Category: Gender-Affirming Care

Kentucky Re-Legalizes Conversion Therapy, Restricts Adult Access to Gender-Affirming Care

*This is being reported by THEM.

Kentucky’s legislature has overridden Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill that allows conversion therapy to resume in the state and that bans Medicaid funds from being used for gender-affirming care, including for adults. Beshear also allowed a bill banning incarcerated people from receiving or continuing to receive publicly funded gender-affirming care to pass into law without his signature.

On Wednesday, the Kentucky House and Senate, which are both controlled by Republicans, voted to override Beshear’s veto of House Bill 495, per the Lexington Herald-Leader. The bill reverses the governor’s September 2024 executive order, which banned so-called conversion therapy from being practiced on youth in the state. Though HB 495 was originally only meant to roll back the ban on the harmful, discredited practice, the bill was additionally amended to add a ban on the use of Medicaid funds for gender-affirming care for trans adults, per the Herald-Leader. HB 495 has an emergency clause, meaning that it takes effect immediately. According to the Kentucky Lantern, the House voted to override the veto 78-20, and the Senate voted 31-6.

However, Beshear did not veto Senate Bill 2, which bans gender-affirming care for incarcerated trans people. At a press conference in December, Beshear stated that “convicted felons do not have the right to have any and all medical surgeries paid for entirely by tax dollars, especially when it would exceed the type of coverage available to law-abiding citizens in the private sector,” according to The Hill. As the publication noted, though, the state has never provided a gender-affirming surgery for an incarcerated person. Even so, gender-affirming care, including surgery, is medically necessary. As the ACLU’s Chase Strangio told Them in September, “Courts have consistently held that blanket denials of medical care, including medical treatment related to gender dysphoria, are unconstitutional,” since the denial of that care could violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

According to the Kentucky Lantern, there are only 67 trans people incarcerated in Kentucky prisons, all of whom will be forced to stop gender-affirming hormone therapy if that care is paid for with public funds. At a February hearing, Louisville psychologist Jacks Gilles testified against the bill, stating that stopping that care “will result in negative outcomes, including increased anxiety, disturbances in social and familial relationships, depression, suicidality and death,” according to the Lantern. “Gender-affirming medical care is not experimental, it’s not elective, and it’s not cosmetic,” Gilles said.

Beshear has previously been hailed as an outspoken advocate for the trans community. In a November 2024 op-ed for the New York Times, the governor pleaded with his fellow Democrats to not scapegoat trans people for the party’s loss. Though the legislature overrode his veto, in 2023 Beshear did attempt to put a stop to a wide-sweeping anti trans bill that banned minors from receiving gender-affirming care, prohibited trans kids from using the bathrooms that align with their identities at school, and banned discussion of LGBTQ+ topics in elementary schools.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Chris Hartman, the executive director of statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Fairness Campaign, called the passage of the bills “a sad day in Kentucky.”

“Two anti-LGBTQ+ bills will become law with devastating consequences for our community,” he said, calling both bills “cruel” and that they “have no place in our Commonwealth.”

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GOP bill could ban hairdressers from giving gender-nonconforming haircuts to minors

*This is being reported by LGBTQNation.

A bill introduced by Republican lawmakers in Arkansas aims to intimidate anyone who supports or affirms young people’s social transition.

Earlier this month, Arkansas state Rep. Mary Bentley (R) introduced H.B. 1668, the “Vulnerable Youth Protection Act,” and Republican state Sen. Alan Clark introduced the Senate version. As the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and local advocacy group Intransitive note, the anti-trans bill does not actually criminalize anything. Arkansas law banning gender-affirming care for minors was already struck down by a federal judge in 2023.

Instead, H.B. 1668 “weaponizes civil enforcement by permitting lawsuits against any person who supports trans young people by providing or helping to receive gender-affirming care or by affirming young people in their transition,” according to the ACLU of Arkansas. Minors or their parents can sue for minimum damages of $10,000 and up to $10 million in punitive damages for certain forms of medical care. The bill also allows Arkansas parents to sue people or medical providers outside of the state who help Arkansas youth access gender-affirming care.

