So many trans kids will take their own life because of this, and it will not be suicide, but murder by the federal government and pre-compliance by the hospitals that are supposed to care for them.
Those of us who have gone through the wrong adolescence know what is at stake here: the very lives of trans children. I remember sitting far out in a field crying over a living hell as I went through an adolescence that violated my true identity.
Our opponents cannot allow themselves to see this because they do not think critically. They accept unexamined beliefs manipulated to aggregate power in a male-dominated society.
They have to see that being transgender is a choice, gender is biologically encoded in a binary, and children have no innate concept of gender identity.
If they allow these beliefs to be brought into question, then their entire belief structure will be vulnerable to collapse. They risk a complete breakdown in their assumed narrative of reality. If they are incapable of rethinking their complete belief system, the result appears to be an entire mental collapse.
As trans people, we need to recognize that this is what we are up against. From the perspective of their belief systems, we are harbingers of a radical gender ideology that threatens to destroy their entire narrative of reality.
OR... They realize we are harmless, and they realize they are destroying our lives, but they regard us as worthless and are perfectly comfortable doing to us what they do. They regard us as the weeds of society. We're that annoying home in the HOA development with a mailbox that doesn't look like everyone else's.
I truly believe so. I've lobbied a lot of these people. I find that they are completely uninterested in, and unpersuaded by, our suffering or even our deaths.
I think what finally made me realize we don't matter to them was my experience lobbying for gender-affirming care for minors. I could show lawmakers compelling data that the number of "regrets" paled by comparison to the number of people who regarded transition as improving their lives. I could explain to them how someone transitioning inappropriately would (if on HRT) have some secondary sexual characteristics that they would pose difficulties throughout their lives and might need to be addressed with electrolysis, breast reconstruction, or whatever, which is the EXACT SAME PROBLEM encountered by 99% of transitioners who are denied gender affirming care at puberty.
So, are we going to get it wrong for the 99% of transitioners? Or are we going to get it wrong for the 1%? Their attitude is that we have to prevent that 1% from making that mistake, even if it means FORCING that same mistake on the remaining 99%. And for the life of me, I can't come up with any other explanation for this strange calculus than that the 99% don't matter, because they are trans. Only the cis 1% matters.
I've had lawmakers and staffers state it almost this clearly, saying for instance that what they care about is the 1%. The disregard for the 99% is generally implied.
I have had similar experiences doing door to door canvassing. There is a complete lack of empathy in this country. If it doesn't affect them directly, they really don't care.
To all the families in Colorado, we are all so sorry, and so angry. I know that many, many families moved to Colorado over the last decade with the promise of it being a haven for gender affirming care for youth. Please rise up and raise your voices! Encourage your health providers at Denver Health and Children's to do the same -- it made a difference in San Francisco recently.
Start asking physicians if they can form cooperative, non-surgical clinics without federal funding -- what would that look like? How much seed money? What would that take? Ask them to start seeking solutions with stakeholders and state funders. The physicians and health care providers typically want to provide care and are distraught over these decisions. The hospitals are looking at the bottom line and also know they cannot commit to welcoming all patients if they don't receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Keep reminding folks that Trump and Republicans are the problem, and that the healthcare system needs radical reform overall. Until then, let's continue supporting organizations seeking solutions and access to care, and supporting one another. And if you are a trans youth in Colorado, we see you, we love you, and keep on keeping on because it will get better and your unique self has so, so much to offer us and the world!
Our lives just don't matter as much as red meat to energize the GOPMAGA electoral base.
And neither do the lives of women, the poor, emigrants, non-whites, non-Christians, people living with HIV, cis LGBTQ Americans, or anyone with disabilities.
Even though when we all stand TOGETHER, we are by far the MAJORITY.
Indeed! We, the majority minority, and we can have real power if we decide to use it. I think the majority minority needs to have its own "mad as hell" moment:
I hope people flood these organizations with protest! Also though, I think we need to start replying when things like this happen by flooding newsrooms with op/eds.
The public has two choices: 1. Be silent and let these things happen, and eventually be harmed themselves for not speaking out; 2. Protest now and protect themselves by making it harder for hospitals and providers to pre-emptively comply when the administration tries a similar move to implement strict abortion bans and bans on contraception.
