This is Trans News Tracker, a biweekly Autostraddle roundup and analysis of the biggest trans news stories.
What can I say? This week featured yet another onslaught of major attacks on trans lives, which you’ll read about below. There is a lot to be scared about right now, and I know it’s difficult to try to stay informed when it’s one horrific piece of news after another. But we’re still here, as we’ve always been here, and we’re still fighting back, as we always have. Staying locked in to what’s going on is an important way of taking care of yourself. We have to remember to protect ourselves and keep organizing our communities, and that means knowing what we have to protect ourselves from. We can keep each other safe. You’ll also see some people working to do that here this week. Let’s make sure we’re doing our part where and when we can.
House Passes Bill That Targets Medicaid Coverage of Gender-Affirming Care for All Americans
At this point, you’ve probably heard most of the news regarding the Trump Administration’s nonsensically and jingoistically named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (HR 1), the budget reconciliation bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives by one vote at 1 a.m. on Thursday, May 22. Although the bill features a number of horrors — including allocating more funds to build immigration detention centers, banning the provision of federal funds for health clinics that provide abortion care, prohibiting the courts from holding executive branch officials in contempt, lowering the child tax credit, and repealing a $200 tax on gun silencers — one of the most gutting and dangerous provisions in the bill would prevent Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from covering any type of gender-affirming care for any person of any age in the U.S.
In addition to targeting Medicaid and CHIP, the bill also threatens to cut “gender transition procedures” — meaning everything from hormone replacement therapy to gender-affirming surgeries — from the list of Essential Health Benefits that insurance plans offered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) must cover in order to be included in the ACA’s available coverage. To make this happen, the bill attempts to codify the Trump administration’s definition of “biological sex,” as outlined in the “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order Trump signed in January, and use this definition in all ACA rules and provisions. As Samantha Riedel writes, “The text — similar to language that appeared in the March draft rule — would, in effect, arbitrarily categorize many intersex people as either “male” or “female” […] It is not clear how such determinations would be made.” This is a big leap forward from the ACA provisions the Trump administration was threatening to make in April.
While speculation generally means very little in situations like this, there were several reports over the weekend about HR 1’s chances in the Senate, and many of the reports seem to think it doesn’t stand a chance of making it to the president’s desk. Apparently, many GOP senators are already discussing tanking the bill for a variety of financial reasons. Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson has been vocally criticizing the bill alongside Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul and Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley. They each have their own distinct criticisms, but Johnson has threatened that he will use his allyship with some GOP Senators to ensure the bill does not pass in its current state. However, that doesn’t mean an amended version will not pass sometime in the not-so-distant future.
For now, HR 1 still has to go to the Senate for an initial vote before further changes are made, but an official date has not yet been set.
If you’re wondering what you can do in the meantime, I suggest getting tapped into an organization in your area that is working to protect trans people during this time, especially through various kinds of mutual aid. Whatever work they’re doing, you should make yourself aware of it and aid them however you can. You and everyone you know can also flood the phone lines and emails of your state senator to tell them to vote “No” on this treacherous bill.
Some Good News For Once
Why the National Mall is suddenly covered in hundreds of quilts. Ahead of the forthcoming Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti, which will decide if state bans on gender-affirming care for minors are unconstitutional, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has created the Freedom to Be Monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The monument features 258 quilts made by trans people and their allies.
Trans rights festival Liberation Weekend is set to happen this week. Washington D.C.-based punk band Ekko Astral and NYC-based organizing collective Gender Liberation Movement (GLM) have teamed up to produce a weekend-long music festival in the capitol in celebration of trans lives and to raise funds for GLM’s future demonstrations against anti-trans policymaking. The festival takes place May 30 and 31, and tickets are still available here.
Yosemite climbers unfurl transgender pride flag on iconic El Capitan. A coalition of trans, queer, and ally rock climbers called Trans is Natural climbed 1,500 feet up the El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park to hang a trans pride flag in front of park visitors to remind people “Trans people are natural and Trans people are loved.”
Utah study on trans youth care extremely inconvenient for politicians who ordered it. This is kind of a good news/bad news situation but I’m putting it here in hopes it will lead to good news. Two years after Utah’s ban on gender affirming care for minors went into effect, a new study conducted by the Drug Regimen Review Center at the University of Utah should be making them eat their words. The study concluded that the state’s ban “cannot be justified” by science, which could mean some legal action against the ban might take place soon. However, for the time being, Utah Republicans seem pretty intent on ignoring the fact that the study exists.
