Today, U.S. District Court Judge Amanda K. Brailsford, a Biden appointee, issued a 30-page ruling granting a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Idaho's H.B. 752, the felony bathroom ban—but it contains a major caveat: enforcement is only blocked when a single-user restroom is not available on the same floor. The law, set to take effect July 1, criminalizes transgender people for using restrooms consistent with their gender identity in both government buildings and private businesses, making it the most extreme bathroom ban in the nation. A first offense is a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail; a second offense is a felony carrying up to five years in prison; and under Idaho's persistent violator statute, a fourth offense could carry life. The court found the law unconstitutionally vague, with no adequate standards for law enforcement to determine when or how to enforce it. Yet the ruling falls far short of fully protecting transgender Idahoans, and could result in the arrest of trans people who are unaware that they must check for single-user restrooms before entering a multi-user facility consistent with their gender identity.

"The Court enjoins enforcement of H.B. 752 as against all transgender people who seek to use a restroom in a government-owned building or place of public accommodation in Idaho consistent with their gender identity wherever: (1) the covered restroom designated for use by sex is a single-user facility; or (2) when a single-user restroom is not available because no single-user restroom exists on the same floor as the multi-user facilities or all single-user restrooms on the same floor as the multi-user facilities are occupied or not in service," reads the ruling.

In practice, this means the law is only blocked when no single-user option exists—creating a regime in which transgender people must use single-user facilities whenever one is available on the same floor, or face potential criminal charges for using the multi-user restroom that matches their gender identity. Hospitals often have multi-user and single-user restrooms on the same floor. The same is true of airports. It applies at universities, shopping malls, convention centers, and large retail stores that have added family restrooms, and at any government building or private business that has upgraded its facilities to include a single-user option. The bitter irony is that single-user restrooms were added to many of these buildings specifically to be more inclusive of TGNC people—and under this ruling, those very restrooms become the mechanism by which trans people are segregated from everyone else.

The ruling has been widely reported as a clear victory for transgender rights, with Lambda Legal's headline declaring "Judge Blocks Idaho Law Criminalizing Transgender People's Bathroom Access" and the ACLU of Idaho stating that "trans folks in Idaho can continue participating in public life without the threat of being arrested for using the bathroom," an obviously incorrect statement given enforcement is still very possible if a single-use bathroom is available. The national ACLU posted on social media that "a federal judge temporarily blocked a bathroom ban in Idaho" and called it "a win for trans rights." None of these statements mention the single-user limitation. Bloomberg Law reported that the judge "blocked enforcement" of the ban. A transgender person in Idaho reading this coverage could reasonably believe the law has been fully blocked—and could face criminal charges for acting on that belief.

It is notable that the law was indeed partially blocked, and the ruling will still protect transgender people's ability to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity in many common situations—such as in buildings where no single-user facility exists on the same floor, which in practice covers most gas stations, restaurants, and smaller businesses across Idaho. The court found H.B. 752 unconstitutionally vague, ruling that its exceptions for "reasonably available" restrooms and "dire need" provide no objective standards for enforcement. Idaho's own law enforcement agreed—the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association testified that "this proposal presents significant practical enforcement challenges for law enforcement offices in the field… it is unclear how an officer responding to a call would reasonably determine whether someone was truly in 'dire need,' creating an unenforceable standard that places officers in a difficult position." When pressed on how officers would determine a person's biological sex, the state suggested during oral argument that law enforcement could use DNA testing, which was unacceptable to the court.

When asked by The Advocate about the limited relief, Kell Olson from Lambda Legal acknowledged the limitations. See the update from Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

“Olson told The Advocate that the narrower relief reflects the preliminary stage of the litigation rather than the full scope of the challenge. “The lawsuit asks for the law to be blocked as to all restrooms, period,” Olson said. “The preliminary relief is slightly narrower.” He said attorneys sought immediate protection in situations where transgender people otherwise would have no practical alternative. “If you do not have a gender neutral option that is available nearby, then you can access the restroom consistent with your gender identity,” Olson said. “That was our main concern: to make sure that people had a ready and safe option anywhere they found themselves.”

Olson acknowledged that some enforcement scenarios remain possible while the case proceeds. “Technically, there will still be the ability for enforcement,” he said, pointing to locker rooms and situations where a gender-neutral option is immediately available. But he said the ruling removes enforcement in a substantial number of circumstances and ensures transgender people have a restroom option throughout the state.”

There are mechanisms by which the scope of relief could be expanded. The plaintiffs can file a motion to clarify or broaden the injunction, and the court reserved the equal protection and informational privacy claims for the merits stage—where a ruling on those grounds could block the entire law without the single-user limitation. The case will almost certainly be appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where the precedent on transgender bathroom access is mixed. H.B. 752 was set to take effect July 1; it will now go into effect with the injunction in place, meaning the law is on the books but partially blocked with these important limitations while the legal fight continues.

EITM reached out to ACLU, and ACLU Idaho but did not receive a response by the time of this publication.

On Sunday night in the shadow of the White House, Donald Trump held a gladiator-style fight night on the South Lawn that drew comparisons to the excesses of Caligula—the first professional sporting event ever staged at the presidential residence. The event, UFC Freedom 250, featured seven bouts, military flyovers, and Trump sitting ringside flanked by Dana White, Melania, and Mark Zuckerberg. It was almost certain to be used as a political stage for Trump's favored culture wars—and it was. During one of the mid-card fights, UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit beat Derrick Lewis by TKO, exited the cage to drape a gold chain around President Trump's neck at ringside, then returned to the microphone and called Michelle Obama “a man,” a reference to anti-trans conspiracy theories in right-wing circles that Michelle Obama is transgender—she is not.

In the aftermath of the fight, Joe Rogan interviewed Hokit in the cage. "Congratulations, sir. I'm here with the winner, Josh Hokit. Josh, once again you proved the doubters wrong, moved to 10 and 0, and knocked out one of the biggest knockout artists in the history of the sport," Rogan said. Hokit responded: "I'm the man with the plan, the piece that's ready to feast. You know what, f—k this speech. Shoutout to Trump for having the balls to put something like this on. And if I'm going to say anything, there's only one person more incredible than the Incredible Hok, and that's my lord and savior Jesus Christ"—before pivoting from his supposedly deeply held religious beliefs to transphobia: "And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?" Rogan smiled, did not push back, and ended the interview: "Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Hokit."

You can see the exchange here:

It is not Hokit's first brush with transphobia—he has made it a centerpiece of his fighting career. The fighter, who is ranked highly, has repeatedly used his post-fight interviews as a platform for bigotry. After beating Eric Lunsford at in May 2025, before he was even in the UFC, Hokit ended his interview with the same line: "Michelle Obama is a man." In January 2026, after beating Denzel Freeman, he ended a post-fight speech by calling WNBA legend and 10-time All-Star Brittney Griner "a man"—during the same speech in which he also used the N-word. No consequences followed. Hokit has also posted an Instagram video in which he explicitly threatened violence against transgender women, stating: "If you're a man and you identify as a woman, you don't belong in women's sports, women's restrooms, or women's prisons. You belong in this Octagon with me, cause you need to get your ass whooped."

It is also not nearly UFC's first brush with transphobia and homophobia. UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland has called being trans "a mental f—king illness" and said that society "should never accept" transgender people. He once claimed that having a gay son would mean he "failed as a man" for creating "such weakness." The sport has also long struggled with hostility toward Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender MMA fighter, who competed in the 2010s and whose treatment by the MMA community became a precursor to the broader anti-trans sports bans we see today.

The event itself had drawn intense criticism long before Hokit opened his mouth. UFC Freedom 250 was the first professional sporting event ever held on the White House South Lawn, ostensibly a celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence but more transparently a $60 million taxpayer-supported birthday party for a president who turned 80 that day—the crowd sang him "Happy Birthday" midway through the card. The spectacle arrived as Americans faced gas prices above $6 a gallon in parts of the country, inflation at its highest rate in three years at 4%, and an ongoing war in Iran that has disrupted global energy markets and sent crude prices soaring.

It is worth noting that the conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama is transgender is completely unfounded. It is part of a broader pattern in which people opposed to transgender existence claim that prominent women—from Serena Williams to Lady Gaga to Brigitte Macron to Brittney Griner—are "secretly trans," treating the accusation itself as a degradation. The underlying logic is the same logic that drives bathroom bills and sports bans: that someone could be "secretly" transgender, and that this would be a deception, a danger, or a punchline. These conspiracy theories tend to simmer in the background of far-right forums and social media, but every now and then—like last night, on the White House lawn, broadcast to millions of people with no care for the damage it inflicts.

In January, Mayor Gergely Karácsony of Budapest, Hungary, was criminally charged for organizing an unlawful assembly despite a prohibition order. Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ Hungarians joined in the protest-slash-parade. As a result, the Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office said it would seek to impose fines and deny Karácsony a trial.

But following the downfall of Hungary’s far-right authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who lost the country’s April elections after 16 years in power, the charges against the Mayor were dropped last week.

“Orbán’s proto-fascist Fidesz party lost the election to the center-right Tisza Party, led by [Péter] Magyar,” LGBTQ Nation reports. “Later that month, a European Union (EU) court ruled against Hungary’s ban on LGBTQ+ ‘propaganda,’ saying that it violated Article 2 of the EU Treaty. Article 2 says that the EU is founded on ‘values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.’”

Karácsony is not the only Pride march organizer/attendee whose criminal case was dropped. “In the city of Pécs, prosecutors charged Géza Buzás-Hábel, a teacher and human rights activist, in February with offenses—punishable by up to a year in prison—related to the local Pride march in October 2025,” Human Rights Watch reported of the gay and Roma organizer of Hungary’s “only rural Pride march.”

The Orbán regime also directly influenced and appeared to work with elected officials in states like Florida to craft anti-LGBT policy like the “Don’t Say Gay” law. And Orbán was a featured keynote speaker at CPAC, the largest conservative gathering in the world, hosted in Dallas in 2022.

Hungary has been a flashpoint in the global battle for LGBTQ rights. Its unprecedented rollback of LGBTQ rights as an EU country sent shockwaves across the region. It added a constitutional amendment banning Pride, which was met with fierce and swift blowback: politicians released rainbow smokebombs into the parliamentary hall. And although the Orbán regime said it would deploy AI facial recognition software against Pride marchers, unstoppable crowds of them flocked to Budapest anyway.

“At Budapest Pride, we will continue to stand firm in our support of the fundamental freedoms that everyone is entitled to,” a spokesperson for the event told Erin in the Morning when the Mayor was charged in January. “We stand up for ourselves, we stand up for each other, because we want to live in a free, peaceful and equal country.”

“I refuse to be intimidated or silenced,” Karácsony wrote around that same time in a Jan. 28 post on X. “I will never accept that standing up for freedom, free speech, or love can be treated as a crime. Despite threats or punishment, I will continue to fight. Freedom and love cannot be banned!”

This year, Budapest Pride will march on June 27. Though it still faces government hostility, organizers struck a hopeful chord in statements posted to social media.

“Last year, we showed what we’re made of,” the Budapest Pride Facebook reads. “Those in power did everything they could to intimidate and discourage us. They even threatened us with prison. But we did not back down.”

“Last year, our love of freedom and our courage forced authoritarian power to retreat,” it continues. “But we have not reached our goal yet. As long as even one community in Hungary is deprived of its rights, the whole society lives without them.”

