Paris Lee was shot six times and killed by Samuel Ward Jr.; this is an indisputable fact. Ward was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in May 2025. He claimed it was self-defense, but the jury didn’t buy it.
This week, however, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his conviction. A three-judge panel declared that the jury was under the impression Lee was cisgender; that in not disclosing the victim’s status as a trans woman, the trial judge “misled” the jury; and that Ward was entitled to a new trial where he could use this fact to bolster his claim of self-defense.
This story was first reported by independent journalist Jamie Satterfield. Other outlets and LGBTQ organizations also reported on Lee’s death at the time, with some referring to her as Kitty Monroe, which was her name on social media.
“After a short deliberation, a Shelby County jury found Samuel Ward guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Paris Lee, concluding a case that revealed inconsistencies between the defendant’s claims and the physical evidence presented in court,” a May 2025 press release from the Shelby County District Attorney reads. “Ward claimed self-defense throughout the trial, but the jury rejected his narrative and found him guilty.”
The appellate judges did not contest any of the evidence. Rather, they took issue with one facet of the trial in particular: The original court had disallowed the defense from disclosing Lee’s sex assigned at birth to the jury, finding that it would cause an undue prejudice against the victim.
Ward’s defense appealed, and a panel of judges was tasked with answering several procedural questions: Did Ward have a right to use his victim’s sex assigned at birth as part of his defense? Moreover, did the trial judge dilute Ward’s right to defend himself by striking references to Lee’s assigned sex from the record?
“A deadly weapon is a deadly weapon is a deadly weapon,” the judge explained at trial. “Whether that person has a vagina or a penis has no bearing on the deadliness of a firearm.”
But the panel disagreed. They found that prohibiting the disclosure of Lee’s transgender status was prohibiting potentially exculpatory evidence for Ward.
“The State conceded that if the proof showed the victim’s assigned sex was the reason for the altercation between Defendant and the victim, it would be relevant to the adequate provocation element of voluntary manslaughter,” court documents read. “However, the State argued, the proof at trial would establish that the victim ‘was a large woman’ who was armed with a [firearm] and, therefore, the victim’s assigned sex was not relevant to the issue of self-defense.”
Conversely, Ward’s lawyers argued that Lee’s status as a trans woman impacted “how much fear” Ward felt, and therefore, how justifiable his actions were in the moment that he killed her.
What’s more: During trial, Ward waived his right to testify. He refused to take the stand unless he was allowed to call Lee’s gender into question, explicitly stating that he thought he would be judged more harshly by jurors for killing a presumed-cisgender woman than a transgender one.
The defense also argued that, while a jury may hold prejudice against Lee as a trans woman, Ward would face equal amounts of discrimination on the basis of his decision to sleep with transgender women.
According to the press release from the DA, the killing occurred after Ward went to Lee’s home, and a verbal altercation ensued. Lee asked Ward to leave, and he reportedly refused. Ward then claims that Lee pointed a gun at him.
In Ward’s telling, this caused him to fall backward down a staircase, with Lee still standing at the top. At the bottom of the stairs, he said he drew his gun and fired upward at Lee.
Ward shot Lee six times. Police found only one bullet casing from Lee’s gun; if she fired her weapon at all, she only did so once. Ward was wholly uninjured.
Physical evidence and expert testimony from the medical examiner “contradicted Ward’s version of events,” the press release continues. “The trajectories of the gunshot wounds did not align with the defendant’s statement. Additionally, Ward had no visible injuries, undermining his claim of self-defense.”
After killing Lee, Ward “left the scene and drove approximately 30 minutes to his home before calling 911—leaving Lee to die at the foot of her staircase,” the DA’s office concluded.
Even before killing Lee, Ward was a known entity to trans women in the area, according to Kayla Gore, who is the executive director of My Sistah’s House — a Memphis-based organization that supports Black and Brown trans people fleeing violence. Gore said Ward largely pursued relationships with transgender women.
After Lee’s death, Gore said she received countless calls about the case and spoke extensively to Lee’s loved ones. The crime left everyone terrified in its wake.
