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Transgender Rights

Florida Is Poised To Ban Gender-Affirming Care For Minors

November 2, 2022 Ezra Brain, Left Voice. , , ,
On Saturday October 29, the Florida Board of Medicine voted to begin drafting rules that will ban all gender affirming care for anyone under 18. They did this based on a “medical report” written by a dentist, after refusing to let activists and experts opposed to the ban speak at the hearing while trans youth led a die-in outside. This is the latest advance of the far-right’s deadly and radical anti-trans agenda. The Florida Board of Medicine sets and regulates medical practices and medical professionals in the state of Florida. This rule would essentially ban medical professionals from providing gender affirming care unless they want to risk losing their licenses. This vote follows the DeSantis administration issuing a non-binding order to the Florida Department of Health to stop not just medical transition but also social transition for trans children.

Walkouts Underway In Virginia Against Attack On Trans Students

September 28, 2022 Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams. , , ,
Chanting "trans rights are human rights," "DOE, let us be," and other slogans, students at scores of schools took part in demonstrations calling for the rejection of model Virginia Department of Education policies proposed earlier this month by Youngkin that, if approved, would force schools to categorize pupils according to scientifically dubious notions of "biological sex." The proposed changes would reverse existing trans-affirming guidelines that some students have credited with saving their lives. In what some opponents have called another attempt to erase trans people, the proposal limits the definition of "transgender student" to someone "whose parent has requested in writing, due to their child's persistent and sincere belief that his or her gender differs with his or her sex, that their child be so identified while at school."

To Fight Far Right Attacks We Must Reclaim The Radical Legacy Of Pride

June 14, 2022 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. , , ,
Attacks on trans people are continuing to become more prevalent and more vicious. Not only are there currently more than 150 bills making their way through state legislatures that specifically target trans people, but the far right, aligned with certain sectors of the feminist movement, are also becoming more and more explicit in their calls for a eugenics campaign against trans people, with the end goal of as few trans people in existence as possible. One Twitter user, echoing language used by Tucker Carlson, even called for a “post-Weimar cleanup” of “degenerates.” The most common types of anti-trans legislation currently being proposed at the state level are bills that restrict trans youth’s access to gender-affirming healthcare and those that restrict trans youth’s ability to participate in sports.

Protect Trans Youth, Fight For Bodily Autonomy

June 2, 2022 Left Voice. , , ,
This Pride month is unlike the others. We are facing a moment of unprecedented roll backs of victories won over the last 50 years. Attacks on queer people and queer rights are mounting as the right wing advances their political agenda of limiting our right to our bodies. Over 300 anti LGBTQ+ pieces of legislation have been put forward in state legislatures across the country. Many have passed. Many of these laws specifically target trans children and their ability to access healthcare, play sports, and even go to the bathroom. One especially horrific policy in Texas deems gender affirming healthcare as child abuse and demands that trans children be separated from their supportive parents. They are going after the children, the brave kids who stand in their truth.

Activists Outraged As Democrats Withdraw Trans Healthcare Bill

April 24, 2022 Morgan Artyukhina, Liberation News. , , , , ,
Democrats in Maryland recently withdrew their own bill to expand healthcare coverage for trans people, despite having a majority to pass it, leaving transgender Marylanders feeling betrayed by the party that’s long claimed to champion their rights. House Bill 746, the Trans Health Equity Act, would have forced Maryland’s Medicaid program to provide coverage for transgender people’s transition-related treatments, including hormone therapy, surgeries, and voice therapy. According to its sponsor, Delegate Anne Kaiser, some 2,000 transgender Marylanders use Medicaid. The bill easily passed Maryland’s Senate, but just as the House of Delegates’ legislative session was ending in early April, the bill mysteriously disappeared.

There Still Is No Hierarchy Of Oppression

April 6, 2022 Nicholas Ensley Mitchell, The North Star. , , ,
In 1983, Poet and philosopher Audrey Lorde published a short essay  called “There is no hierarchy of oppression.” In it, she lays out a maxim that is elegant in its simplicity and profound in its meaning. She asserted that people experience various oppressions simultaneously, so we are obligated to fight all oppression wherever it exists. She wrote, “I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.”

Doctors Who Care For Trans Kids Are Being Targeted, Protested, Harassed

March 29, 2022 Carter Sherman, Vice. , , ,
Protests are pretty common at the Little Rock, Arkansas, clinic where Dr. Janet Cathey works. After all, she works for Planned Parenthood. Controversy is practically part of the job description. But at one recent protest, Cathey noticed an unusual sign. It was homemade, and it wasn’t  condemning abortion. Instead, its message was: “Boys are born boys, girls are born girls.” “Oh, so they’re picking on us for the transgender care, too,” Cathey, director of gender education for Planned Parenthood of Great Plains, recalled thinking. Arkansas is the only state whose governor has signed into law a bill to restrict healthcare for trans kids, and although that law has been halted by a court challenge, it hasn’t dissuaded a flurry of other states from trying to enact similar laws this year.