Since mainstream media is so oblivious to how trans healthcare bans lay groundwork to take care from others too, I think it's on us to raise these points by flooding newsrooms with op/eds. I have an op/ed on my site that people are free to adapt and use (it's the very first post).
I don't know which group I'm angrier with anymore- the fascists driving this culture war shit, or all of the other cowardly fucks running our educational and medical institutions who refuse to stand up to them... but 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 refuse to just walk the fuck away and let someone who 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 stand up to the fascists take their place so the fucking work can still get done. I mean, I get being afraid; this shit 𝘪𝘴 terrifying... but that fear's got to be coming from a place of concern for your own life or the lives of other people. If you've gotta duck and cover to keep yourself or your 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 safe, that's one thing.
But if it's 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 you're afraid for, and you're willing to sacrifice 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 to keep the money safe instead of the other way 'round... then you're as evil as the people behind the threats, aren't you?
And because they so grotesquely want to abuse children, they want to hurt kids with the kid's own sex, the people engineering, funding, and carrying out the propaganda campaign and enacting the laws and policies against transgender people must face 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecution.
Erin, I want to give you a heads up--just yesterday I got an email that Seattle Children's will not be hosting the scheduled ECHO series that was supposed to start today. ECHO programs are medical education programs that meet monthly for several months. This one was to be for pediatric GAC.
I'm a pediatrician and completed their ECHO II program last year. The one that was supposed to start today was the 3rd level and was going to be case-based (we were each going to bring clinical questions from our practices for discussion/assistance).
This seems like an ominous sign. I know HHS just announced an investigation into their program.
So many trans kids will take their own life because of this, and it will not be suicide, but murder by the federal government and pre-compliance by the hospitals that are supposed to care for them.
Transgender health care is legal in Colorado. Period.
Yet the Trump administration threatens hospitals by illegally withholding funds they are lawfully owed—and those hospitals fold without a fight.
That is unacceptable. Colorado’s laws mean nothing if they are not enforced.
The state has a duty to defend its residents, its hospitals, and the rule of law.
Capitulation to federal bullying is not compliance—it is failure.
Colorado must stand up and enforce its own laws.
Yep, Like the governor of Maine. You have to stand up to a bully.
Those of us who have gone through the wrong adolescence know what is at stake here: the very lives of trans children. I remember sitting far out in a field crying over a living hell as I went through an adolescence that violated my true identity.
Our opponents cannot allow themselves to see this because they do not think critically. They accept unexamined beliefs manipulated to aggregate power in a male-dominated society.
They have to see that being transgender is a choice, gender is biologically encoded in a binary, and children have no innate concept of gender identity.
If they allow these beliefs to be brought into question, then their entire belief structure will be vulnerable to collapse. They risk a complete breakdown in their assumed narrative of reality. If they are incapable of rethinking their complete belief system, the result appears to be an entire mental collapse.
As trans people, we need to recognize that this is what we are up against. From the perspective of their belief systems, we are harbingers of a radical gender ideology that threatens to destroy their entire narrative of reality.
OR... They realize we are harmless, and they realize they are destroying our lives, but they regard us as worthless and are perfectly comfortable doing to us what they do. They regard us as the weeds of society. We're that annoying home in the HOA development with a mailbox that doesn't look like everyone else's.
I think that is a more limely mindset among the politiciabs and others putting out this disinformation.
I truly believe so. I've lobbied a lot of these people. I find that they are completely uninterested in, and unpersuaded by, our suffering or even our deaths.
I think what finally made me realize we don't matter to them was my experience lobbying for gender-affirming care for minors. I could show lawmakers compelling data that the number of "regrets" paled by comparison to the number of people who regarded transition as improving their lives. I could explain to them how someone transitioning inappropriately would (if on HRT) have some secondary sexual characteristics that they would pose difficulties throughout their lives and might need to be addressed with electrolysis, breast reconstruction, or whatever, which is the EXACT SAME PROBLEM encountered by 99% of transitioners who are denied gender affirming care at puberty.
So, are we going to get it wrong for the 99% of transitioners? Or are we going to get it wrong for the 1%? Their attitude is that we have to prevent that 1% from making that mistake, even if it means FORCING that same mistake on the remaining 99%. And for the life of me, I can't come up with any other explanation for this strange calculus than that the 99% don't matter, because they are trans. Only the cis 1% matters.