“What concerns me as a community organizer is what happens when a courtroom treats a Black trans woman’s identity as a material explanation like for someone’s fears,” Gore told Erin in the Morning. “They want that as evidence presented to the jury or the judge as a deciding factor on whether or not this was self-defense. It sends a message far beyond the courtroom.”
That message, she said, is that trans women can be harmed and killed with impunity — especially Black trans women, who are more likely than almost any other demographic to be the victims of hate crimes and domestic violence, while being the least likely to have resources available to them in the aftermath.
“I understand what the appellate court was addressing with the defendant’s right to present a defense,” Gore continued, “but there is a profound difference between saying evidence may be relevant to a legal defense, and saying that a transgender woman’s identity somehow makes her inherently more threatening.”
The case is a bitter reminder of the ways LGBTQ people have had their identities weaponized by the courts in the past, most notoriously through a legal defense tactic known as gay or trans “panic.”
According to the LGBTQ+ Bar Association, the trans “panic” defense is a legal strategy wherein someone charged with violent crimes uses their victim’s real or perceived gender identity to reduce or evade criminal liability, in tandem with other legal lines of defense — such as claiming provocation or an insanity plea.
“The LGBTQ+ ‘panic’ defense is usually employed to bolster a self-defense claim when the victim’s behavior does not meet the threat of serious bodily harm standard or when the defendant used greater force than reasonably necessary to avoid danger,” the LGBTQ+ Bar’s primer on the topic says. “This strategy requires the defendant to argue that their victim’s LGBTQ+ identity made them a greater threat than a heterosexual and/or cisgender person.”
This argument can be hugely consequential during a trial because self-defense claims rely on evaluating a defendant’s perceived risk of harm. This determines how justifiable deadly force might be.
So in Lee’s case, the argument stands to be that she was more dangerous than a cisgender woman, or that Ward otherwise had more reason to fear her because she was trans.
“We live in a society where Black trans women are stereotyped as dangerous, deceptive, threatening,” Gore said. She called the case’s remand “a slap in the face of all survivors.”
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) will provide almost $9 million to nonprofits in the city that provide gender-affirming care for minors to fill the gap left by major hospitals that have capitulated to the Trump administration and stopped providing these essential services.
City records explaining the funding emphasize the “compelling need for gender-affirming care services” that necessitates the expedited process NYC DOHMH plans to use – called a negotiated acquisition.
“NYC Health will contract with organizations providing or facilitating the provision of gender-affirming care to patients under age 18,” the department states. “This includes the prescription and administration of puberty-blockers and hormone replacement therapy to all minor patients for whom such services are medically necessary based on the prevailing standards of care. Services will be performed by qualified medical providers with current New York State licensure, and will be provided consistent with state laws governing parental consent.”
The department has identified two potential groups, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives (NOPI), to enter into a three-year contract to help direct funds to vendors that offer the proper services. The contract would begin on February 1, 2027. The department also invited others who believe they can provide these services to email Tamala Watson at twatson2@health.nyc.gov by October 16 at 2:00 pm.
According to Gothamist, the money is part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) $15 million plan to expand access to gender-affirming care for trans youth. Announced in June, the plan includes three initiatives: establishing a direct access care fund; creating a call and text line to connect people with resources; and research to identify health care access gaps.
Trans journalist and activist Erin Reed celebrated the $9 million investment on Bluesky. “I do believe the city can be doing much more, but this is a wonderful start from Mayor Mamdani,” she said.
News of the funding dropped only two weeks after dozens of protesters – including trans actor Elliot Page – gathered outside NYU Langone Health, one of three New York City hospitals that recently caved to the Trump administration by ending gender-affirming care for trans youth. Two weeks before that, hundreds gathered outside New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital to express their anger at its decision to permanently stop gender-affirming care for youth in a move many said was “bending the knee” to the Trump administration.
The DOJ began issuing civil subpoenas to hospitals around the country in 2025, attempting to obtain personal medical records for trans youth and threatening federal funding for hospitals that continued to provide the care.
According to the DOJ, its “nationwide investigation into the child gender-transition industry” has examined “potential violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and other federal health care laws, including fraudulent billing practices such as the use of false diagnosis codes to obtain payment from federal health care programs and private insurers.”