Yesterday, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, one of the most prominent anti-trans voices in Congress, ran for the Republican nomination for governor of South Carolina—and finished in fifth place. Mace staked her political career on anti-trans activism, pushing amendment after amendment targeting transgender people during her tenure and most infamously championing the ban on Congresswoman Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, from using women's restrooms in the Capitol. Now, in what trans communities online were quick to note as a familiar number—anti-trans activist and swimmer Riley Gaines also famously tied for fifth place with Lia Thomas—Mace's political career is effectively over. She gave up her congressional seat to run for governor and cannot return. As a result, at the Equality PAC's National Pride Gala last night, McBride took the stage as the results rolled in, referred to Mace as "Congress's top bathroom sheriff," noted that she was in "a respectful fifth place," and wishing Mace a “Happy Pride.”

"Today is a big day because today is the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary," started McBride, continuing, "And for those of you who aren't aware, my colleague—and Congress's top bathroom sheriff—Nancy Mace, is on the ballot. And while not all of the votes have been counted yet, she is in a respectful fifth place. I don't like punching down, and I believe in the politics of grace. So all I will say is: Happy Pride, Nancy,” to which she received a standing ovation.

See the video here, curtesy of Advocate reporter Christopher Wiggins:

The loss is significant. Mace was not merely anti-trans—she made targeting transgender people the defining project of her congressional career. She championed the ban on McBride and all transgender people from using restrooms in the Capitol, then escalated with a sweeping federal bathroom ban bill that would have applied to every federal building in the country, including major airports like Dulles and Reagan—that bill did not pass. She called trans protesters a slur while wandering the halls of the Senate with a bullhorn, having confused which building the protesters were in. She and Lauren Boebert confronted a woman in a Capitol bathroom they suspected was transgender—she was cisgender. Her entire webpage is filled with anti-trans activism and bills targeting transgender people.

Now, her political career is over—at least for now. Mace made a calculated gambit to trade her congressional seat for the governor's mansion, declining to file for reelection in SC-01. But despite spending two years remolding herself into one of Trump's most visible culture warriors, Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette instead. Without his backing, Mace finished fifth with 12%, not winning a single county in the state—including Charleston, which is her home county. She cannot return to her House seat: the filing deadline has passed. When her term ends in January 2027, Nancy Mace will hold no office. The woman who gave up a safe House seat to chase a promotion on the strength of an anti-trans brand she invented in 2024 will leave Washington with nothing to show for it.

It is notable that the winners of the Republican primary are not much better on transgender issues—and one may be worse. Alan Wilson, who finished second and will advance to a June 23 runoff against Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, was a leading state official in the landmark Supreme Court case in support of Tennessee's gender-affirming care ban in United States v. Skrmetti, calling the ruling “a win for sanity and for the safety of our kids.” He also told the city of Columbia to overturn its conversion therapy ban. Evette, for her part, celebrated the Skrmetti decision as well, writing "Amen! Protecting our kids and America's future generations is a non-negotiable." Neither candidate, however, made anti-trans activism the theatrical centerpiece of their campaign the way Mace did. Mace built her entire political identity around targeting transgender people, gave up a safe congressional seat to ride that brand to the governor's mansion, and it got her fifth place.

As for McBride, she and countless transgender people have endured two years of Nancy Mace's cruelty. Now, at least, trans staffers, journalists, and the nation's first transgender congresswoman will no longer have to see Mace in the halls of the Capitol after her term ends in January 2027. And if Democrats retake the House in November, the bathroom restrictions Mace forced into place—her sole lasting act of spite—will likely be among the first things to go.

The Cleveland Clinic has come under fire for what many in the trans community, their families, and their providers have described as the latest in a series of betrayals from medical institutions capitulating to the Trump regime’s politicized attacks on care.

The Department of Justice announced last week it settled with the Clinic, which operates in three states and four countries, over its provision of gender-affirming care (or as the White House is trying to rebrand it, “sex rejecting procedures”).

Gender-affirming care for minors, which may include supportive psychotherapy, puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and sometimes surgery, is not federally unlawful, despite Trumpian chest-beating in the form of executive orders trying to mislead Americans into believing otherwise. Ohio banned medical transition for those under 18 years of age back in 2024.

Although the Clinic already agreed to wind down its pediatric gender care, this didn’t sate the DOJ’s anti-trans crusade. So they went a step further.

“The Cleveland Clinic Foundation (‘Cleveland Clinic’) has entered into agreements with the Department and the Ohio Attorney General that include a decades-long commitment to not perform or offer sex-rejecting procedures—which includes the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—for minors,” a federal press release reads.

Cleveland Clinic agreed to pay a monetary penalty upwards of $300,000 and, in a “landmark commitment,” dedicate over millions to establish a clinic for “detransitioners.”

The GOP has been open in its efforts to use and abuse the auspices of insurance fraud to attack transgender people’s health care. “The agreements, announced June 5 in a Justice Department news release, resolve allegations that Cleveland Clinic submitted false billings to public and private payers to secure insurance coverage for gender-affirming procedures performed on minors,” Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication, reported. “Cleveland Clinic denied all allegations, and the Justice Department acknowledged the health system’s cooperation throughout the investigation. The settlement does not include a determination of liability.”

“The dollar figure isn’t what we are obligated to pay, rather a commitment of care to patients who want this service—which we already do,” a hospital spokesperson added in a statement to a joint story produced by The Buckeye Flame and Signal Ohio.

“Detransition” narratives have risen to prominence as a sort of mirror to the evangelical “ex-gays” of a bygone era. But it’s important to note that the word “detransitioner” is a loaded, inexact, and unscientific term. People “detransition” for many reasons—overwhelmingly due to anti-trans bigotry and hindered access to care—as opposed to sudden reidentification with their assigned birth sex.

For the Cleveland Clinic, the implications of this capitulation transcend state and international boundaries. The Clinic also services Nevada and Florida, as well as Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. All of these locations will cease to offer most kinds of gender-affirming care for at least two decades.

“The Clinic is jumping to the front of the line to comply not with science and medicine, but with cruelty and anti-trans hate,” Dara Adkison, executive director of TransOhio, told reporters from Signal Ohio and The Buckeye Flame.

“Detransition services were always a part of gender affirming care,” Adkison continued. “There continues to be no increased need, and it is a bigoted, sad performative farce the Clinic is choosing to promote.”

On social media, Alejandra Caraballo, Harvard Law instructor and LGBTQ rights activist, said that in settling the clinic “caved to the extortion.” Meanwhile, Assigned Media founder Evan Urquhart chimed in on Bluesky to call it “a huge PR win” for anti-trans activists in that it “cements the idea that detransitioning is a big problem.”

This is the second such settlement in as many months, resulting in a “detransition clinic,” following that at Texas Children’s in May.

“A clinic created by a politician via legal intimidation is not in the best interests of any patient,” Kellan Baker of the LGBTQ thinktank Movement Advancement Project told The Texas Tribune at the time. “Doctors should be the ones making decisions about how to provide medical care, not politicians.”

Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas, further told The Tribune the settlement is a political and legal maneuver by the Attorney General’s office “blackmailing a hospital system into creating a resource that no one is asking for.”

“When it comes to care for trans kids, we have found a new low,” added Jesse Thorn, host of NPR’s Bullseye, and an outspoken ally to the trans community—his own daughter is transgender. They reside in California.

As he explained in his own reaction video to the situation, the Department of Justice has been targeting transgender kids by strong-arming hospitals into ceasing their care and by launching fishing expeditions in an attempt to obtain kids’ private medical records.

“They’re doing this by claiming that gender affirming care is medical fraud. Why? Because medical records are protected by law. The feds just can’t walk into a hospital and start pulling up files unless they say they are investigating a crime. So if they claim gender affirming care is fraud and fraud is a crime, then they can get the files, and if they’re getting people’s private medical files, they can intimidate families and doctors,” Thorn said.

Some hospitals and activist-lawyers have been fighting back. Attorneys for patients at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles were able to stop the institution from handing over de-anonymized records through a class action lawsuit.

But in other cases, the DOJ’s tactic has been working, despite no actual findings of criminal wrongdoing.

“They already stopped providing gender affirming care, but that didn’t satisfy the feds, so the Cleveland Clinic went one step further, or actually a bunch of steps further,” Thorn said.

“This is the ultimate punch in the gut to vulnerable kids and to their families and to their doctors and to everyone who knows that this whole thing is an ideological extortion racket, the kind where if we want to defend patients, defend medicine, defend the law, we have to stand together—or alternately, I guess, follow the Cleveland Clinic model, which is drop a few million dollars on nonsense, let some kids die, and hope the government starts picking on somebody else.”

As young trans Ohioans have become health care refugees fleeing their own state government, the Trump regime made a point of thanking the Clinic for its acquiescence.

“In working towards this settlement,” last week’s DOJ statement reads, “the United States acknowledged that Cleveland Clinic took significant steps entitling it to credit for cooperation with the Department in its investigation.”

New York City has been ground zero in the fight over Trump's campaign to scare hospitals into dropping gender-affirming care for trans youth. When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, he promised to fight back—showing up to protests outside NYU Langone, pledging $65 million for gender-affirming care, and vowing to use every lever of city power to protect trans New Yorkers from federal intimidation. Since taking office, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled: no enforcement action against the hospitals that shuttered their programs, no fines from the Commission on Human Rights despite complaints open for over a year, and no public accounting of the promised funding. So when Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin announced Friday that the city would open its first-ever direct-care clinic for transgender people, it seemed like the administration was finally delivering. It isn't. This morning, Erin in the Morning can confirm that Mayor Mamdani's new clinic will deny care to anyone under 19 years of age—adopting the exact age cutoff from Trump's anti-trans executive orders.

"Transgender, gender-nonconfirming, and nonbinary New Yorkers deserve age-appropriate health care that is affirming, respectful, and considerate of all their needs. That’s why, for the first time later this summer, the NYC Health Department will be expanding services to provide gender affirming hormone therapy to adults 19 years of age and older at our Corona Sexual Health Clinic. As with the other clinic services, gender-affirming hormone therapy will be offered at no to low cost and regardless of immigration status. We look forward sharing more details upon launching the pilot,” said a NYC health Spokesperson in a statement to Erin In The Morning.

The confirmation comes after a city council budget hearing on Friday, where the exchange that first surfaced the clinic also revealed the administration’s reasoning. Councilmember Tiffany Cabán asked Commissioner Alister Martin—the city’s top public health official, appointed by Mamdani in January—whether the city would be expanding gender-affirming care. Martin announced the direct-care clinic, calling it “one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step.” But when Cabán pushed back, pointing out that trans youth are the ones most under attack right now—noting that there are “almost no providers” left for youth the entire city—Martin indicated the clinic would not serve youth, citing the need to “strike a balance” between providing care and avoiding “clawbacks from the federal government.” This morning, EITM can directly confirm that the age cutoff is 19—matching the Trump administration’s executive order threshold, not the standard legal age of adulthood in New York. See the exchange:

Commissioner Alister Martin: “It’s incredibly important that we get the messaging right here and that we lean in on the comms and the campaign here, but it’s also important to deliver for people and to provide the services they need. And we’re excited to say that pretty soon we’re going to be able to offer gender-affirming care directly at our clinics. We have a clinic that will be opening up in Corona which will offer gender-affirming hormone therapy for adults. It’s like one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step, and we’re proud to not just stop there. We’ll continue moving forward with this.”