Sadly, in 2025, state laws aimed at preventing minors from receiving gender-affirming healthcare — which every major American medical association has long been endorsed as evidence-based, safe, and in some cases lifesaving for trans and gender-nonconforming youth — are nothing new. But Arkansas’s proposed law goes an alarming step further in targeting anyone who might support or affirm a young person’s social transition.

The bill defines social transitioning as “any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex … including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.”

As the ACLU of Arkansas notes, if enacted, H.B. 1668 could lead to frivolous lawsuits against “hairdressers who cut a trans teen’s hair, teachers who use a student’s chosen name, and nonprofits that offer support.” Such lawsuits, the organization says, would be unlikely to hold up in court, as the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech and free expression.

However, the law is clearly meant to chill support for trans and gender-nonconforming young people with the threat of costly lawsuits. Describing the bill as “state-mandated bullying,” the ACLU of Arkansas writes that “H.B. 1668 fosters a climate of fear, where doctors, teachers, and even parents risk financial ruin simply for supporting transgender youth. It is a blatant overreach of government power, attempting to control private decisions and to circumvent our constitutional rights, including free speech, religious exercise, due process, and equal protection.”

During a Tuesday, March 18, hearing before the Arkansas House Judiciary Committee, a representative from the state attorney general’s office expressed concern that, as written, H.B. 1668 could not be legally defended, citing the First Amendment’s free speech protections.

“Particularly as it comes to the conduct that other individuals are allowed to have towards minors that can be deemed to be aiding in their social transitioning — things like a haircut, even clothing, or even the use of pronouns,” he said, “That’s all speech. And so our concern there is that when you are criminalizing or, in this case, providing a civil cause of action for certain forms of speech, that has to pass a very, very high constitutional bar, and we have to be able to defend that in court. And we think of this bill as it currently is, we can’t do that.”

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Ohio appeals court tosses out ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors

*This is being reported by The Columbus Dispatch.

Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors is unconstitutional and should be tossed out, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The three-judge panel on the Tenth District Court of Appeals overturned a decision by a Franklin County judge that allowed the law to take effect last year. The GOP-controlled Legislature voted in early 2024 to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of House Bill 68, but advocates quickly sued on behalf of two transgender girls and their families.

“It is difficult to understand why our legislature believes adults are equipped to make decisions about gender-affirming medical care for themselves but not for their minor children,” Judge Carly Edelstein wrote in the decision.

House Bill 68 prevents doctors from prescribing hormones, puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgery before patients turn 18. It also bans transgender girls and women from playing on female school sports teams, although the lawsuit didn’t target that piece of it.

The law allows Ohioans younger than 18 who already receive hormones or puberty blockers to continue, as long as doctors determine stopping the prescription would cause harm. It does not ban talk therapy, but mental health providers must get permission from at least one parent or guardian to diagnose and treat gender dysphoria.

The American Civil Liberties Union argued the law violates the right of transgender Ohioans to choose their health care under the Ohio Constitution.

“The state’s ban is discriminatory, baseless and a danger to the well-being of the same Ohioan youth lawmakers claim to want to protect,” said Harper Seldin, an attorney for the ACLU. “It’s also part of a sweeping effort to drive trans people out of public life altogether by controlling our health care, our families and our lives.”

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, who is running for governor in 2026, pledged to appeal the decision.

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Trump administration changes at the VA affecting care for LGBTQ veterans

*Reported by NPR’s Morning Edition.

Staff and patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs say impacts of Trump administration changes to the agency go beyond erasing diversity programs and affect care for LGBTQ patients.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut as many as 80,000 employees, which it says won’t affect healthcare or benefits. Still, VA staff and patients are concerned that a policy ending diversity programs will affect care for LGBTQ veterans. Here’s Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk, Virginia.

STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: Mary Brinkmeyer put in her resignation after receiving emails from management in the wake of President Trump signing executive orders targeting DEI.

MARY BRINKMEYER: It was just a really upsetting and shocking change for me from feeling as if the program was supported to suddenly having people being told they have to take every Pride magnet out of their office. And it felt like that happened just overnight and without a lot of thought.