But critics say these investigations amount to “fishing expeditions” aimed at finding reasons to prosecute health care providers in states where pediatric gender-affirming care remains legal, and to intimidate providers into ending pediatric gender-affirming care programs.
This November, voters in six states will decide on eight LGBTQ+-related ballot measures, including four anti-trans sports bans in Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, and Washington; two measures restricting gender-affirming care for transgender youth in Colorado and Missouri; a measure that could out LGBTQ+ kids to their potentially unsupportive parents in Washington; and one pro-LGBTQ+ measure to remove a state same-sex marriage ban in Virginia.
“This isn’t actually about giving voters a say in democracy. It’s a political tactic by a small but vocal minority of extremists who want to turn out their base, driven by the fear and misunderstandings about people who are transgender,” said Adam Snipes, the director of strategic partnerships at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, during a September 30 GLAAD media briefing attended by LGBTQ Nation.
Snipes is correct: anti-trans measures are being used as “ballot candy” to increase Republican turnout at the polls.
But statewide anti-trans proposals have dramatically increased since 2015, the year that the US Supreme Court legalized marriage equality. In 2016, North Carolina passed an anti-trans bathroom bill. Since then, similar anti-trans measures have expanded to sports, educational policies, healthcare, and other areas.
Approximately 91% of anti-trans bills fail in state legislatures, GLAAD’s senior director of news and campaigns Barbara Simon said. But such legislation and ballot measures give anti-LGBTQ+ politicians and activists “a permission slip” that emboldens them to use marginalizing and dehumanizing rhetoric that harms vulnerable youth, Simon said.
“This is really part of a national MAGA playbook, which is about distracting voters from real issues facing families — like high healthcare costs, gas costs, housing costs — and instead just flaming fears about a small, really already vulnerable group of people… in this case, LGBTQ+ kids,” Washington’s first out lesbian state House Speaker, Rep. Laurie Jinkins (D), told the press briefing.
Anti-trans sports bans in Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, & Washington
Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, and Washington are all considering ballot measures with nearly identical language that would ban students who are transgender from playing school sports on sex-segregated teams that differ from the sex they were assigned at birth. None of these measures take intersexuality into account, leaving intersex students unsure about their place on the sports field.
Generally speaking, these measures fall largely on young girls and women to “prove” their sex, often with invasive medical exams that aren’t usually part of standard athletic exams. (Athletic medical exams usually focus on athletes’ eyesight, bone health, as well as respiratory, cardiovascular, or other issues that could affect overexerted athletes.)
Medical examinations to verify athletes’ sex can violate the privacy of all young girls and women — causing a decrease in their sports participation overall. Furthermore, such exams may not be covered by patients’ health insurance plans, adding an extra financial burden for low-income families.
These measures undermine local control by overriding policies and recommendations already put in place by local school boards and associations that have articulated what’s best for their students’ needs. These ballot measures also do nothing to address the sexism, abuse, and poor funding that harm girls and women and discourage them from participating in sports to begin with.
Arizona’s Proposition 318
Based on a 2022 Arizona law that federal courts had blocked from enforcement (before the US Supreme Court ruled such bans as constitutional last June), the so-called “Protect Girls’ Sports in Arizona Act” would require K-12 schools and private sports leagues to designate which sports are sex-segregated and then decide participation based on the sex listed upon each player’s birth certificate.
Additionally, schools and private leagues would have to ban trans athletes from restrooms, showers, and locker rooms that don’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. The measure would allow athletes to sue schools or leagues that violate its provisions.
Darrell Hill, the policy director for ACLU of Arizona, told KTAR that facilities and cities could interpret the law too broadly and restrict restroom and locker room access to trans kids and adults in various situations that have nothing to do with sports participation. “It can really act as a big barrier for trans people to participate in public life,” he said.
While the measure seems to “verify” athletes’ sex via birth certificates, state Sen. Mitzi Epstein (D) said it would “subject girls to invasive inspections and questions about their gender,” effectively harming all girls and women (and communicating that they are less valued than boys and men), “in an effort to score political points by discriminating against trans girls.”
The Arizona Interscholastic Association says no trans student-athletes have tried to compete in the state since the 2022 law was signed. It’s unclear whether any tried to compete before the 2022 law was signed.