Councilmember Tiffany Cabán: “Can I ask a follow-up on that? Particularly because that’s a really big deal, but also—we’re seeing this devastating decrease in services for youth, and especially youth under 13, 12—like, there are almost no providers who provide that care. And the one or two that do is obviously under attack from the federal government. So is there going to—are you thinking about an expansion in that youth care? Because I’m talking to parents all the time and they don’t know where to take their children.”

Commissioner Martin: “As you can appreciate, the balance that we have to strike is—we are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth, as well as making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give. And so there’s much more to come on this, trying to sort of figure out that right balance. We’re eager to work with you on this, but rest assured we are working on this and we’re trying to figure out how to do this.”

The news comes amid mounting questions about Mamdani’s commitment to the promises that helped elect him. During his campaign, Mamdani held a Trans Community Town Hall where pledged to invest $65 million in gender-affirming care. That pledge involved “public hospitals and community clinics,” indicating to many that he could begin opening direct care clinics for youth being forced out of hospitals. His platform also explicitly pledged to hold the hospitals that deny transgender youth care accountable for their capitulation to Trump and to “use every single tool” to stop them from complying with Trump’s illegal executive orders.

Those pledges have largely evaporated. Journalist Aviva Stahl reported for Prism in March that the $65 million was nowhere in the city’s preliminary budget, and as of June, advocates who reviewed the executive budget say the money is still not there. The Commission on Human Rights complaints against NYU Langone and Mount Sinai have sat open for over a year with no enforcement action, and the agency has refused to comment on them in response to questions by Erin In The Morning. And now, Mamdani’s own health commissioner is using the very same rationale NYU Langone and Mount Sinai used to deny trans youth care—fear of federal retaliation.

It is a far cry from when Mamdani stood at a rally outside NYU Langone in March 2025 and declared: “We have seen NYU Langone comply with illegal executive orders out of a fear of their so-called biggest donors. Let us remind them that the city is also one of their biggest donors. Let us remind them that they do not pay a dollar in property tax, [and that] we are a city that is ready to use every single tool to assure compliance with city and state human rights laws.”

Mamdani is not powerless here. He has significant leverage over Health + Hospitals—the largest public municipal healthcare system in the country, with 11 hospitals, more than 70 clinics, and eight existing Pride Health Centers. He controls the board. He can demand H+H absorb displaced trans youth patients tomorrow, with significant power behind those demands. He has the Commission on Human Rights, which can levy fines of up to $250,000 per violation against hospitals that deny care in violation of city law—complaints against NYU Langone and Mount Sinai have been open for over a year with no action. He has a campaign pledge to coordinate with AG James, who has already told NYU Langone that no federal law requires them to stop. He also promised $65 million to this community. The tools are there. The legal authority is there. The money was promised. What is apparently missing is the will to use any of it for the kids who are the most under attack.

It is important to note that in a recent appearance on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, a parent of a trans child asked Mamdani directly what his administration is doing for her kid. Mamdani cited a $15 million investment in gender-affirming care over two years. But there are virtually no public details on what the $15 million funds, which agency controls it, which patients it serves, or when it will go into effect. And two days after that interview, Commissioner Martin announced a new clinic that would be adults only, using Trump's executive order age cutoff of 19, and told the city council that the city was afraid of federal "clawbacks"—raising the question of what, exactly, the $15 million "unlocks" for trans youth if the administration's own policy for a new clinic is to avoid serving them. EITM has reached out to multiple NYC agencies and press contacts for the mayor's office and has received no response on whether the adults-only clinic is intended to be part of the $15 million pledge—which is also, notably, a fraction of the $65 million Mamdani campaigned on, and which, as of today, does not serve youth.

Opening a city-run gender-affirming care clinic is, on its own, a meaningful step. But when the clinic adopts the Trump administration's age cutoff, when the health commissioner cites the same federal fears as the private hospitals the mayor protested against, and when the promised $65 million remains unaccounted for while trans kids in the largest city in America are told there is almost nowhere left for them to go, the step is as likely to be seen as a betrayal as it is a meaningful advancement of his promises.

After Representative Seth Moulton’s transphobic comments in 2024, he’s had a rocky relationship with his LGBTQ constituents. So on June 6, when he and a contingent of his supporters marched in the Boston Pride parade, he received a classic Massachusetts reception: direct confrontation.

Multiple videos circulating on social media show the Congressman being booed along the parade route as he otherwise flashed a smile and waved to constituents. The Democrat is retiring from Massachusetts’ sixth congressional district to run for Senate, challenging iencumbent and reliable trans ally Senator Ed Markey. Moulton drew ire after he called transgender girls “male,” legitimized GOP narratives about trans athletes, and then doubled down on it, griping about identity politics as queer Americans faced increasing political violence.

Parade-goers called out Moulton, as seen in a video posted to Bluesky. Aidan Kohn-Murphy, a 22-year-old recent Harvard graduate and progressive content creator, who told Erin in the Morning he took that video, said there was a large group booing Moulton all along the parade route. Detractors can be heard yelling “Transphobe!” and “Trans lives matter!” In another clip posted to Reddit, Bostonians shouted, “Shame on you!”

Moulton’s campaign office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.

Kohn-Murphy said he was moved to voice his discontent due to Moulton’s repeated comments belittling the trans community and scapegoating trans youth over Democrats’ loss in the 2024 election. “There’s no queer community without trans people,” Kohn-Murphy said. “Trans people have constantly led the way in our movement and in the path towards queer liberation.”

Moulton apparently doesn’t quite see it that way. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told The New York Times in November 2024. “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over by a male or formerly male athlete. But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

There is zero evidence to suggest that including transgender girls in women’s sports leads to an increase in athletics-related injuries. LGBTQ community leaders were swift to denounce Moulton’s assertions. “Referring to transgender athletes as ‘male or formerly male,’ the Congressman’s remarks were both harmful and factually inaccurate,” a press release from Mass Equality, a state LGBTQ rights organization, said. “These statements contribute to the ongoing stigmatization of transgender people.”

Other Democrats had also called out his behavior at the time. A top aide of his resigned. Hundreds gathered outside his office in protest. Governor Maura Healey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley condemned his position. “It’s important in this moment that we not pick on particularly vulnerable children,” Healey told reporters. “That’s what I’ve been disappointed in seeing.”

Moulton inflamed the situation further in his comments to WGBH, where he seemed to call trans inclusion “weird.”

“I mean, here we are accusing Republicans of being weird, and we’re the ones who are suddenly requiring people to put pronouns in their email signatures,” Moulton said.

“I mean, that’s kind of weird, to be honest. You know, we went through the whole gay rights movement. We went through the whole Civil Rights Movement. We never had to say, you know, ‘Seth Moulton: Straight’ or ‘Seth Moulton: White.’ And all of a sudden, we have to change all our values to meet the needs or demands of one very small minority group.”

Parade attendee Monica Reina-Gonzalez simply wasn’t having it. “You can’t come here and act like you support our community when you’re blaming our kids for losing the election,” Reina-Gonzalez told The Boston Globe.

In a statement from March 2025, Moulton seemingly tried to cool the temperature. “Transgender individuals, in particular, have faced significant adversity, experiencing discrimination, hate crimes, attempts to limit bodily autonomy, and worsened mental health as a result,” he wrote. He further cited his own voting record in favor of protecting transgender Americans, including some trans athletes.

For example, Moulton did indeed cosponsor the Equality Act, which would explicitly include LGBTQ+ people as a protected class under the Civil Rights Act. He also rejected Congress’ proposed Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act under the Trump regime. “Younger kids who simply want to play recreational sports and build camaraderie like everybody else should not be targeted by the federal government,” Moulton wrote.

At the same time, he lamented that “too many Democrats are afraid that they will be attacked for even entertaining meaningful dialogue and debate around contentious issues” like gendered athlete policies. But as transgender lawmakers find themselves silenced in their respective governing bodies, bombarded with violent threats and rhetoric, and banned from using the bathroom in their place of work by the very colleagues they must legislate alongside, many found his self-proclaimed martyrdom superficial.

“He’s a politician who does not have any concrete value system,” Kohn-Murphy said. “I think if he’s willing to throw some of the most vulnerable in our community under the bus, then he cannot be trusted.”

It’s the second time Moulton has been booed at a progressive event; he was met with jeers at a No Kings rally this past October.

Earlier today, Bay State Stonewall Democrats—a contingent of LGBT Democratic voters in the state—endorsed Moulton’s opponent, Senator Ed Markey, for the September primaries.

“From the Transgender Bill of Rights to the Transgender Health Care Access Act to the Elder Pride Act, he has spent decades fighting to protect LGBTQ+ lives,” a post from the organization said of Markey.

“And when things got tough politically, he didn’t throw trans people under the bus to score points with skeptical voters,” the endorsement continued. “At a moment when our rights are under serious attack, the Bay State Stonewall Democrats stand with the candidate who stood up for us and won’t sell us out for political expediency.”

Editor’s note: Rep. Moulton has issued a response:

“Seth was honored to walk in solidarity with and support the LGBTQIA+ community on Saturday. Let’s be clear: what you see in that clip was a coordinated political stunt, led by a staffer from Senator Markey’s 2020 campaign and other Markey supporters. They passed out anti-Moulton flyers and actively asked bystanders to boo.

Seth has a 100% voting record from the Human Rights Campaign for supporting LGBTQIA+ issues in Congress. Senator Markey started his career as pro-life and pro-death penalty, voted for the 1994 Crime Bill and the Iraq War, and has taken tens of thousands of dollars from the fossil fuel lobby during this campaign — but we wouldn’t say he’s not progressive. The type of purity politics being played by Markey supporters only benefit Trump and MAGA Republicans, and harms the communities both Senator Markey and Congressman Moulton support.”

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"—with terms broad enough to encompass any acknowledgment that gender identity differs from sex assigned at birth or that transgender people even exist. If finalized, the rule would reach every hospital, university, school district, state government, nonprofit, and homeless shelter that receives federal funding, effectively requiring much of American institutional life to discriminate against transgender people as a condition of receiving federal money. And unlike an executive order, the rule would require significant work by a future administration to reverse.

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." The word "recipient" is doing critical work here: the review evaluates the organization, not just how the grant money will be spent. An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked. For grants that have already been issued, provisions also allow for the termination of funding.

The prohibition is vast. The rule bars federal awards from being used to "fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate" gender ideology—and as mentioned before, because the screening evaluates the recipient as a whole, even indirect support could trigger enforcement. Since the rule was published, Erin in the Morning has been contacted by those worried about its impact on homeless shelters, which could be required to turn transgender people—any acknowledgment of a resident's gender identity could be grounds for a funding investigation. Colleges and universities, among the largest recipients of federal grants in the country, would face renewed federal pressure to enact bathroom bans, sports bans, and restrictions on name and gender marker changes—any institutional process that recognizes a gender identity different from sex assigned at birth could be deemed "gender ideology." Nonprofits and federally qualified health centers could be forced to stop acknowledging that transgender people exist entirely or serving their needs—a step some organizations briefly took during the chaos of the initial executive orders before pulling back when courts and advocates signaled they lacked enforceability. This rule is designed to give them enforceability.

Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." The Trump administration has already used funding threats and federal subpoenas to target hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, a campaign that caused multiple institutions to suspend their programs even before any legal determination was made. The extraordinary broadness of the "gender ideology" definition—which covers not just care for minors but any endorsement of the idea that “sex is mutable”—would give the administration the regulatory infrastructure to expand that targeting to care for transgender adults if it so chose.

