal an election. But it wasn't just their steady stream of increasingly damaging scoops that resulted in Nixon's impeachment, followed by his resignation; it was the fact that the vast majority of Americans who followed these stories did not think to dismiss them as "fake news," and no one had ever heard of "alternative facts." The nation was largely incensed by what Nixon had tried to do, and the subsequent televised Watergate hearings became the primary relied-upon source of information for tens of thousands of Americans about the details of the coverup that nearly wrecked their country. Those were the days. More from Freep Opinion: How much of Project 2025 has been implemented? Enough to break us beyond repair. Today, Trump refers to the media as the "enemy of the people," and is now seeking to defund the Public Broadcasting System, among others. Trump's budget, released earlier this month, eliminates funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and National Public Radio. This is part of a broader plan, laid out by Project 2025, to at least severely cripple, if not dismantle, any and all media outlets deemed not friendly enough to the Trump administration. To quote the document itself: 'The 47th President can just tell the Congress — through the budget he proposes and through personal contact — that he will not sign an appropriations spending bill that contains a penny for the CPB. The President may have to use the bully pulpit, as NPR and PBS have teams of lobbyists who have convinced enough Members of Congress to save their bacon every time their taxpayer subsidies have been at risk since the Nixon era. ... Stripping public funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting. They should no longer, for example, be qualified as noncommercial education stations (NCE stations), which they clearly no longer are.' Without noncommerical status, PBS and NPR stations would have to pay for their licenses, and pay taxes, all while losing federal funds. But, naturally, Trump swore throughout his campaign that he didn't know anything about Project 2025, despite the fact that several key authors of that plan served in his administration. In March of this year, acting in lockstep with the blueprint he says he never heard of, Trump banned the Associated Press from White House grounds because they refused to start calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The AP took the Trump administration to court and won a decision to once again be allowed to be a member of the White House press pool. But Trump, being Trump, has defied that court order, and still won't allow AP reporters on White House grounds. Trump has also filed lawsuits against the New York Times; the Des Moines Register (a member of the USA Today Network, of which the Detroit Free Press is part), dismissed in February; ABC, settled last year for $15 million; Simon and Schuster; CBS; and a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN that was dismissed in 2023. It's true that Trump hasn't quite yet figured out how to completely shut down all media outlets he doesn't like, which is quite a few media outlets, and it's worth noting that plenty of publications do continue to publish the news, even if not all Americans care to consume it. Many college newspapers, however, have been experiencing incidents of students desperately requesting that possibly offensive articles be removed or retracted out of fear of what might happen to them for criticizing the Trump administration. The headline of a recent AP story, 'College journalists wrestle with transparency as students fear deportation for speaking out' pretty much spells it out: 'Many young editors are beginning to reconsider long-standing journalistic practices around transparency to protect the people who appear in their reports. It's happening amid a climate of fear on campuses that is causing certain students to be reluctant to speak out publicly. "These dramatic shifts in student media escalated after Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, was threatened with deportation and detained in March over what her lawyers say is apparent retaliation for an op-ed piece she co-wrote in the student newspaper.' Remember that Trump is the same guy who is now gleefully deporting legal immigrants without due process, and has expressed a burning desire to similarly export born-in-the USA Americans who he deems as unworthy. And if that sweep manages to "accidentally" sweep up some non-guilty folk, then, oh well. Collateral damage and all that. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who realized early the power of televised news coverage to make the case for civil and human rights to be granted to Black people in America. During the civil rights movement, it was television that turned the tide in our favor when white people across America saw for the first time images of how ugly this country could be, with fire hoses and vicious dogs being turned on peaceful protesters. Not to mention the horrifying photo published on the cover of Jet magazine of a brutally disfigured Emmett Till in an open coffin, because his mother, Mamie Till, wanted America to see what white racism had done to her son. Because what if none of those incidents had ever been recorded or televised? Where would we be now? Or perhaps a more pertinent question might be, how different the reaction might have been to the disfigured image of Emmett Till in modern-day America? Today, social media and other "alternative" news outlets like Fox News have contributed to a total re-write of history for thousands of Americans who rely on them for "truth"; saying that the Jan. 6 insurrection was really just a tourist jaunt and that those arrested for being patriotic tourists were victimized political prisoners. Until Trump set them free. In such a climate, anyone who wanted to believe Emmett Till's murder was fabricated could easily find a "news" source to support whatever alternative facts they preferred to believe. As summer approaches, a remarkable number of anti-Trump protests have been organized around the country, including ridiculously large crowds in heavily Republican red states like Idaho and Utah. Trump has already tried to lie about the actual size of these crowds, which have been in the tens of thousands, but news coverage and cell phone cameras have made the truth plain to see. Many of us take this ability to tell the truth in the face of repression for granted. Don't. Free Press contributing columnist Keith A. Owens is a local writer and co-founder of Detroit Stories Quarterly and the We Are Speaking Substack newsletter and podcast. Submit a letter to the editor at and we may publish it online and in print. Like what you're reading? Please consider supporting local journalism and getting unlimited digital access with a Detroit Free Press subscription. We depend on readers like you. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump attacks on information access are part of Project 2025 | Opinion