‘These Attacks Are On Children And Their Families’

March 13, 2022 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. , , ,
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion calling gender-affirming care for trans young people “child abuse.” The state’s governor, Greg Abbott, doubled down, directing the Texas Department of Family and Planning Services to investigate parents who support their trans children in accessing care as child abusers. Abbott also suggested that teachers, doctors, nurses—anyone, really—could face criminal penalties if they don’t report parents and providers who support trans kids. It’s frustrating to read media accounts that say “LGBTQ advocates” disagreed with or were concerned about this event, because, actually, pretty much every relevant medical and legal authority weighed in immediately to say not only do those statements not reflect the legal understanding of child abuse, but they fly in the face of the fact that support for gender-affirming medical procedures comes from, for instance, the American Medical Association, which states that not only is gender-affirming care appropriate, but that the absence of it leads to poor mental health outcomes.

Transgender Rights: China Advances While US Backslides

March 3, 2022 Serena Sojic-Borne, Fight Back News. , , ,
New Orleans, LA - This year, transgender star and People’s Liberation Army veteran Jin Xing announced the re-launch of her talk show. It aired from 2015 to 2017 as the most-watched show in China. With 100 million viewers, Jin was the world’s most popular trans celebrity. Her rise to fame foretells the Chinese people’s rise against transphobia. But in the U.S., trans people have suffered sharpening attacks. Last year broke records for trans murders and state-level anti-trans legislation. What does this difference tell us? The U.S. empowers bigots The Republican evangelical right scapegoats trans people as their latest “culture war” to mobilize far-right support and secure corporate interests. In a coordinated transphobic attack, state legislatures introduced over 100 anti-trans bills in 2021.

A TERF-Far Right Alliance Has Launched A New Transphobic Onslaught

December 9, 2021 Adrien Belarc, Left Voice. , , ,
Modern-day transphobia, embodied by the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) movement, emerged across the English Channel. Until now, it has been mostly anecdotal in France, but the rhetorical apparatus they have constructed is beginning to pick up in France by relying on the reactionary situation that France is experiencing. This is a short guide to survival in a transphobic environment.

China Opens First Clinic To Support Transgender Youth In Shanghai

November 8, 2021 Morgan Artyukhina, Sputnik News. ,
The Children's Hospital of Fudan University in the eastern city of Shanghai recently inaugurated a new multidisciplinary clinic to provide support for transgender children, including safely managing their transition needs, the Global Times, a newspaper operated by the Communist Party of China-owned People’s Daily, reported on Friday. According to the paper, the clinic was formed in reaction to the hospital’s encounter with trans children, whose needs they had inadequate means to support.

Five Things We Should Fight For This Pride

June 28, 2021 Tatiana Cozzarelli and Ezra Brain, Left Voice. , , ,
Trans youth are under attack around the country. Though we are only halfway through 2021, it has already become the worst year in recent history for legislative attacks on trans youth. 33 states have introduced anti-trans laws across the country, many of which ban trans students from playing sports. Arkansas recently became the first state to ban trans youth from accessing gender-affirming health care, and many other states have either passed or are debating similar bills. All of these laws must be repealed, and we need to build a militant trans rights movement to defend against these right-wing attacks. The results of efforts to oppress and dehumanize trans people hit trans youth the hardest. The American Journal of Psychiatry reports that trans people are about six times more likely to suffer from mood and anxiety disorders, and over half of trans and nonbinary youth in the U.S. reported having seriously contemplated suicide in 2020.

Supreme Court Allows Gavin Grimm’s Victory To Stand

June 28, 2021 ACLU. , , ,
Washington — The Supreme Court today declined to hear Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, allowing lower court decisions in support of transgender students to stand. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit have both ruled that the school board violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause by prohibiting Grimm from using the same restrooms as other boys and forcing him to use separate restrooms. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Grimm’s case at an earlier stage of the litigation in 2017, but the case was sent back to the lower courts after the Trump administration withdrew the government’s support for Grimm’s claims.

Honoring The Movement To End Discrimination Against LGBTQ People

June 25, 2021 Scott McCoy, Southern Poverty Law Center. , , , ,
June is Pride Month – a time set aside to honor the Stonewall uprising, which launched the movement to end discriminatory laws against LGBTQ people – and to remember the many important cultural and legislative victories since that pivotal summer in 1969. This year, the celebration occurs under the cloud of more than 125 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced in state legislatures, many targeting children who identify as transgender by denying them access to lifesaving medical treatment, banning them from participating in sports or using the restroom. This is up markedly from last year when more than 40 such bills were introduced. In fact, 2021 has set a record for the number of anti-trans legislative efforts.

Republicans Are Quietly Giving Up On Anti-Trans Bills

April 25, 2021 Molly Sprayregen, LGBTQ Nation. , , ,
Bills targeting the transgender community have stalled all over the country this week as legislators debate the effects these laws will have on trans youth. 2021 has marked an onslaught of hate in state legislative sessions across the country as Republicans sponsored bills that seek to limit trans youth’s access to gender affirming health care as well as prohibit their ability to participate in school sports. While several have passed, multiple bills in at least six states have been set aside or gotten veto threats from governors this week. In Missouri, after a contentious debate between Republicans and Democrats, the state house agreed to put a proposal on hold that would require athletes to participate on sports teams based on the sex written on their birth certificate.
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