WALSH: Until recently, the psychologist was the LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator for the Hampton VA. A few days after the inauguration, employees at her VA were told to take down any outward signs referencing LGBTQ veterans, including flyers printed by the VA.

BRINKMEYER: Less than 24 hours after everything had been taken out of the main hospital, I was speaking to a gay veteran who said, oh, I heard about how y’all took everything down. I guess that shows what they think of us.

WALSH: Rainbow-colored Pride lanyards, which say the VA serves all who serve, had been a strategy to make veterans feel safe. They were banned from the building, she says.

BRINKMEYER: A lot of LGBTQ veterans don’t feel safe coming to the VA because their experiences in the military were so unsafe.

WALSH: Brinkmeyer says she decided to resign when she said she was told to stop attending employee orientation. A large part of her job had been training other providers in ways to ask the right questions. A transformation is underway at the VA, but it’s unclear how large the change will be. VA Secretary Doug Collins announced the change to the VA’s flag policy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DOUG COLLINS: For all of us who served in uniform, that American flag is on our uniform. It’s what unites us. So we’ve changed the policy. At the VA, you’re only going to see the American flag and the POW flag. That’s what’s going to be flying in front of our facilities.

WALSH: John Rogers with the Hampton VA says they are working to execute the executive order, and there will be no changes to services and benefits for veterans and VA beneficiaries until a formal order is issued. Banners and posters advertising the VA’s outreach for LGBTQ+ veterans came down very quickly at the Hampton VA in Virginia. Amanda Volk is a patient at the Hampton VA. She served under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 1995 and got out 18 months later after a sexual assault.

AMANDA VOLK: For those of us that lived through Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, we were there. We saw it. We marched. We fought. We thought we had our rights. And now it’s – you know, we’re back to the ’80s with people being scared.

WALSH: In New York state, one mental health practitioner says posters remain up at his VA, but he’s still seeing a chilling effect among veterans. NPR agreed to withhold his name as he fears retaliation.

UNIDENTIFIED HEALTH PRACTITIONER: I think, you know, veterans are kind of hesitant, and some veterans I know have decided they’re not willing to come in person. It’s more on the veteran side of things that there’s this uncertainty of kind of what care actually is going to look like.

WALSH: Adding to the tension, in late January, a transgender veteran killed themselves in the parking garage of the Syracuse VA Medical Center, wrapped in the transgender flag – an indication, he says, that this shift has a high potential to impact patient care at the VA.

For NPR News, I’m Steve Walsh.

MARTÍNEZ: If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

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Texas A&M System bans drag shows from its universities

*This was reported by The Texas Tribune.

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Friday passed a resolution banning all drag performances from taking place on its 11 university campuses.

This means that Draggieland, a beloved annual event scheduled for March 27 at the Rudder Theatre on the College Station campus, will have to find a new venue. Students have also held drag shows at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and East Texas A&M University.

The move potentially sets up another First Amendment fight between students and university administrators.

The resolution says the board recognizes the need for universities to foster a sense of community and belonging among students but adds that drag shows are “inconsistent with [the system’s] mission and core values, including the value of respect for others.”

The resolution also says drag shows are “likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women,” contrary to university and federal anti discrimination policies.

“These events often involve unwelcome and objectively offensive conduct based on sex for many members of the respective communities of the universities, particularly when they involve the mockery or objectification of women,” the resolution says.

The resolution says having on-campus drag shows may be seen as promoting gender ideology and that both President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott have said federal and state funds may not be used for that purpose. It directs the system’s chancellor and the president of each institution to implement the policy, including canceling any upcoming drag shows.

The vote was unanimous. Regent Mike Hernandez III was absent.

The Queer Empowerment Council, a student group that hosts Draggieland and other LGBTQ+ events at Texas A&M University, said in a statement Friday evening that it was “profoundly disheartened” by the decision.

“The power of drag as a medium of art is undeniable, serving as a platform for self-discovery, inclusivity, and celebration of diversity. QEC firmly believes that the Board of Regents’ decision undermines these values, which are vital to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all students,” the council said.

It is exploring whether it can hold Draggieland on the same or a different date at a different venue.

“We are committed to ensuring that our voices are heard, and that Draggieland will go on, no matter the obstacles we face,” the group said.

