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SUMMER UPDATES
Updates on LGBTQ Issues, especially those that reference the Transgender Community
NEWS: The May 2025 page (HERE) highlighted the targeting of transgender health care via the House reconciliation budget bill . At the last minute, those draconian measures were dropped. The ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care (for individuals of all ages) was struck after the Senate parliamentarian found it did not comply with the Byrd Rule. Named after late senator Robert Byrd, the rule aims to prevent matters not relevant to the actual budget from being included in budget reconciliation legislation. For more details, click HERE.
This small victory in no way ends, or even slows, the administration's persistent and cruel attacks on the transgender community. The updates below are just a few examples.
Erin in the Morning S. Baum, July 20, 2025
PR criminalizes the provision of hormone treatment or surgery for anyone under 21 years of age and exposes, not only doctors, but also affirming parents, to prosecution (15 years in prison, $50,000, and loss of medical certification).
The statute also forces medical detransition for those already taking puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy.
The New York Times Jill Cowan, July 22, 2025
Trump's campaign advances into blue states, successfully forcing the closure of transgender clinics in medical systems across the US, both public and private, using a variety of intimidation techniques. Kaiser Permanente, for example, cites federal scrutiny and potential legal and regulatory risks while major medical centers such as UCLA and Stanford are threatened with a loss of significant funding.
Devastating .pdf
While the administration moves swiftly to eliminate all avenues to receiving the care that is endorsed by medical experts, it is simultaneously terminating the federal support created to address emotional stresses and the high risk of suicide that struggling transgender youth experience... only heightened by the shuttering of essential health care.
“Kids are going to die,” [Seth] Moulton said when asked about the termination’s effects. “This is actually the kind of thing Republicans should care about if they really care about American kids, because an extraordinary percentage of the people who call this lifeline in a moment of crisis say that it saved their lives.”
The New England Journal of Medicine
July 9, 2025
The NEJM weighs in on the outcome of the Skrmetti case.
On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (6-3) in United States v. Skrmetti, upholding the lower court's ruling that a Tennessee law (SB1) banning gender affirming care for minors does not violate the U.S Constitution's 14th amendment equal protection clause.
Read more from the ACLU HERE.
Don't be put off by the title of this very important interview!
It is a wide ranging discussion of trans issues and political strategy.
Sarah McBride is a freshman congresswoman from Delaware, previously a state senator. The first openly transgender member of Congress, McBride is intelligent, articulate, and relatable.
Shared widely, this video (and transcript) have been a topic of conversation, comment, and controversy.
You will find the interview engaging and thought provoking.
Updates on Racism and the continuing Destruction of DEI
The New York Times Magazine Essay by Nicole Hannah-Jones June 27, 2025
"...But to see what Trump is doing as simply eliminating so-called “D.E.I.” is to misunderstand the scale and the consequences. What’s at stake is not only corporate diversity trainings, equity offices and the use of pronouns in email signatures. Many diversity, equity and inclusion programs were put in place to help ensure compliance with civil rights laws and to foster integration in a society that for most of its history explicitly discriminated against Black Americans. No court has deemed these programs illegal. Yet in the opening months of his second term, Trump has capitalized on the unpopularity of equality efforts among some Americans, glibly wielding the language of D.E.I. to initiate the broadest and most significant assault on civil rights and racial integration in this country in more than a century."
The New England Journal of Medicine
June 21, 2025
The NEJM comments on the loss of diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine and science.
This illuminating essay ends with the following conclusion:
"Institutions and individuals committed to science, freedom, and justice must vehemently resist efforts to censor
scientific inquiry, revise history, and erect barriers to health and opportunity. The stakes for science, medicine, and the
nation’s health are simply too high for us to stand by and watch the destruction."
The Health Equity, Medical, and Scientific Costs of Dismantling DEI _ New England Journal of Medicine.pdfFor another story tabout how DEI is being dismantled and the associated losses, go to the Recent News page HERE.
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