Colorado’s Proposition 134
Proposition 134 would then require K-12 schools, colleges, and athletic associations to designate sex-segregated and co-ed sports and then forbid boys from participating on girls’ teams and vice versa.
The measure would define girls as people with female reproductive organs and boys as those with male reproductive organs, but it’s unclear how sex would be determined. While some supporters say a doctor-signed form or a DNA cheek swab could suffice, opponents warn that it could subject girls to invasive genital inspections.
Z Williams, a school parent and director of Bread and Roses Legal Center, told The Colorado Sun, “Kids have been playing sports with trans kids for decades…. Playing sports is an important and healthy part of growing up: People building a sense of who they are, learning how to work with a team, learning to lose. To take that away from kids simply for who they are is absurd. It is socially and politically cruel.”
Chris Cook, the father of an 11-year-old transgender girl, told the aforementioned publication, “It would tell kids that simply participating in school sports could mean being questioned, scrutinized, or subject to invasive gender inspections to prove who they are. No child should have to live with that fear, and this doesn’t affect (just) transgender kids. When schools are asked to police students’ gender, any child who looks too tall, too strong, or doesn’t fit someone’s idea of what a girl should look like could be singled out.”
Nebraska’s Measure 442
Measure 442 would write into the state constitution a 2025 law, sponsored by state Sen. Kathleen Kauth (R), that already requires public K-12 and college athletes to play on teams matching their sex at birth. The measure defines one’s sex at birth as having a reproductive system that “does or at some point will produce, transport, and utilize” either eggs ( for a woman or girl) or sperm (for a man or boy).
The measure would apply to all athletic teams or sports sponsored by public schools, postsecondary educational institutions, private schools, or educational institutions that compete against public schools.
Interestingly, the state Supreme Court recently heard arguments challenging the measure’s legality. Opponents say that the ballot measure’s sponsors failed to “adequately inform the public of what they are trying to accomplish” when collecting signatures for the effort. The measure will appear on ballots regardless of the court’s decision; if the court rules against it, all votes upon it will simply be invalidated.
Washington’s Initiative IL26-638
IL26-638 would bar students who are “biologically male” from competing in K-12 schools and nonprofit sports teams designated for girls and women. The initiative would require every student who wants to compete in girls’ sports to obtain a signed statement from a health care provider verifying their sex. Students wanting to play on boys’ teams wouldn’t have to obtain any such statement.
The initiative permits three verification methods: genetic testing, testosterone measurement, or a visual examination of reproductive anatomy. Seeing as the first two methods are expensive and not covered by insurance, most parents will likely go for the third option, requiring kids to expose their genitals to adult medical professionals.
Over 100 doctors and other medical professionals recently released a statement against the initiative, with some saying they would refuse to conduct invasive exams to verify the sex of young girls and women.
“IL26-638 would make every girl in Washington who wants to compete in a female-only interscholastic sport prove her sex to a doctor, regularly, in order to play,” the Washington State PTA noted, calling the initiative “discriminatory,” “harmful,” and “disproportionate.”
Trans journalist Erin Reed noted that even if the measure passes, it could still face constitutional challenges under the longstanding legal precedent of Washington laws protecting trans students.
“Washington adopted an Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 declaring that ‘equality of rights and responsibility under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex,’” Reed wrote. “That provision triggers strict scrutiny for claims of sex discrimination, a standard that would likely render a categorical ban on transgender participation in sports unconstitutional — particularly given the state’s more liberal judiciary.”
Restricting gender-affirming healthcare in Colorado and Missouri
Two states, Colorado and Missouri, both have ballot measures to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. However, they differ in significant ways.
Colorado’s Proposition 135
Colorado’s Proposition 135 is a vaguely written measure that would forbid doctors from performing surgeries on anyone under 18 “for the purpose of altering biological sex characteristics,” including changes to sexual organs, body shape, facial appearance, or voice (even though such surgeries on minors are rare to nonexistent).
The measure would also ban state or federal funds, Medicaid, and private insurance from paying for these surgeries. Though the measure’s language doesn’t specifically mention transgender youth, its restrictions would apply to any young person. However, the law wouldn’t place any restrictions on prescribing hormone therapy, puberty blockers, counseling, or support for social transition.