In 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled an on-campus drag show, similarly arguing such performances degrade women.

The students said his comments were off base and sued him for violating their First Amendment rights as well as a state law that prohibits universities from barring student organizations from using their facilities on the basis of the political, religious, philosophical, ideological or academic viewpoints the organizations express. The court has allowed Wendler’s cancellation to stand while it makes a decision.

“They are imposing a restraint on an entire category of protected speech under the First Amendment and in no public college campus should that ever occur per our Constitution,” said JT Morris, senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, of the regent’s decision Friday. Morris is representing the students in the West Texas A&M case.

Civil rights groups also condemned the resolution. Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQIA+ rights at the ACLU of Texas, said the West Texas A&M lawsuit plus one her organization spearheaded and ultimately blocked a statewide ban on drag shows “makes this kind of absurd.”

“To do this now, while that’s already happening, is a waste of time and resources and makes it seem like the Board of Regents is more focused on culture wars than educating their students,” they said.

Sofia Sepulveda, field director for Equality Texas, noted that not all drag is performed by men.

“Women performers also delight in a chance to poke fun at stereotypes that have held women back for generations,” she said.

She also criticized the gender disparities among the flagship’s faculty.

“If A&M is worried about creating a hostile environment for women, then why don’t they hire more women?” Sepulveda said. “Right now, only 40% of the faculty at Texas A&M are women, 60% are men. That’s a serious issue.”

Draggieland organizers have said the event is an important outlet for the LGBTQ+ community at a time when it has come under attack from conservative policymakers in Texas and across the nation.

Students raised funds to keep the show going when the university stopped sponsoring it in 2022. In the years since, they’ve seen LGBTQ+ representation and resources on campus diminish.

Last year, Texas A&M University cut an LGBTQ+ studies minor and stopped offering gender-affirming care at the Beutel Student Health Center. In a statement Friday afternoon, the university said it had begun coordinating with the division of student affairs to notify student organizations about the board’s decision.

Regents were also expected to discuss Friday who should be the system’s next leader after Chancellor John Sharp retires this year. Regents met in Houston earlier this week to interview candidates. They did not make a decision on a finalist Friday.

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Texas Freshman House Rep Files Bill to Ban Gender Transitioning for Adults

First year freshman Texas state house representative Brent Money (R-Greenville) filed House Bill 3399 on Wednesday which would ultimately ban all gender transitioning procedures in the state of Texas, regardless of age of the patient.

The section of the bill that would prohibit doctors from providing this care to adults is written in this section:

Sec. 161.702. PROHIBITED PROVISION OF GENDER TRANSITIONING
OR GENDER REASSIGNMENT PROCEDURES AND TREATMENTS [TO CERTAIN
CHILDREN]. For the purpose of transitioning a person’s [child’s]
biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and
endogenous profiles of the person [child] or affirming the person’s
[child’s] perception of the person’s [child’s] sex if that
perception is inconsistent with the person’s [child’s] biological
sex, a physician or health care provider may not knowingly:
(1) perform a surgery that sterilizes the person
[child], including:
(A) castration;
(B) vasectomy;
(C) hysterectomy;
(D) oophorectomy;
(E) metoidioplasty;
(F) orchiectomy;
(G) penectomy;
(H) phalloplasty; and
(I) vaginoplasty;
(2) perform a mastectomy;
(3) provide, prescribe, administer, or dispense any of
the following prescription drugs that induce transient or permanent
infertility:
(A) puberty suppression or blocking prescription
drugs to stop or delay normal puberty;
(B) supraphysiologic doses of testosterone to
females; or
(C) supraphysiologic doses of estrogen to males;
or
(4) remove any otherwise healthy or non-diseased body
part or tissue.

Did you think this was all about protecting the children? Of course not. They are coming for you, regardless of whether you are a grown adult or not.

The one glimmer of hope in this situation is that bills filed by freshman state reps in Texas typically do not making anywhere close to the floor for a vote. It would be a rare case if it did, and at this time there are also no co-authors to the bill. This meant he’s out on a limb on his own with this legislation. It may be a red meat attention getter for his constituents and the GOP at large.