I've had lawmakers and staffers state it almost this clearly, saying for instance that what they care about is the 1%. The disregard for the 99% is generally implied.
I have had similar experiences doing door to door canvassing. There is a complete lack of empathy in this country. If it doesn't affect them directly, they really don't care.
To all the families in Colorado, we are all so sorry, and so angry. I know that many, many families moved to Colorado over the last decade with the promise of it being a haven for gender affirming care for youth. Please rise up and raise your voices! Encourage your health providers at Denver Health and Children's to do the same -- it made a difference in San Francisco recently.
Start asking physicians if they can form cooperative, non-surgical clinics without federal funding -- what would that look like? How much seed money? What would that take? Ask them to start seeking solutions with stakeholders and state funders. The physicians and health care providers typically want to provide care and are distraught over these decisions. The hospitals are looking at the bottom line and also know they cannot commit to welcoming all patients if they don't receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Keep reminding folks that Trump and Republicans are the problem, and that the healthcare system needs radical reform overall. Until then, let's continue supporting organizations seeking solutions and access to care, and supporting one another. And if you are a trans youth in Colorado, we see you, we love you, and keep on keeping on because it will get better and your unique self has so, so much to offer us and the world!
Our lives just don't matter as much as red meat to energize the GOPMAGA electoral base.
And neither do the lives of women, the poor, emigrants, non-whites, non-Christians, people living with HIV, cis LGBTQ Americans, or anyone with disabilities.
Even though when we all stand TOGETHER, we are by far the MAJORITY.
Indeed! We, the majority minority, and we can have real power if we decide to use it. I think the majority minority needs to have its own "mad as hell" moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug
I hope people flood these organizations with protest! Also though, I think we need to start replying when things like this happen by flooding newsrooms with op/eds.
The public has two choices: 1. Be silent and let these things happen, and eventually be harmed themselves for not speaking out; 2. Protest now and protect themselves by making it harder for hospitals and providers to pre-emptively comply when the administration tries a similar move to implement strict abortion bans and bans on contraception.
Since mainstream media is so oblivious to how trans healthcare bans lay groundwork to take care from others too, I think it's on us to raise these points by flooding newsrooms with op/eds. I have an op/ed on my site that people are free to adapt and use (it's the very first post).
"Such Faustian bargains tend to accrue interest." (S Baum)
I enjoyed that turn of phrase, S!
I guess pre-compliance is cheaper than courage. And abandonment can be disguised as necessity.
Sighs.
Decades Late, Dreams Realized: Trans Latinas Reclaim Quinceañeras
https://thistleandmoss.com/p/the-daily-gathering-the-week-really-continues-to-suck-january-6th-2026
I don't know which group I'm angrier with anymore- the fascists driving this culture war shit, or all of the other cowardly fucks running our educational and medical institutions who refuse to stand up to them... but 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 refuse to just walk the fuck away and let someone who 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 stand up to the fascists take their place so the fucking work can still get done. I mean, I get being afraid; this shit 𝘪𝘴 terrifying... but that fear's got to be coming from a place of concern for your own life or the lives of other people. If you've gotta duck and cover to keep yourself or your 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 safe, that's one thing.
But if it's 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 you're afraid for, and you're willing to sacrifice 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 to keep the money safe instead of the other way 'round... then you're as evil as the people behind the threats, aren't you?
And because they so grotesquely want to abuse children, they want to hurt kids with the kid's own sex, the people engineering, funding, and carrying out the propaganda campaign and enacting the laws and policies against transgender people must face 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 18 U.S.C. § 241, & 18 U.S.C. § 242 prosecution.
Erin, I want to give you a heads up--just yesterday I got an email that Seattle Children's will not be hosting the scheduled ECHO series that was supposed to start today. ECHO programs are medical education programs that meet monthly for several months. This one was to be for pediatric GAC.
I'm a pediatrician and completed their ECHO II program last year. The one that was supposed to start today was the 3rd level and was going to be case-based (we were each going to bring clinical questions from our practices for discussion/assistance).
This seems like an ominous sign. I know HHS just announced an investigation into their program.