The rule was jointly proposed by 42 federal agencies—from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Defense to the National Science Foundation to NASA—each of which signed the document through its senior leadership. Signatories include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at HHS, Kelly Loeffler at the Small Business Administration, and Troy Edgar at the Department of Homeland Security. It is the broadest interagency rulemaking effort of the Trump administration, and it is designed to ensure that no single agency can opt out or slow-walk implementation.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ+ rights organization, came out fiercely against the rule, calling it "fascism." In a statement, the organization said: "Today, the Trump administration proposed a rule that would strip government money from any program that acknowledges diversity, abortion, or even the existence of transgender and nonbinary people. Withholding public grants from programs that depend on them because you refuse to acknowledge the humanity of certain communities is not good government. It's fascism. HRC and our millions of members, supporters, and allies will fight back."

The gender ideology funding prohibition is not the only provision targeting transgender or LGBTQ+ people. A separate section prohibits any federal funding for "the so-called 'transition' of a child under 19 years of age from one sex to another, including the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.” The rule also explicitly strips Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark 2020 Supreme Court decision holding that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity, from the federal grants framework entirely. The preamble states that the prior administration's reading of Bostock is "no longer consistent with Administration policy" and replaces it with reasoning drawn from United States v. Skrmetti, the 2025 decision upholding Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors, to argue that none of these provisions constitute sex discrimination because they "apply equally to all."

The administration has tried to strip federal funding from organizations that support transgender people before, leading to a string of court losses. But those losses have not prevented organizations from overcomplying out of fear. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the country's primary nonprofit fighting child sexual exploitation, erased all references to transgender people from its public materials after the Department of Justice threatened to pull its funding—and was told to deadname transgender children in its missing persons reports, meaning a missing trans girl would be listed under her birth name and identified as male, actively making her harder to find. RAINN, the nation's largest anti-sexual-violence organization, removed its inclusion policy and all pages expressing support for LGBTQ+ survivors of sexual violence—a population that faces disproportionately high rates of assault. And using similar threats, more than 40 hospitals have stopped providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, suspending programs even in states where the care remains legal. This latest effort to formalize the policy into binding federal regulation is designed to insulate it from such court challenges, and we could see an entirely new round of even broader overcompliance as a result.

Nevertheless, court challenges are almost certainly coming, and the rule has a substantial likelihood of being blocked for at least a short amount of time. That said, the Supreme Court has greenlit virtually every policy targeting transgender people to come across its docket, and this rule could be the next one that rockets its way to the top. The public comment period closes July 13, 2026. Concerned readers can submit comments on the public comment page for the rule.

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia may be the latest Democrat to fall for anti-trans propaganda—for a brief but crucial moment. At a Republican-led Senate hearing on Wednesday, Kaine called professional “detransitioner” activist Chloe Cole’s story a “tragic” example of “malpractice,” apparently falling for the “detrans” movement’s manufactured crisis around gender-affirming care.

“We have a legal system that is set up to compensate and then hopefully prevent people being treated the way you were being treated. And I think that system works and I suspect it’s going to work in your case,” he said during the Wednesday hearing titled, “Protecting Our Children: Exposing the Dangers of Irreversible Gender Transition Procedures on Minors.”

Kaine listened alongside the captive audience of the Senate Health Committee to Dr. Kurt Miceli, chief medical officer at Do No Harm (a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group); Shannon Minter, a venerated movement veteran and legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights; and Chloe Cole, a “detransitioner” activist who, in the footsteps of the “ex-gay” activists that came before her, renounced her queer identity and converted to Christianity (reportedly a rapid onset process catalyzed by LSD-induced hallucinations).

The now 21-year-old then became a well-compensated spokesperson for the anti-trans movement. And while paid activism is not novel or even necessarily exceptional, it’s important to remember that she’s the center of an elaborate media campaign by the anti-trans lobby.

In other words, this isn’t an everyday American sharing her life story. Like the anti-trans former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines, Cole is a professional, one of many in a sprawling and well-funded apparatus furthering Christian nationalism and authoritarian control.

It’s unclear whether Kaine simply forgot this, was ill-informed, or made some sort of political calculation at Wednesday’s Senate hearing when he ceded ground to Cole. After Cole testified about “the transgender cult,” Kaine took the mic and said:

“Miss Cole, listen. I want to say this to you. Your story is tragic. It is a tragic story. It is a classic case, as you tell it, of medical malpractice, and I know you have a medical malpractice claim pending. Being lied to, not being informed about consequences, having your parents told that if they did not consent to the surgery that you would likely commit suicide. That is outrageous.

Similar cases have led to massive malpractice verdicts against physicians who did what you were describing happened to you. Just recently, in a very blue state, New York, someone with a case somewhat similar to yours received a $2.6 million jury verdict. We have a legal system that is set up to compensate and then hopefully prevent people being treated the way you were being treated. And I think that system works and I suspect it’s going to work in your case.

I know the pendency of the lawsuit’s still a way off, but based on your description, you were horribly mistreated by the medical profession. And I believe there’s going to be compensation. And compensation does not return you to the status that you would wish. But I have deep sympathy for that.

I think the solution here is malpractice cases. I think the solution is standards of care by the AMA and the plastic surgeons and the pediatricians which are evolving as more research is done. I don’t think the right answer is a federal one-size-fits-all. And Mr. Chair, I’d like to introduce for the record a letter from a Virginian who wrote me about being the parent of a 21-year-old who’s undergone gender-affirming care. And I just want to read—it’s a very long letter that is as powerful, in many ways, as Miss Cole’s testimony today.”

Kaine then pivoted to talking about the careful, methodical considerations of gender-affirming care providers and parents, and he emphasized the extremist rhetoric deployed by the right to vilify trans people.

Cole is a superspreader of that rhetoric, a part of a swelling anti-trans industrial complex. Lawsuits are one of the many lucrative ways they are terrorizing providers. While lawyers and federal prosecutors launch attacks on health care institutions, lobbyists are attempting to push laws or policies that establish unprecedented malpractice allowances and payouts to “detransitioners.” The thinking goes that, even if they can’t outright ban care right now, they can try to make insurance for such care untenable, shoehorning providers into dropping it.

Meanwhile, such “massive malpractice verdicts” arguably have not materialized. He appears to refer to the Fox Varian lawsuit in New York, wherein it was found that a gender-affirming care provider failed to live up to WPATH guidelines. That case, which concluded this past January, is the first-ever successful trial verdict for a “detransitioner” malpractice lawsuit in the United States. But the assertion that there is a wave of these verdicts against physicians who provide gender-affirming care, only for a patient to later revert to identifying as cisgender, is false.

As far as public record goes, there has been exactly one; and in that case, the verdict was rendered not on the merits of gender-affirming care, but on the actions of one specific doctor in one specific incident, who violated the industry’s own standards of care.

Kaine also lent credence to claims about Cole’s case that are already highly publicized for their misleading nature. The “rushed” process she described transpired over the course of years. When doctors tried to slow her down further, her parents pushed back and went to another provider. And the idea that gender-affirming care lowers the risk of suicide is not a scare tactic; it is well-documented.

For every high-profile “detransitioner” who dominates the news cycle with meticulously calculated soundbites, there are untold numbers of transgender young people who don’t have access to care because they come from unsupportive families, or face prohibitive medical hurdles, or who can’t afford it, or who come from states that have banned their care, or who died by suicide because of some combination of all of the above.

Kaine’s allyship and support of the trans community are not to be discounted. His record on the issue is laudable; he has repeatedly co-sponsored legislation to protect transgender rights and safety.

Indeed, some prominent movement leaders praised him. The sole witness testifying in favor of equal access to health care for trans people was Shannon Minter, the aforementioned legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights.

“I thought Senator Kaine was so powerful,” Minter told The Advocate. “I thought that was perhaps the single most powerful moment on the Democratic side.”

“They made it so clear that this is not a genuine concern about healthcare, that it’s part of a larger pattern of dehumanizing and harassing a vulnerable minority group,” Minter said.

But anti-trans propaganda runs deep; Democrats need to talk and act incisively, or else risk stoking those flames.

After a three-year push, Hawai’i officially has implemented a shield law to explicitly protect providers and patients of gender-affirming care for the trans community.

House Bill 1875, also known as Act 059, was signed by Governor Josh Green—himself a physician—late last week. The bill explicitly adds gender-affirming care to its existing shield law, which broadly covered reproductive health, and established safeguards from “abusive litigation” coming from outside states.

Shield laws create “legal protections for patients, health care providers, and people assisting in the provision of certain health care in states where that care is legal from the reach of states with civil, criminal, and professional consequences related to that care,” according to the Center for Reproductive Health, Law and Policy at UCLA. For example, it means Hawai’i state actors may not aid out-of-state attacks—such as, say, through the extradition of health care providers—over lawful care rendered in Hawai’i.

“The legislature finds that the people of Hawai’i have a long tradition of protecting an individual’s right to privacy and bodily autonomy independently of, and more broadly than, the United States Constitution,” the bill reads. It emphasized that the right to privacy and bodily autonomy extends to minors.

“It is the policy of this State that the rights of equality, liberty, and privacy guaranteed under [...] the Hawaii State Constitution are fundamental rights and that those rights include an individual’s right to make health care decisions about one’s own body, including the right to seek and receive health care services that affirm their expressed gender.”

The signing was a resounding victory for LGBTQ activists on the islands. Hawai’i was among the last of the blue states to enact a shield law for the transgender community and their providers.

“We’ve heard from legislators that this is considered a controversial topic and that they’d rather not engage in bills that could draw attention to Hawai’i from the Trump Administration,” Abby Simmons, Chair of the Stonewall Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, told Erin in the Morning last year.

Now, she’s singing a more triumphant tune. “This bill truly was a team effort,” she said in an interview this week. “Lawmakers wanted to understand the legal implications, hear from stakeholders, and make sure they were crafting legislation that would withstand challenges. While that process can sometimes feel slow, it also means that when legislation succeeds, it often has a stronger foundation.”

Simmons also said the playbook for getting the bill over the finish line was rooted in building a big tent. “I think what finally made HB1875 successful was that supporters increasingly focused on a message that resonated far beyond the LGBTQ+ community,” she continued.

“The conversation wasn’t simply about gender-affirming care. It was about protecting patients, families, and healthcare providers who are following Hawaiʻi law. It was about preventing out-of-state actors from interfering with healthcare decisions made here in Hawaiʻi. It was about provider stability at a time when Hawaiʻi already faces healthcare workforce shortages. And it was about preserving Hawaiʻi’s ability to govern itself.”

The bill arrived on the Governor’s desk amid rising federal threats from the Department of Justice against hospitals, including the use of judge and forum shopping to prosecute gender-affirming care providers in conservative jurisdictions based outside of their state. Last month, the Northern District of Texas—an infamously conservative federal court—ordered Rhode Island Hospital, which is almost 2,000 miles away, to hand over patient records from its transgender youth care program. That legal battle is ongoing.

“Gender-affirming care is lawful in Hawaiʻi, grounded in established medical standards, and essential to the well-being of transgender, nonbinary, māhū, and gender-diverse people,” Hawai’i’s LGBTQ political action committee, HOKU, wrote in submitted testimony from when the bill was being considered by the legislature.