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Kansas Lawmakers Override Veto of Ban on Transition Care for Minors

*This was reported by the NY Times

The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature on Tuesday overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that bans gender-transition treatments for minors, fulfilling a longtime goal of conservative lawmakers and joining about half of the country’s states in enacting bans or sharp limits on those procedures.

The Kansas bill had broad Republican support, but its status had been uncertain because of the opposition of Gov. Laura Kelly, who said it was “disappointing that the Legislature continues to push for government interference in Kansans’ private medical decisions.” Ms. Kelly vetoed similar bills in each of the last two years, and lawmakers had previously failed to override her.

This time, Republicans in both chambers mustered the two-thirds margin necessary to override her and celebrated the decision as following President Trump’s lead on the issue. Kansas had been among the only states where Republicans hold significant legislative power without such a law.

“Today, a supermajority of the Kansas Senate declared that Kansas is no longer a sanctuary state” for those procedures, Senator Ty Masterson, the chamber’s president, said in a statement.

Republican supporters of the measure, which bans hormone treatments, puberty blockers and transition surgeries for transgender patients younger than 18, described it as guarding young people from life-altering choices that they could later regret. Under the new law, doctors who provide those treatments to minors could lose their licenses and be sued by patients or their parents.

The shift in Kansas comes as President Trump and his administration crack down on gender transitions for minors nationally, seeking to end funding for hospitals that provide those treatments. The Trump administration has also moved to ban trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports, to bar trans people from serving openly in the military, to house trans women who are federal prisoners with men, and to no longer reflect the gender identities of trans people on passports.

Democrats and L.G.B.T.Q. advocates called the Kansas legislation an invasion of privacy that would have devastating health consequences. In her veto message, Ms. Kelly said “infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” and warned that enacting the measure could have economic consequences.

“This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue,” the governor wrote.

The new law comes as part of a broader push by Republicans in Kansas, a state that Mr. Trump carried last year by 16 percentage points, to place limits on transgender people. Kansas stopped changing birth certificates to reflect gender identity in 2023 after lawmakers overrode another veto by Ms. Kelly and passed a law defining male and female as a person’s sex at birth.

But as Republicans across the country have moved in recent years to restrict transition treatments for minors, Kansas had remained an outlier on the Great Plains. Bans or severe limits are already in place in three of its four bordering states — Colorado is the exception — and across much of the rest of the Midwest.

Bans elsewhere have been challenged in state and federal courts with a range of preliminary outcomes. Many expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide whether there is a national right to access such treatments.

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Trans youth care ban vetoed by Kansas governor again

*This was published by ABC News.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed Senate Bill 63, which would have restricted gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

“Right now, the legislature should be focused on ways to help Kansans cope with rising prices,” Kelly said in a statement emailed late Tuesday. “That is the most important issue for Kansans. That is where my focus is.”

The bill would bar health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care – including puberty suppressants and hormone therapies – for someone under the age of 18, only for the purposes of gender transitioning. The ban would also apply to gender-affirming surgeries.

“Infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” said Kelly in her veto message. “As I’ve said before, it is not the job of politicians to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind. This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue.”

This is the third time Kelly has vetoed similar transgender youth care bills, but the bill may now have the support to pass.

The bill passed the state legislature with flying colors – passing the House 83-35 and the Senate 32-8.

In 2023, the attempt to override a past trans care ban veto lost in the House 82-43.

State Republicans quickly denounced Kelly’s veto.

“The governor’s devotion to extreme left-wing ideology knows no bounds, vetoing a bipartisan bill that prevents the mutilation of minors,” said State Sen. Ty Masterson in an online statement. “The Senate stands firmly on the side of protecting Kansas children and will swiftly override her veto before the ink from her pen is dry.”

Top national medical associations such as the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 20 others argue that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary for transgender populations.

Kelly joins governors past and present in Ohio and Arkansas in vetoing bills that targeted gender-affirming youth care. However, both of their vetoes were overridden.

Across the country, trans youth care restrictions have faced legal hurdles in their enforcement.

