The Lavender Ledger: Your Strategic LGBTQ+ Reader By Erin In The Morning

Our service for the week to cover the news we did not carry but do not want you to miss.

Inside EITM’s newsroom, we track dozens of breaking stories weekly—tips flood in from readers embedded in state houses, school boards, and organizations across the country. Our sources are everywhere. But here’s our strategic dilemma: while we’re chasing down original leads and working our exclusive angles, critical intelligence is moving through other channels that deserves your attention.

Consider this your weekend drop.

These are the stories that crossed our desk, passed our vetting, and matter to LGBTQ+ people—reported by trusted outlets while we were deep in our own investigations. Think of it as our intelligence-sharing agreement with you: the essential coverage from across the LGBTQ+ media landscape that we’ve been monitoring, verified, and deemed operationally significant.

This week’s important releases:

The Supreme Court’s First Blockbuster Case This Term Looks Pretty Fake, by Mary Harris and Mark Joseph Stern

The Supreme Court is now weighing a case that could determine whether conversion therapy—long discredited as psychological abuse—becomes legal again in the United States. Many legal observers believe the far right has been quietly engineering such challenges by propping up fake practitioners, scenarios, and businesses designed to provoke litigation. In a thought-provoking new Slate interview, writers Mark Joseph Stern and Matt Harris argue that the case before the Court may be one of those “manufactured” efforts—built from the ground up to invite conservative intervention. If they’re right, what’s unfolding now is the latest example of how the right manipulates the judicial system to resurrect ideas once thought buried.

Judge halts New York county from enforcing trans athlete ban after roller derby league sues, by the Associated Press

In Nassau County, New York—despite some of the nation’s strongest anti-discrimination protections—local politicians moved earlier this year to impose a transgender sports ban in county facilities. The rule was swiftly challenged by a roller derby league with a transgender player, a fitting test case for a sport long known for its inclusivity. A Federalist Society–aligned judge repeatedly let the ban stand, forcing the team off the rink. That changed this week: a state appellate court blocked the county’s policy, restoring the right of transgender athletes to play. For now, the roller derby team—and every trans competitor in Nassau County—can get back to the game.

17-year-old trans girl’s suicide over NHS wait times was preventable, coroner rules, by Amelia Hansford

In the U.K., transgender adults are reportedly facing absurdly long waits for gender-affirming care—some major hospitals now list delays of up to 224 years. Meanwhile, transgender youth are being denied access to treatment in the wake of the Cass Review, a politically motivated inquiry whose findings are already being exported by far-right actors to justify restrictions elsewhere. Despite mounting evidence of harm, British authorities continue to downplay the link between restrictive trans health policies and suicide. But a recent PinkNews article may force a reckoning: a coroner’s inquest in the U.K. has officially connected the death of a transgender woman to those crushing wait times. Advocates are demanding justice—and hoping that this tragedy spurs real change in how trans people are treated in the country.