“Failure to protect access to gender-affirming care is not only an attack on patients and providers; it is a violation of parental rights,” reads another submission from Pride at Work Hawai’i. “Parents and caregivers who affirm, support, and seek medically appropriate care for their keiki [child] are exercising their fundamental right.”

Donavan Kamakani Albano, Policy Fellow at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, further spoke to the importance of gender diversity in Hawaiian tradition. Some right-wing officials may push the myth that transness is somehow novel or a “trend.” But Hawai’i has especially rich ties to its pre-colonial culture—including non-binary concepts of gender.

“In Kanaka Maoli culture, māhū describes someone who embodies kāne and wahine [the masculine and feminine] energies,” Albano’s testimony said. “While the visibility of māhū individuals has recently increased, ongoing barriers to gender-affirming care remain.”

This united LGBTQ advocacy with other causes. “Those principles brought together a broad coalition of supporters and helped lawmakers see the bill as a matter of healthcare access, privacy, and state sovereignty,” Simmons said.

On Wednesday, Gallup released a striking new poll showing support for LGBTQ+ people declining for a second consecutive year. The drop is not limited to transgender people—similar declines have hit support for same-sex marriage and the moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships, which is now at its lowest point since 2016. When examined closely, the decline is driven almost entirely by Republicans, whose support for same-sex marriage has collapsed 18 points in five years and whose moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has fallen back to where it was in 2010. The numbers come as the political crackdown that began with transgender people has broadened to target the wider LGBTQ+ community—with state legislatures now hearing bills to overturn same-sex marriage and a sitting Republican congressman declaring this week that "homosexuality has no place in America." The data makes one thing clear: there is no LGB without the T. As it has been for our entire history, our rights are deeply interconnected, and those who target one part of this community will not stop until they have come for all of it.

According to the poll, the percentage of Americans who believe same-sex marriages should be legally valid now sits at 65%, a significant drop from its peak of 71% in 2022. The percentage who believe gay or lesbian relationships are morally acceptable has fallen to 62%, the lowest Gallup has recorded since 2016—just one year after the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. For transgender people, the picture is even bleaker: only 38% of Americans believe it is morally acceptable to change one's gender, down eight points in five years. These numbers represent a serious regression from what had seemed like an irreversible upswing in acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, and reflect an increasing hostility toward their existence that has accelerated sharply since 2022.

It is tempting to view this decline as emblematic of a broader societal backlash toward LGBTQ+ people, but a closer look at the data reveals something more specific. The numbers are driven almost entirely by a collapse in attitudes among Republicans, whose party has actively stoked hostility toward LGBTQ+ people among its base for the past five years. Democratic support for same-sex marriage remains at 87%, unchanged since 2022. Independent support has dipped only modestly. But among Republicans, the reversal is severe. A majority of Republicans—55%—said they favored same-sex marriage in 2021 and 2022. Today, that number sits at 37%, an 18-point collapse. In that same period, the share of Republicans who said gay and lesbian relationships were morally acceptable fell from 56% to 35%, a 21-point drop—meaning nearly two-thirds of the Republican Party now believes it is immoral to be gay. Only 5% of Republicans believe it is morally acceptable to change one's gender.

These changes did not happen organically. They are the product of a deliberate, well-funded, decades-long campaign by the religious far right to roll back LGBTQ+ acceptance in America. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a massive far-right and Christian Nationalist organization with $100+ million fundraising, has pursued what it calls a "generational wins" strategy that explicitly includes the elimination of marriage equality. The organization was was the legal force behind Chiles v. Salazar, the case that legalized conversion therapy nationwide. ADF has openly identified the elimination of marriage equality as part of its "generational wins" strategy. Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term included sweeping rollbacks of LGBTQ+ protections across the federal government, many of which are actively being implemented.

As a result, Republican leaders are more willing than ever to embrace not only anti-transgender stances, but openly anti-LGB ones as well. Legislators in at least ten states have introduced resolutions calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton spent years undermining marriage equality, openly suggesting that Texas would reintroduce sodomy laws if the Supreme Court overturned Lawrence v. Texas. A new conservative coalition backed by the Hobby Lobby fortune launched a campaign explicitly aimed at overturning marriage equality. And just this week, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee posted on social media: "Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month." He deleted the post after backlash from even his own colleagues, but the sentiment he expressed is now the majority position of his party's voters.

The Trump administration has likewise expanded its targeting well beyond transgender people. After digitally erasing transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument, his administration went further and removed references to bisexual people as well, partially reversing course only after widespread backlash. In February, the administration physically removed the Pride flag from the monument entirely. It has moved to effectively dismantle PEPFAR, the landmark global HIV/AIDS program—a move that has cost countless people access to PrEP medication. It also eliminated the specialized LGBTQ+ youth option within the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

So while this administration's attacks on transgender people have been extraordinarily vile, it is critical to understand that the Republican Party was never going to stop with just transgender people. The forces behind this campaign—backed by billions in far-right Christian nationalist funding and decades of legal strategy—have intended from the beginning to go after marriage equality and LGB people as well. When Obergefell was decided, those on the other side did not pack their bags and go home—they outlined a plan to target the entire community, starting with transgender people. Now the Gallup numbers reveal that their hold on the Republican Party and its beliefs has crystalized into something dangerous for all LGBTQ+ people, and the community is and always will be in it together.

Congressman Eugene Vindman, of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, is not having a very festive LGBTQ Pride Month so far.

In late May, Vindman was one of eight Democrats who voted in favor of the deceptively-named “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act” (H. R. 2616), breaking with the party to join Republicans in pushing the bill through the House.

So when his Bluesky account made a Pride Month post on social media, it caused a stir.

“Do you think that we’ve forgotten about that vote,” one Bluesky user wrote in response. “[Y]a know the one that will establish a national don’t say gay bill. Pretty vile to assume you could still celebrate pride with us.” [sic]

“The lack of moral courage and basic human decency to stand against persecution from so many is utterly contemptible,” wrote another user in response. “I expect it from the right but from supposed progressives, it’s not just disappointing; it’s disgraceful.”

The anti-trans provision at the center of this backlash would forcibly out gender diverse kids to their parents, forbid gender self-identification in schools without parental consent, and restrict schools that “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology.”

The term is a right-wing dog whistle, originating from Christian extremists, for anything that acknowledges the existence of the LGBTQ community. It is intentionally vague and broad; it could in theory be construed to apply not only to curricula but also to after-school clubs, school libraries with books depicting gender diversity, even teachers sharing their own pronouns.

Meanwhile, content “teaching” or “advancing” concepts that reinforce cis-heteronormativity as an ideology would seemingly remain kosher.

“With his vote, Rep. Vindman has turned his back on transgender students, their parents, and their teachers in his district,” Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, said in a statement to The Advocate.

“No member of the Equality Caucus”—which is dedicated to advancing LGBTQ rights in the legislature— “should vote in support of a bill that would require schools to forcibly out transgender students,” Rahaman said. “This administration has been weaponizing parents’ rights to undermine inclusive school environments, and is particularly focused at eroding protections for trans students.”

The forced outing policy/Don’t Say Trans bill will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority. Still, Democrats are expected to filibuster to prevent the bill from becoming law.

Vindman was one of eight Democrats who voted for what is formally known as H.R. 2616 alongside Republicans. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Cleo Fields of Louisiana, Laura Gillen of New York, Vicente González of Texas, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington also broke from the party to push the bill over the line. Like Vindman, Reps. Gluesenkamp Perez and Gillen are also members of the Equality Caucus.

Such bills have exploded in recent years. Flying under the false flag of “parental rights,” forced outing practices put queer youth in danger. One 2023 study out of the Journal of Research on Adolescence found that young LGBTQ people who were forcibly outed to parents “reported higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower amounts of LGBTQ family support” than queer youth who were not forcibly outed. Forced outing can lead to retaliatory, dangerous abuse from parents.

So when Vindman’s account sent out the otherwise innocuous Pride message, the Internet, of course, was quick to react—Harvard cyberlaw instructor Alejandra Caraballo bestowed the Congressman with the “Rainbow Frog of Shame” meme.

“If the rainbow frog of shame gets more likes than the original post, then your post really sucks,” the reply post reads.

As of publishing, Vindman’s post had a couple dozen likes. Caraballo’s had thousands.

This week, Governor Jared Polis signed a landmark new conversion therapy ban bill into law—the first of its kind following the devastating Supreme Court ruling that legalized conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people nationwide. The bill defies the ruling through a clever mechanism: rather than banning conversion therapy outright, it allows survivors to sue the practitioners who subjected them to it, using a private right of action—notably, the same legal mechanism first pioneered by Republicans to get around Roe v. Wade in Texas. The new law comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, which found Colorado's 2019 conversion therapy ban unconstitutional, effectively legalizing the discredited practice across the country. The law takes effect July 1, 2026. Once it takes effect, it should immediately make conversion therapy financially prohibitive in the state, as any practitioner who engages in it faces unlimited civil liability with no statute of limitations on claims.

The law targets what it defines as “sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts”—any practice by a licensed therapist that steers a patient toward a predetermined outcome regarding their sexual orientation or gender identity. That definition is deliberately outcome-based rather than viewpoint-based. The Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s 2019 ban because, they ruled, it restricted what therapists could say, declaring it viewpoint discrimination. The new law doesn’t restrict speech at all. Instead, creates civil liability for what therapists do to their patients. If a therapist practices conversion therapy on their patient, the patient can sue—for economic damages, noneconomic damages, and, if the conduct was willful, exemplary damages. There is no statute of limitations. The claim even survives the patient’s death, allowing families to bring suit for up to five years afterward. Importantly, the law protects affirming care and exempts it from lawsuits: any therapy that provides “acceptance, support, and understanding” or facilitates “identity exploration and development” as long as it does not steer towards a predetermined conclusion is shielded from liability.

The legal architecture should sound familiar. In 2021, Texas used a private right of action in SB 8 to effectively ban abortion while Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land. Rather than the government enforcing the ban, the law allowed any private citizen to sue anyone who performed or aided an abortion—and because there was no government actor to enjoin, courts couldn’t block it. Abortion access in Texas collapsed overnight. Kansas used the same mechanism in SB 244, which allows lawsuits against transgender people for using restrooms matching their gender identity. Colorado has now taken that same constitutional loophole and aimed it in the opposite direction. The government cannot ban conversion therapy after Chiles. But nothing in Chiles prevents a patient from suing a therapist who harmed them. The state isn’t punishing speech. Survivors are seeking accountability for injury—the same principle that has always allowed patients to sue doctors for malpractice.

The law was written to foreclose attempts to argue that affirming therapy is conversion therapy, a favorite claim by the far-right. Its definition targets therapists who steer patients toward “a predetermined outcome”—affirming a patient’s own self-understanding is, by definition, not a predetermined outcome imposed by the therapist. The carveouts are explicit and layered: therapy that is “neutral with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity,” therapy that facilitates a patient’s own “identity exploration and development,” and therapy related to a patient’s relationships or sexual behaviors are all protected, provided none of them steer toward a predetermined result. And the law’s causation standard requires courts to weigh the nature and intensity of the efforts, the patient’s age and vulnerability, the professional relationship, and expert testimony on the psychological effects of conversion therapy—a standard that is unlikely to be satisfied by anti-trans activists posing as medical experts in a state like Colorado.