Trump administration must restore health articles scrubbed for transgender mentions, judge rules. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston, MA ordered the Trump administration to restore all of the articles authored by doctors and medical professionals that were taken down from government-run websites, particularly the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), because their articles mentioned trans people. The judge cited the First Amendment in his decision and argued the administration’s actions were a blatant violation of it.
How Democrats crushed a despicable anti-trans campaign and won a major election (in Nebraska). In what seems like an impossible twist these days, an “unbeatable” Republican mayor in Omaha, NE double-downed on anti-trans bigotry and was beaten by the Democratic mayoral candidate because of the continued attacks. It’s worth reading how it all happened.
Trans-led advocacy wins hard-fought victory in Colorado legislature. The Kelly Loving Act expands anti-discrimination protections for trans people in the state and defines deadnaming and misgendering as discriminatory acts under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA). It also ensures that students may dress according to their gender identity and simplifies the process for updating legal documents. A huge win.
Federal appeals court continues to block Florida’s drag-show ban as likely unconstitutional. As a Floridian, I love to see Ron Desantis’s continued public humiliation as a politician play out on the national stage.
Judge temporarily blocks Montana’s bathroom bill. Lawmakers in Montana stay winning in the battle for trans rights in the state, and it’s amazing to keep watching it happen over and over again.
Advocates seek $35 million to support trans community in NYC budget. Although this is local to NYC, this is an incredible community-led action featuring organization of several nonprofit and activist groups in the City and can serve as an important model for other coalitions seeking to do this kind of work.
News I Wish I Didn’t Have to Report
Sen. Mike Lee’s obscenity bill could set the stage for a nationwide ban on pornography. Where lawmakers in Florida are attempting to take down the Federal mandate known as the “Miller Test,” lawmakers in Utah have set their sights on challenging the mandate through a state-wide pornography ban. This is not specifically trans news, but challenges to the Miller Test could have far-reaching implications, including the creation of a new mandate (or worse, a law) that defines trans expression as obscene. Something to keep our eyes on, for sure.
Federal judge strikes down workplace protections for transgender workers. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission “exceeded its statutory authority” by issuing guidelines to employers that advocated for trans people to be treated fairly in the first place. Some of the guidelines include advising employers against “deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, and barring employees from wearing dress code-compliant clothing according to their gender identity.”
Parent groups sue Colorado officials over transgender rights expansion of anti-discrimination law. That Colorado bill I mentioned in the “good news” section of this column is being challenged by a bunch of shady, far-right parent groups and one nutjob dermatologist (for some reason). So far, nothing indicates how successful or unsuccessful this lawsuit might be.
Alliance Defending Freedom sues Minnesota to mandate trans discrimination. Per Erin Reed: “The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of the anti-trans advocacy group Female Athletes United, argues that Title IX requires schools to discriminate against transgender students. […] It seeks a judicial declaration that allowing transgender girls to participate in sports ‘fails to provide equal treatment, benefits, and opportunities for girls’ under Title IX. If granted, such a ruling would effectively declare that transgender women and girls are not legally recognized as women or girls for the purposes of federal education law—opening the door to their forced exclusion from bathrooms, sports teams, and other sex-separated spaces.”
From across the pond: Cross-sex hormones for under 18s could be restricted or banned. Following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling defining “woman” as “biologically female,” the Health Secretary Wes Streeting is now pushing to ban gender-affirming care for young people administered through the National Health Service.
Last Bits
New oral history captures decades of trans life in the words of elders of color. This book by Caro De Robertis looks incredible, and I loved this interview by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.
“Rainbow Resource Rooms” welcome trans foster youth across LA County to dress and express, as they are. Such a beautiful act of community care for trans youth who need some new clothes to wear and some extra love. This actually made me cry.
‘Not going to give up.’ Pierce County trans youth discuss life under Trump. I loved these vignettes of young trans people currently living in Washington state. They shatter the notion that living in a “blue state” means they’ll be protected from anti-trans bigotry and legislation, but it also offers some wonderful examples of what it looks like to keep fighting from people who shouldn’t have to.
Abandoning trans people ‘a mistake’ for Democrats, says Tim Walz. I don’t trust politicians very much, but I know some people will want to read this short profile on Walz’s stance on trans rights.
You describe Ron Johnson of Wisconsin as someone who voted against the bill in the house. Ron Johnson is a senator.
hi! the piece identifies Ron Johnson as a senator and says he has been vocally criticizing the bill, not that he voted against it.
It changed :)
God I hate Wes Streeting so much