The battle and debate has most recently made its way to the national stage, with the Supreme Court considering U.S. v. Skrmetti, which will decide if Tennessee’s law banning some gender-affirming care for transgender minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

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I was misgendered for having “female breasts” as a kid. Here’s why it hurt.

*This commentary by Matt Keeley was originally published by LGBTNation.

Some cisgender people think the recent Republican fad of banning of transgender people from sports and bathrooms won’t affect them, and that if people just conform closely to gender stereotypes, they won’t have trouble. But these don’t realize that random nuts have confronted cis women in the ladies’ room just for wearing pants and having short hair.

Gender policing goes from controlling how we look to controlling how we behave. And cis people who have never been misgendered may not realize just how much it can hurt… but as a cis man who has been misgendered, I do.

As a kid, I had gynecomastia, a condition where prominent breasts develop on a boy or man. And my breasts were indeed prominent — probably a C- or D-cup in bra size. It started around when I was 10 or so. While we never figured out the reason, it doesn’t really matter when you’re in middle school and kids confront you in the bathroom, calling you “titty boy.” 

Even friends would make the occasional crack to my chagrin. I remember once talking about how my uncle’s internal organs were backwards; one of my friends immediately joked, “And you’ve got two hearts: here and here,” gesturing at each breast. It didn’t feel great!

I hated my breasts. I often fantasized about chopping them off. It was never gory or gross in my mind — it usually was more like picking off a scab — a little bit of pain at first, but then perfectly fine with a normal chest just like every other boy.

The teasing changed my relationship with my body. My nipples usually inverted into my areolas by nature. But whenever they weren’t, I’d push them back in because, in my weird kid mind, women’s breasts had outward-facing nipples for babies to feed. If mine pointed inward, then that meant they weren’t breasts like what women had, and were…. something different.

I didn’t know the word “dysmorphia” at the time, but looking back, it seems like a manifestation of that. Most of all, I wanted to ignore that my breasts even existed. I hated even using the word “breast” in any context. While taking swimming lessons, I’d refer to the breaststroke as the “whip-kick stroke” based on the leg movements. When I wore collared shirts, they had chest pockets — men had chests, women had breasts.

While the teasing and bullying was bad, unintentional cruelty was somehow even worse. One expects bullies to be mean and to focus on one’s flaws. But if someone unintentionally misgendered me, it felt like they couldn’t help but hurt me, based solely on my appearance, infringing on my misguided attempts to ignore and feel indifferent to my own body.

One moment that’s seared in my brain (and will be for the rest of my life) happened around age 11 one afternoon at an office supply store. I needed a new graphing calculator for math class. I approached a worker kneeling on the floor, re-stocking the bottom shelf. 

“Pardon me, do you know where the graphing calculators are?” I asked.

“Oh, sure, sir,” he said, turning and seeing my shoes. 

His eyes raised to my chest and said, “…ma’am…”

His eyes then hit my face and he quickly went back to “sir,” before telling me where they were located.

I could tell he wasn’t being mean, he was just processing the visual stimuli in the order presented. I could tell he was embarrassed and neither of us wanted to call attention to his error, so I thanked him, and went to pick up the TI-85 calculator I needed. 

I have no idea if he remembers that day at all. Probably not. But it’s a moment I relive over and over. I was wearing my standard uniform of jeans and a loose-fitting green/yellow Hypercolor T-shirt — it was the early ‘90s after all.

It’s hard to explain why it hurt so much to be mistaken for a woman. It wasn’t merely that it proved I was “different” from other boys. It wasn’t shame at being seen as a woman or less than “manly” — in fact, I don’t think real-or-perceived misogyny played a part in what happened or how I felt. I’ve always had various “feminine”-coded interests even as a kid: In first grade, I loved The Baby-Sitter’s Club book series (which features mostly girl characters) and I’d often pretend to be the magical Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from the classic children’s novels.

The misgendering bothered me more so because it just wasn’t me — I wasn’t being perceived correctly. I couldn’t put it into words; I wasn’t necessarily “manly” and had no real desire to be seen as such, but I was a man (or at least, I would be one day when I grew up).