Governor Polis chose to sign the law at The Center on Colfax, an LGBTQ community center in Denver, on the first day of Pride Month. After signing, he said in a statement: "People shouldn't be ripped off by those falsely claiming that they can change who you are attracted to or who you are. In our Colorado for all, everyone can live authentically, and should not be subject to hateful and simply ineffective conversion therapy. Conversion Therapy is harmful, can traumatize kids, and is a scam to waste people's hard-earned money." Polis also signed an accompanying executive order directing state agencies to ensure that no state funds are used for conversion therapy.

“It is critical that we as policymakers listen to trusted scientific organizations when they tell us a practice is harmful. For over a decade, we’ve known that ‘conversion therapy’ increases suicidality and exacerbates depression and anxiety for LGBTQ+ Coloradans,” said Senator Mullica in a statement. “In light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, it’s vital that we create avenues for those who have been subjected to ‘conversion therapy’ to get some justice.”

The new law will go into effect on July 1st.

On Sunday, May 31—the day before Pride Month—a Twitter user posted a photo from Vivian Jenna Wilson's new Savage X Fenty Pride campaign alongside a sweeping claim: that were it not for Vivian, Musk would have never purchased Twitter, never gotten involved in politics, and Kamala Harris would be president. The notion that Musk's Twitter acquisition was connected to his daughter's transition has been the subject of speculation for years, bolstered by leaked text messages from the Delaware court filings that linked his purchase directly to the suspension of a transphobic account, and by his own biographer's reporting that his “anti-woke sentiments” were "partly triggered" by Wilson's transition. But Musk had never confirmed it in his own words. This time, he replied with a single word: "True"—seemingly confirming what the court filings, the Isaacson biography, and Musk's own public statements had long suggested: that the $44 billion purchase of Twitter was driven, at least in significant part, by his reaction to his daughter's transition and the platform's treatment of anti-trans content.

"We should never forget that if not for Vivian, Elon Musk never would have gotten involved, never would have purchased Twitter, Kamala Harris would be President and the Left-wing would have total instrumental control over the construction of Skynet," read the post by Twitter user Syd Steyerhart, in response to Vivian's photo and news about her campaign for Rihanna's lingerie brand. "True," Musk responded.

Then, today, he doubled down, writing that Vivian "was murdered by the woke mind virus, now it will die."

The exchange is striking, but it is not a revelation so much as a confirmation. Evidence that Musk’s purchase of Twitter was substantially influenced by transgender people has been accumulating for years. In March 2022, Twitter suspended the Babylon Bee, a right-wing satire account, for posting a headline naming U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine—a transgender woman—its “Man of the Year.” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon confirmed that Musk called him directly to verify the suspension and “even mused on that call that he might need to buy Twitter.”

Days later, text messages released as part of the Delaware Chancery Court litigation over Musk’s attempted withdrawal from the deal show his ex-wife Talulah Riley texting him: “Can you buy Twitter and then delete it, please!? America is going INSANE. The Babylon Bee got suspension is crazy.” Riley went further: “Or can you buy Twitter and make it radically free-speech? I honestly think social media is the scourge of modern life… But it’s very easy to exploit and is being used by radicals for social engineering on a massive scale. And this shit is infecting the world. Please do do something to fight woke-ism. I will do anything to help!” Musk replied: “Maybe buy it and change it to properly support free speech.” Just weeks later, he made his $44 billion offer to buy the company outright.

And in an excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography published in the Wall Street Journal, the biographer drew the line directly from Musk’s daughter to the acquisition: “Musk’s anti-woke sentiments were partly triggered by the decision of his oldest child, [Vivian], then 16, to transition.” Isaacson continued: “Twitter, he felt, had become infected by a similar mindset that suppressed right-wing and anti-establishment voices.”

Musk has since used the platform he purchased to wage a sustained campaign against transgender people. He has made Twitter hostile for transgender journalists and activists, going as far as digitally labeling the term "cisgender"—simply a term for someone who is not transgender, derived from a Latin prefix that has existed since Roman times as the opposite of "trans"—a slur. He removed Twitter's longstanding policy banning the deliberate misgendering and deadnaming of transgender users, protections that had been in place since 2018. On the first day of Pride Month 2023, he personally overruled his own content moderation team to promote "What Is a Woman?," the Daily Wire's anti-trans documentary, which went on to receive over a hundred million views on the platform with his amplification. He has amplified fringe anti-trans groups like the American College of Pediatricians—a small, SPLC-designated hate group often confused with the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics—lending them an audience of millions. He also has publicly stated he would lobby to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors on the platform.

As for his trans daughter Vivian, she has had sharp words for her father before. The last time Musk invoked her name to justify his crusade against transgender people—in a July 2024 interview with Jordan Peterson in which he claimed she had been "killed by the woke mind virus" and that he had been "tricked" into allowing her to transition—Wilson fired back on Threads, calling his account of her childhood "entirely fake" and noting that "he doesn't know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn't there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness." Her advice for the richest man in the world? "Go touch some f---ing grass."

It's June 1, which means Pride Month begins again today. It's my seventh Pride. I remember my first one, seven years ago—terrified and excited, going out dressed in the clothes I felt best in, using the name I wanted to use for the first time in public. I had people with me that day, people I found safety with, people who helped me grow into the person I am now. Seven years later, so sure of myself and so comfortable in my skin, I look back on those moments as some of the best of my life. And now, this year, as I have every year, I watch the new flock—countless in number—who are wearing rainbow colors and joining a family that will show them more love than they have ever known. They are arriving even after a political winter that was, by any measure, cold and brutal to all of us. It is watching them that has me thinking about the beauty of what we witness starting today.

This year, I took up birding. I always thought it was a silly hobby, but my wife Zooey encouraged me to point my camera at a new subject. I first did so on the Pattee Canyon trail up in Missoula—and caught, soaring in place, a single red-tailed hawk, just hovering, watching the ground below. I stared at it for a while in awe. That was all it took. And the timing was perfect, because in the weeks that followed I stumbled into the best time to be a birder: spring migration. Wave after wave of orioles, tanagers, flycatchers, and warblers of every different color and size came pouring through. I didn't even know there were so many birds. It made me realize that for most of my life I had been walking through the world completely unaware of the beauty around me—that there was this entire world that had always been there, just waiting for me to lay eyes on it.

What I also didn't know was the incredible journeys so many of these birds had taken just to be here—how far they had traveled to find the flocks they'd spend the season with, to build nests, to raise families, to simply exist in a place that could sustain them. The Prothonotary Warbler I spotted in the marsh? It spent the winter in the mangrove swamps of Central America, then crossed the entire Gulf of Mexico in a single flight—more than 600 miles of open water, eighteen hours in the air with nowhere to land. It had to travel that far just to find its family. And the most stunning thing about a bird like that—one that has gone through so much, that has flapped its wings until it has exhausted itself and left everything behind? It arrived here in the most brilliant gold you've ever seen, and began to sing. The Prothonotary Warbler isn't nearly the only species that does this. Ruby throated hummingbirds, blackpoll warblers, bobolinks… all take incredible journeys.

I was unaware of all of this before I took up birding. It makes me wonder how much else I walk right past without seeing. I remember before I came out, I didn't know how rich this chosen family was, how many different people were also queer like me. I had no idea that once I came out, I'd find so many of them had been here all along. They were just waiting for me, and all I had to do was stop and look and embrace something new. And I did, and an entire world opened up. I love moments like this, where life teaches you something about itself, and you realize that diversity and surprise might just be the best things it has to offer.

Today, as Pride begins, I am reminded that every single person who has made it here, put on their colors, and found their family has survived something difficult. Every one of them has just lasted through a winter where our rights were systematically stripped away. Politicians who hate us have spent the year dismantling everything we built—healthcare ripped from hospitals, identities stripped from documents. Corporations that once draped themselves in rainbows every June are nowhere to be found. Some of us have quite literally migrated to entirely new states looking for safety. And our gulf crossing this year was met with heavy headwinds.

And yet, so many of us still made it. This year, you will see your city streets filled with rainbows. This year, countless new people will celebrate their first Prides. People will put on the clothes that fit them best. People will love in ways they didn't know how to before. People will dance and sing, and others will have no choice but to acknowledge our existence, because when we arrive, we do not do so quietly. Every single person you see in the streets this month is a testament to our resilience, and a reminder to the fact that this is a journey we have been making since the beginning of human existence. We call it something different now. We carve out a specific month for it. But we have always been here, and we have always had to search for ways to express ourselves, be ourselves, and find our kin.

Maybe birding is a silly hobby. Maybe dragging myself out of bed before dawn—and I am not a morning person, I might add—is more trouble than it's worth. Birders look ridiculous. We stuff our pants into our socks so the ticks don't climb up our legs. We carry binoculars and absurdly large cameras into places where everyone else is just taking a walk. But I think there is something more to it than that, something that opened my eyes to the way the world moves around me—something I wasn't expecting to find when I first pointed a camera at a hawk and couldn't look away. I think I understand something about this month that I didn’t understand before because of it. Pride isn’t just a celebration, it’s a testament to survival and a refusal to be quiet even after the journey. It's putting on your most brilliant colors after the longest winter of your life. And I’m so glad we made it one more year.

Happy Pride.

Since Trump took office for his second term, his administration's attacks on hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth have significantly disrupted that care. In response, advocates have pushed blue states that claim to support transgender people to step in and fund care directly. That has been especially true in New York, where advocates spent the legislative session pushing for a dedicated gender-affirming care fund—an access program designed to help outpatient providers absorb the patients pushed out of hospitals that abandoned care. The need has grown more urgent as New York City, whose mayor made his own promises to fund gender-affirming care and hold hospitals that capitulate accountable, has likewise failed to deliver for the transgender community. Now the state budget has passed, and it contains exactly zero dollars for the critical priorities advocates spent months asking for.

“As the Trump administration continues to pose an existential threat to the transgender community, we are profoundly disappointed that the FY2027 New York State budget invests zero state dollars to support access to the health care many transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, and intersex people rely on to live in their bodies with dignity and health -- a complete failure to meet the moment,” said Allie Bohm, NYCLU senior policy counsel about the lack of passage. “We urge our lawmakers and the Governor to take urgent action to restore New York's reputation as a beacon for gender-affirming care access by codifying New York's insurance coverage requirement for gender-affirming care, strengthening our health care anti-discrimination laws, enacting robust health privacy protections both for electronic health records and for consumer health data, and advancing hospital transparency.”

The major ask from advocates was the creation of a dedicated gender-affirming care fund—a state-run access program that would help outpatient providers absorb the patients shut out when hospitals like NYU Langone abandoned care. One proposal would have distributed money to clinics and providers continuing to offer care, including those that had lost federal funding for refusing to stop. "Creating and funding the Gender-Affirming Care Access Program would send a clear message: New York believes that access to essential healthcare is a matter of dignity, freedom and justice," Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas wrote in an April op-ed urging lawmakers to include it in the budget. Notably, a similar (though small) bill passed in Massachusetts, which established exactly such a backstop in 2025, when Gov. Maura Healey signed a Gender-Affirming Care Trust Fund into the state budget to pay for transgender health care in the event federal funding is cut off.

This comes as a growing number of hospitals have shut down care for transgender people nationwide. A STAT News analysis found that more than 40 hospitals across the country have paused or stopped offering some form of gender-affirming care to trans youth since Trump issued his first executive order. In these cases, hospitals are capitulating preemptively, out of fear of losing the Medicare and Medicaid funding the Trump administration has threatened to withhold, even before any rule allowing him to do so has taken effect. In New York, that capitulation is almost certainly illegal: Attorney General Letitia James warned hospitals early last year that denying care to transgender patients while providing it to others violates the state's anti-discrimination laws. But those laws have gone largely unenforced, and hospitals like NYU Langone have shuttered their programs anyway, with no apparent consequence. A dedicated state fund—or direct provision of care through public hospitals—would at least offer transgender New Yorkers a second avenue to treatment, one that does not depend on the state successfully compelling private hospitals to follow a law it has so far declined to enforce.

The state budget is not the only place where New York's elected leaders have failed to act. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a $65 million pledge to fund gender-affirming care through public hospitals and community clinics, but Prism reported that the money did not appear in his February preliminary budget, with the city's Independent Budget Office unable to locate the funds and the mayor's office declining to say where they were. He also has not demanded the city's public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals to expand access, and has not coordinated with state officials to hold noncompliant hospitals accountable. Writing in The Nation, Sophie Hurwitz noted that despite his promises—and despite his having personally protested NYU Langone's capitulation as a candidate—"many of his promises to the trans community have yet to become reality."

Though New York sells itself as a sanctuary state—and its laws do protect transgender people to a degree unmatched in most of the country—it is, for now, likely to be seen as falling short for its transgender residents. With the state budget finished, the dedicated care fund advocates wanted would now have to come through separate legislation, which the legislature could still take up before it adjourns. New York City's budget, meanwhile, is not yet settled. Mamdani's spending plan is still being negotiated with the City Council ahead of its summer deadline, leaving a narrow window for the gender-affirming care funding he promised to finally appear—and for at least one level of New York government to match its rhetoric with action.

In recent months, political operatives embracing anti-trans narratives under the Democratic banner—organizations like the Searchlight Institute and Third Way—have encouraged Democrats to abandon transgender people in pursuit of electoral gains. One of the chief places this capitulation has played out is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly thrown transgender people under the bus. This week, however, one of the leading Democratic candidates to succeed him pushed back. Appearing on Jennifer Welch's progressive podcast "I've Had It," Tom Steyer directly stated that he supports transgender participation in sports and rejected the bans that have served as the Republican Party's launching point for nearly every other anti-trans attack. His position stands in sharp contrast both to Newsom's record and to that of his leading Democratic opponent, former Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who in a recent interview offered a notably more hedged response when asked the same question.

"How important is it for you to platform universal human rights, to stand up against Islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, anti-Black racism—all the same, that they're all interconnected?" Welch asked. "Because I see some politicians, particularly Democrats, that are capitulating, mainstream centrist Democrats, capitulating to some right-wing narratives like, 'Oh, we shouldn't talk about the bathroom,' or we see this rise here and we're not going to squash this one down. To me, they're all intricately connected, and I think diversity protects us and helps us cooperate and helps make a better place for all of us to live."

Steyer responded with a full-throated defense of transgender youth—and, specifically, of transgender athletes. "I'm totally in favor of trans athletes in high school," he said. "I think when you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand that almost half of them try to commit suicide. And then you think we're going to punish those kids. We're going to cut them off from team sports. We're going to cut them off from participating in the community. We're going to cut them off from fun. It's like, no, we're not. No, we're not." He went on: "As someone who played sports my whole life and loves sports and loves playing sports, there are more important things than whether you start on your high school basketball team. And that is standing up for people who are under a threat of death."

See the full interview here (trans remarks at the 7:00 mark)

Steyer’s remarks stand in stark contrast to those of Gov. Gavin Newsom, the man he is running to succeed. In March 2025, Newsom told late conservative activist Charlie Kirk that transgender participation in girls’ sports was “deeply unfair.” He has since repeated and defended the position multiple times, including in interviews with CNN’s Dana Bash—where he urged Democrats to be more “culturally normal” and stop focusing on “pronouns and identity politics”—and with Katie Couric, where he said he could not see a way for trans women to fairly compete and claimed, without evidence, that there had been “multiple instances” of cisgender athletes being “displaced” by trans competitors in California. Newsom has also matched his rhetoric with action, vetoing multiple pro-LGBTQ+ bills in California, including a measure that would have required insurers to cover and pharmacists to prescribe up to 12 months of hormone therapy at a time. He even, in an interview with right-wing podcaster Shawn Ryan, appeared to entertain the idea that one should not transition until 26 years of age.

Steyer’s leading Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial race, former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, has been similarly cagey on trans people. In a recent interview with CBS News California Investigates correspondent Julie Watts, Becerra opened with the line “There’s nothing in the constitution that says that you are entitled to play a sport,” and quickly pivoted to the argument that “governing bodies in those particular sports decide who plays in the sport.” When Watts pressed him on California’s own state law requiring schools to allow transgender students to participate in line with their gender identity, Becerra replied, “I’m not sure, I’d have to look at the way you’ve read the law.” He then endorsed bans on trans athletes based on “who you are,” stating: “If the rules don’t let you play in that sport just because of who you are, then you don’t get to play in that sport.”

See Steyer vs. Becerra’s responses to that particular interview here:

Notably, transgender participation in school sports is explicitly protected under California law and has been for more than a decade. State statute requires that students be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams, consistent with their gender identity. Any future California governor will be sworn to uphold that law.

Steyer’s statement comes at a critical point in this race. With California's June 2 primary one week away, Becerra has been losing ground while Steyer has been gaining it. An Echelon Insights poll released this week shows Steyer pulling ahead of Becerra outright, 18% to 15%. Republican Steve Hilton—the former Fox News commentator and ex-adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron—currently leads the field, though California's top-two primary system advances the top two finishers to November regardless of party, meaning Hilton is widely expected to take one of the two slots. The main fight will be between Steyer and Becerra, and the winner of this race is likely to be the favorite to win California. In the meantime, transgender people will be watching the candidates to see if they will break from Newsom’s capitulation, or continue in the same way.

On Tuesday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruled that a proposed ballot initiative banning trans students from school sports and bathrooms will not appear before voters this November. The billionaire-funded campaign initially submitted 79,692 signatures—well over the 67,682 required to qualify—and the Secretary of State's office certified the question for the ballot in March. But indications soon emerged that the signature-gathering process was riddled with improper procedures and, in at least one documented case and potentially many others, outright forgery. After a court remand, an evidentiary hearing, and a sworn-testimony review of the petitions, 12,542 signatures were invalidated, leaving the campaign 532 short of the threshold. Barring an appeal—which is likely though its success is far from certain—transgender students in Maine can rest a little easier this election cycle.

The infractions are striking. One out-of-state circulator left his petition forms unattended at a Topsham polling place on Election Day—twice—allowing voters to sign without a witness present, in direct violation of Maine law. Another circulator did the same at a Saco polling place, leaving her table for extended periods while crowds of voters signed unwitnessed petitions. When asked under oath whether she had destroyed the unwitnessed forms as required, she said yes—but a photograph submitted into evidence showed one of those forms was in fact turned in for validation. Most troubling of all, an out-of-state signature gatherer paid per signature submitted forms that appear to contain outright forgeries: one voter listed on her petition testified under oath that she had never signed it and had never even heard of the initiative. After the Oxford town clerk flagged additional suspicious signatures, an Elections Division review compared every name on the circulator's forms against voter registration applications—and concluded that every single one of her validated signatures should have been thrown out as signed by another person.

Based on the evidence, Bellows ruled Tuesday that the initiative had failed to qualify for the November ballot. The decision marked a reversal of her own March certification, when her office initially determined that the petition contained enough valid signatures to move forward. That earlier ruling was challenged in Cumberland County Superior Court by three Maine voters, who alleged that thousands of signatures had been collected in violation of state law. In April, Justice Deborah Cashman agreed that the original review had been incomplete and remanded the case back to the Secretary of State's office for further factfinding, ordering a new determination of validity within thirty days. That process produced the May 12 evidentiary hearing—where witnesses, including town clerks and voters whose names appeared on petitions, testified under oath—and ultimately the decision invalidating thousands more signatures than the initial review had caught. Bellows adopted that recommendation in full.

The initiative would have done far more than what its sports-focused branding suggested. It would have defined a person's sex for school purposes as "a person's biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person's original birth certificate"—a definition that would have stripped transgender students of legal recognition in Maine schools. It would have required public schools to "maintain separate restrooms, locker rooms, shower rooms, and other private spaces for each sex," extending the ban well beyond athletics and into every gendered space in a school building. It would have created a private right of action allowing any student to sue their school for "direct injury" suffered from a violation of the act, effectively turning every transgender student's presence in a bathroom or on a sports team into potential litigation. And it would have specifically carved transgender students out of the Maine Human Rights Act.

The anti-trans signature drive was not a grassroots effort. It was bankrolled by Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein, the co-founder of Uline office supplies, who donated $800,000 to fund the entire effort. Uihlein has given more than $250 million to political causes since 2016, and is a major funder of the American Principles Project, which routinely spends tens of millions on anti-trans campaign ads during election years. He is not alone: an independent analysis published by Atmos and HEATED found that 80% of 45 major anti-trans organizations in the U.S. have received funding from fossil fuel companies or billionaires. The Maine initiative was part of that broader pattern—an attempt by a small handful of extraordinarily wealthy donors to use direct democracy as a workaround in states where elected legislatures have refused to engage in anti-trans legislation.

The decision was greeted with relief by the LGBTQ+ coalition that has fought the initiative since the day it was filed. “Maine has strict rules in place to protect the integrity of our elections and our system of direct democracy. The paid, out-of-state signature gathers and the billionaire who paid to try to put this question on the ballot failed to follow the rules,” said David Farmer, campaign manager for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools, the coalition led by EqualityMaine, GLAD Law, and the Maine Women’s Lobby. “We believe that the appeals process and the reviews by the Secretary of State are working as the law intends. They are protecting the integrity of our elections.”

The Maine ruling is not the end of fight. Similar billionaire-backed initiatives have been certified for the November ballot in Washington and Colorado, where voters will decide whether to bar transgender students from sports as well as medical care restrictions. Both efforts are also funded by conservative megadonors, and both are part of the same strategy that produced the Maine initiative: use ballot initiatives to roll back trans rights in states whose elected legislatures have refused to do so. The Maine anti-trans campaign is expected appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine Superior Court within the ten-day window the law allows.

On Tuesday, May 19, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2616, the "Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act," by a vote of 217-198. The bill would hand the Trump administration enormous leverage to strip federal funding from any school that “teaches or advances concepts” related to transgender people, codifying into federal law the anti-trans definitions from Trump's executive order 14168, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism." It would also require public schools to forcibly out transgender students to their parents before using their pronouns or chosen names. The bill is significant on its own terms for the harm it would inflict on transgender youth if it became law. But what made Tuesday's vote especially notable was the eight Democrats who joined every Republican to pass it—the largest Democratic defection on any standalone anti-trans bill of this Congress.

The bill's most consequential clause is its second section, which amends the federal education code's existing list of "prohibited uses of funds" to add: "to teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology, as defined in section 2 of Executive Order 14168 (90 Fed. Reg. 8615; relating to defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the Federal Government)." That single sentence slots an anti-trans line item into Section 8526 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the foundational federal law governing K-12 education in the United States. Adding "concepts related to gender ideology" to that list places the existence of transgender people on the same legal footing as activities the federal government considers prohibited. And by tying the definition of "gender ideology" to Trump's executive order rather than the statute itself, Congress would be handing enormous power to the president to strip public school funding.