I was lucky; I was able to get a breast reduction — top surgery in trans masc parlance — the summer I turned 13. My surgeon, Dr. Kropp — whose name somewhat matched his surgical specialty — was excellent, and confirmed that I had excess breast tissue, not just fat. 

That fall, I came into a new school as a high school freshman, and no one ever commented on my chest again; I was thankfully average. Friends even seemingly forgot about it, and no one asked about the change.

It took me a very long time to get over it — my chest was the one thing I was sensitive about. I’m pushing 45 now; it’s been 30 years, and the wounds have finally scabbed over. (The figurative ones, I mean. As for the actual surgical scars, those healed very nicely and relatively quickly after the procedure.)

But it took decades for me to get over the misgendering. And I immediately “passed as male” otherwise, if you wanted to call it that. It was just: one day boobs, one day none. So I can only imagine the pain that accumulates over when a trans person gets misidentified for so long, sometimes even after transitioning. 

Misgendering can lead to depression and psychological distress. (It certainly did for me.) It can also create a sense of emotional exhaustion. I know that when I came home from a particularly bad day at school, I just wanted to shove everything out of my mind, and just veg in front of the TV. But the teasing made me think about self-obliteration. I never attempted suicide — but the idea of just not existing for a while definitely appealed to me.

Truthfully, these days, when I start feeling very anxious, stressed, or depressed, the idea of not existing for a while still appeals to me. And I can’t help but think that this desire to disappear first began when people mocked and mistook me for having “female” body parts.

I have just a glimpse of how cruel Trump and his transphobic followers have been in their constant crusade to demonize and misgender trans people. I can’t imagine feeling the full force from a lifetime of this meanness — the years I endured it was enough for me.

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US health agencies scrub HIV, other data to remove ‘gender ideology’

*This first appeared on Reuters

Jan 31 (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal health agencies on Friday took down webpages with information on HIV statistics and other data to comply with Trump administration orders on gender identity and diversity, raising concerns among physicians and patient advocates.

CDC webpages that appear to have been removed include statistics on HIV,among transgender people and data on health disparities, among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. A database tracking behaviors,that increase health risks for youth was offline.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump ordered the federal government to solely recognize male and female sex and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The Office of Personnel Management gave agencies more specific guidance on how to comply with the orders in a Jan. 29 memo,saying they were to be completed by 5 p.m. ET (2200 GMT) on Jan. 31.

It specified that agencies must end all programs that promote or reflect “gender ideology extremism” by recognizing a self-determined gender identity rather than biological sex. The measures include removing references to gender identity online.

A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the CDC, said any changes to websites follow this guidance.

“There’s a lot of work going on at the agency to comply,” said a source who was not authorized to speak publicly, adding that the CDC is “taking down anything on the website that doesn’t support this executive order.”

Deletions from the CDC’s site include pages with data on HIV in the United States in general, as well as pages with statistics on HIV in Hispanic/Latino people, women, by age, and by race and ethnicity.

The elimination of such data “creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association said in a joint statement.

For example, a page with information about how people can get HIV tests was offline on Friday, according to the Internet Archive, as was a page for doctors with information about testing for HIV and treating patients.

“This is very alarming,” said John Peller, head of the AIDS Foundation Chicago. “In many cases, basic health information is going dark.”

Timothy Jackson, senior director of policy and advocacy at the group, said they are going through the CDC website and printing out information used to educate people about HIV that may not be accessible after Friday.

Also missing from the CDC’s website was the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which tracks trends in tobacco use, teen pregnancy, unsafe sexual behavior and other aspects of teen health.

At the National Institutes of Health, a senior employee this week urged agency leaders to refuse to implement the Trump administration’s guidance in an email to acting NIH Director Matthew Memoli and other top officials that was seen by Reuters.

The employee, Nate Brought, director of the NIH executive office, said Trump’s orders ran contrary to years of NIH research and findings about sexuality and gender.

“By complying with these orders, we will be denigrating the contributions made to the NIH mission by trans and intersex members of our staff, and the contributions of trans and intersex citizens to our society,” he wrote.

“These policies will lead to mental health crises or worse for tens of thousands of Americans who contribute productively to our communities.”

Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Jaimi Dowdell in Los Angeles and Brad Heath in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot.

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