The language "teach or advance concepts related to" is dangerously broad. At its most basic level, simply acknowledging that transgender people exist could be construed as "teaching" gender ideology. Books featuring transgender characters would likely be pulled from classrooms—an outcome already playing out in states with similar laws on the books. But the phrase "advancing concepts" could spiderweb in much more aggressive directions. Is a transgender teacher who uses their own name and pronouns "advancing concepts" related to transgender people? Is allowing a trans student to use the bathroom matching their gender "advancing concepts"? Is a high school production of Twelfth Night—a Shakespearean play built entirely around cross-gender performance—"advancing concepts" of gender ideology? These hypotheticals may sound far-fetched, but the Trump administration and its allies have already targeted versions of every one of them.

The bill would also require any school receiving federal funds to obtain a parent's consent before using a student's chosen name or pronouns, or before allowing them to use any sex-based accommodation matching their gender identity. In practice, the provision functions as a forced outing mandate. A transgender student who feels safe enough at school to use a gender-neutral office restroom or bathroom of their gender identity, or to be called by the right name in class, would lose access to those accommodations unless their parents had already been notified—and approved. Transgender youth face notoriously high rates of family rejection and abuse, and in the wake of the Supreme Court's Chiles v. Salazar decision last year, an outed trans student could face the prospect of court-greenlit conversion therapy.

But most devastating for transgender people was the uptick in Democratic support. Previous anti-trans bills had drawn defections from only a handful of habitually anti-trans Democrats—usually just Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, who have voted with Republicans on several anti-trans bills and amendments brought to the House floor. Tuesday's vote was different. Eight Democrats joined every Republican to pass the bill—the largest Democratic crossover on a standalone anti-trans bill in recent memory. The eight: Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Don Davis (D-NC), Cleo Fields (D-LA), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), and Eugene Vindman (D-VA).

The move to target transgender people has been pushed for some time now by a small but vocal wing of Democratic-aligned strategists, pundits, and benefactors who portray themselves as "moderate"—from outfits like Third Way and the Searchlight Institute, to individual lawmakers like Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton and Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, who have spent the past two years arguing the party should drop its defense of trans people. The wing remains small, but it continues to push to grow its influence—and its most significant elected proponent is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, who platformed Charlie Kirk on his podcast to declare himself "completely aligned" with the late far-right activist on banning trans athletes, vetoed multiple pro-LGBTQ+ bills in California, and on a separate podcast appearance appeared to entertain the idea that trans people shouldn't transition before age 25.

For now, H.R. 2616 heads to the Senate, where the legislative filibuster requires 60 votes to advance—a threshold no standalone anti-trans bill has cleared in this Congress. Senate Democrats blocked the federal trans sports ban earlier this year on a straight party-line vote, and the most likely fate of the “Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act” is that it dies on the same procedural wall. Whether that holds—and whether the number of House Democrats willing to vote yes the next time keeps growing—is going to be important to continue watching moving forward.

This weekend, a Kansas judge issued a scathing 117-page rebuke of the state's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth—and in doing so, methodically dismantled the case against that care. In his ruling, Judge Carl Folsom III worked through the testimony of the state's witnesses one by one, finding that its anti-transgender “experts”—routinely paraded by groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, SEGM, and Genspect—offered opinions built on "cherry-picked information, conjecture, and research taken out of context," and granting their testimony little to no weight. He then laid out 349 individual findings of fact, drawn from scientific evidence and the testimony of credible medical experts, documenting the safety and efficacy of gender-affirming care. He ultimately found that the ban likely violates the Kansas Constitution—which guarantees broader protections than its federal counterpart. That distinction matters enormously: because the ruling rests on state constitutional grounds, it is largely insulated from the U.S. Supreme Court and its decision in Skrmetti, which closed the federal courthouse door to these challenges but left the state one wide open.

"Allowing a transgender adolescent with gender dysphoria to experience their endogenous puberty when puberty blockers are medically indicated according to the Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline is highly likely to result in irreversible physical changes that create enormous short- and long-term distress and gender dysphoria," Folsom wrote. "Thus, there was substantial evidence that S.B. 63 not only fails to protect minors, but also endangers them, by prohibiting the use of GnRH agonists when medically indicated."

Before weighing the evidence, the judge first had to determine who could credibly be considered an expert. Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach brought forward a litany of anti-trans witnesses familiar from litigation defending these bans. Among them was James Cantor, a Toronto psychologist who has built a career testifying for states defending care bans despite no clinical experience treating transgender minors—and who was once quietly dropped from a Florida Board of Medicine hearing after it emerged he had served on the advisory council of the Prostasia Foundation, a group that has worked to destigmatize pedophilia. Folsom wrote that Cantor "has not conducted any original scientific research on the efficacy or safety of gender dysphoria treatments," and noted he is not licensed to treat anyone under 16 and has never diagnosed a minor with gender dysphoria. The judge then catalogued a record of self-contradiction: Cantor "stated that 'peer-review is the line between acceptable and not' but himself relied on non-peer reviewed sources," cited systematic reviews while ignoring that "the authors of those reviews stated that their work should not be used to prevent the provision of gender-affirming medical care," and "makes several statements which have no scientific support," including that gender dysphoria might be a misdiagnosis of borderline personality disorder. "The Court gives Dr. Cantor's testimony little weight," Folsom concluded.

The judge turned next to Farr Curlin, a Duke University doctor and theologian who was an author of the Trump administration's HHS report on pediatric gender dysphoria—a document authored anonymously by a roster of hate-group affiliates and career anti-trans activists, and which deadnames Christine Jorgensen, one of the first Americans to get gender affirming surgery. Curlin, Folsom noted, "is not a pediatrician, nor is he a psychiatrist or endocrinologist," and "has never treated anyone for gender dysphoria." Curlin testified that gender-affirming care is "ethically problematic"—but under questioning, the breadth of what Curlin considers unethical became clear. He believes that prescribing birth control for contraception is also "ethically problematic," because "blocking the capacity for reproduction seems contrary to the purposes of health." He believes in vitro fertilization is "ethically problematic" as well. He testified that when gender-affirming care reduces fertility, it "prevents the realization of the basic good of marriage, since sexual capacities make possible the one flesh union of marriage." By his own admission, Folsom noted, Curlin's views are "radically counter to current medical orthodoxy." The judge found his opinions "appear motivated by his personal views as opposed to a methodology applicable in the field of medical ethics," and gave his testimony "little-to-no weight."

The judge also had pointed words for the state's roster of prominent anti-trans activists. Chloe Cole, the country’s most prominent anti-trans detransitioner, testified about receiving care as a minor in California—but Folsom noted that Cole "admittedly did not receive care in Kansas," and that the plaintiffs' expert Dr. Angela Turpin testified the care Cole described "would not have occurred in Kansas" and would have been inconsistent with the clinical guidelines Kansas providers actually follow. Her testimony was given "less weight." Corinna Cohn, another anti-trans detransitioner who has testified for care bans across the country and who has publicly denied that transgender people existed before 1939 or were victims of the Holocaust, did not appear at the hearing at all. The judge noted that Cohn's affidavit described "care accessed as an adult" and treatment "in Wisconsin"—nothing to do with minors, or with Kansas—and gave it "little weight." And then there was Jamie Reed, the self-styled "whistleblower" who built a national profile on lurid, largely unsubstantiated accusations against a St. Louis gender clinic and who has gone on Fox News to describe being transgender as a delusion. Reed also did not testify and could not be cross-examined. Folsom gave her affidavit "little weight,” and had scathing remarks towards her lack of expertise:

“The Court gives thus Jamie Reed’s affidavit little weight, given that she is not a medical provider or mental-health professional. In addition, her affidavit primarily addresses her experiences with a clinic operating outside of Kansas—thus, it does not rebut or refute the credible, uncontroverted testimony about clinical practice within the state of Kansas,” read the order.

Folsom then turned to set the record straight on the care banned by Kansas. Working through the testimony of the credible medical experts, he set out 349 separate numbered findings of fact, each documenting some component of what the science actually shows about gender-affirming care. Among them: that "the currently available body of medical research, as a whole, shows that gender-affirming medical care is effective at improving mental-health outcomes for adolescents with gender dysphoria," supported by "over 20 scientific studies" finding the treatments "effective at alleviating gender dysphoria and improving a variety of mental-health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and suicidality." Folsom found that "for many adolescents, gender-affirming medical care provides significant relief from gender dysphoria and decreases depression, anxiety, suicidality, and thoughts of self-harm." On the question of regret, the talking point most relied upon by the law's defenders, the court found, based on the Kansas clinic's own long-term follow-up data, that 99.2% of patients who received gender-affirming care "continue to identify as transgender into adulthood," and that of the remaining 0.8%, "most did not regret the medical treatment they received."

Folsom reserved some of his sharpest fact-finding for the Cass Review and claims over European care. The state's experts pointed to systematic reviews from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Norway as “proof” the science had turned. Folsom found otherwise. "None of these systematic reviews recommend categorically banning gender-affirming medical care for adolescents," he wrote, and "the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Norway have not categorically prohibited gender-affirming medical care for minors"—as Kansas had. On the Cass Review specifically, Folsom found that its authors "changed their methodology from the methodology they said they would use in their preregistration, which is a deviation from standard academic publishing practices designed to minimize bias," and "used idiosyncratic standards in scoring and thus excluded studies that had made important contributions to the field." Far from recommending a ban, the court found, the Cass Report "reaches conclusions that are similar to those in the Endocrine Society Guideline and WPATH Standards of Care" and "concludes that there are young people who absolutely benefit from gender-affirming care." On Germany, the state had the facts backwards: Folsom found that "Germany's recent guideline endorses the provision of gender-affirming medical care"—a reference to the 2025 guidelines from 26 medical organizations across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the largest European medical consensus on transgender youth care ever produced.

The judge's ruling rested on the Kansas constitution. Folsom found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on the claim that SB 63 violates the fundamental right of parents, guaranteed by Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights, to make medical decisions for their children. Section 1, he wrote, quoting the Kansas Supreme Court, "protects the core right of personal autonomy—which includes the ability to control one's own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination" and "allows Kansans to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, their health, their family formation, and their family life." Because SB 63 strips parents of that right, Folsom applied strict scrutiny, the most demanding standard in constitutional law, and found the state had failed to meet it. That reasoning was used recently before in Kansas politics for another issue. The same Section is what protects abortion rights in the state. In previous abortion-related decisions, the Kansas Supreme Court held that Section 1 secures "an inalienable natural right of personal autonomy"—language the court used to strike down abortion restrictions, and that Kansas voters chose to keep in 2022 when they rejected a constitutional amendment that would have stripped it away.

For now, gender-affirming care is legal again in Kansas. The injunction is temporary, blocking SB 63 while the case is litigated, and Attorney General Kris Kobach has said he will appeal, calling the ruling "a stark example of judicial activism." But the appeal faces a structural problem. Because the decision rests entirely on the Kansas Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court and its ruling in Skrmetti have no power to disturb it—a state's highest court is the final word on its own constitution. And the Kansas Supreme Court, where the case is ultimately likely to land, has five of seven justices appointed by Democratic governors and has repeatedly upheld the same Section 1 personal-autonomy right that Folsom relied on here.