The measure includes exceptions for male circumcision, people born with a “medically verifiable disorder of sex development,” and “acquired physical or chemical abnormalities,” meaning that intersex individuals could still be eligible for augmenting surgeries.
Nevertheless, the Colorado Medical Society opposes the measure (along with dozens of other LGBTQ+ and allied organizations statewide), saying it would interfere with doctors’ medical judgment. The measure is backed by Protect Kids Colorado, an organization led by anti-LGBTQ+ activist Erin Lee.
Jax Gonzalez, political director at One Colorado, said the measure’s vague language around a minor’s “perception of sex or gender” leaves both patients and providers unclear about what procedures would be prohibited.
“All of us have gender and have lots of ideas about that, and so, does that mean that if a patient brings up a conversation about their own gender, regardless of their general identity, does that mean that that provider can’t treat them anymore?” Gonzalez, who is trans, told News From the States.
Missouri’s Amendment 3
Missouri’s Amendment 3 main purpose is to repeal the abortion-rights amendment that voters approved in 2024 and to make most abortions illegal in the state, except for ones that are conducted in cases of medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, and within the first 12 weeks of pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
The final clause in the measure would “prohibit gender transition procedures for minors,” which is curious, seeing as the state has banned gender-transition surgeries for minors since August 2023. The measure would also ban puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy for minors.
Currently, state law forbids any new prescriptions of the aforementioned medications for trans youth until 2027; the measure would write this ban into the state constitution, meaning it would continue indefinitely.
Forcibly outing trans students to their parents in Washington
Washington voters will consider IL26-001, a measure that would repeal the state’s current parents’ rights laws and replace them with language taken verbatim from Louisiana. The measure would give parents unrestricted access to school, medical, and mental health counseling records without requiring student consent, including information on confidential conversations about a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“When a student … is dealing with anxiety, they need trusted adults and mental health resources they can turn to that help them make sense of their world,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington wrote in opposition to the measure. “[Allowing parents to view sensitive counseling records is a] violation of privacy [that] can undermine the relationships that students may have with counselors and other trusted adults in schools.”
“The sad truth is not all students have a supportive adult they can turn to and talk about their sexuality, gender identity, or mental health without fear. Allowing schools to disclose private health information — as IL26-001 proposes — would severely impact a student’s stability at home, at a time when they need love and support, not punishment and rejection,” the ACLU of Washington added.
Indeed, statistics show that 40% of homeless queer youth say they were kicked out of their homes when their families learn of their identities, meaning that the measure could worsen at-home conflicts for LGBTQ+ students with unsupportive or abusive parents.
This initiative and the state’s ballot measure banning trans athletes are opposed by state Gov. Bob Ferguson (D), the state’s US Sen. Patty Murray (D), the Washington State Parent-Teachers Association (PTA), by the Washington State Nurses Association, the League of Women Voters, and domestic violence prevention groups, because they put kids at greater risk of violence and harm.
Defending marriage equality in Virginia
A bright spot on the somewhat gloomy horizon, Virginia’s Question 2 asks voters to remove the state’s 2006 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and to add a right to marry regardless of a partner’s sex, gender, or race.
The state’s current ban, rendered inactive by the US Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing marriage equality, defines marriage as “only a union between one man and one woman” and bans any union, partnership, or legal status for unmarried couples that carries the rights and benefits of marriage. Question 2 would remove all of this language and acknowledge that “Marriage is one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness.”
Virginians approved their state’s same-sex marriage ban in 2006, with 57% voting yes. A federal judge struck it down in 2014, but it stayed in the state constitution. State election officials say the ban would become enforceable again if the US Supreme Court ever overturned Obergefell v. Hodges, as some of the court’s conservative justices have threatened.
Currently, 24 states have dormant bans against same-sex marriage in both their state constitution and their statutes, five have such a ban in their statutes only, and three have such a ban in their constitution only, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
Since 2020, voters in four states have voted to repeal previously approved same-sex marriage bans. Nevada did in 2020, and California, Colorado, and Hawaii all did the same in 2024.
These ballot measures are about LGBTQ+ involvement in civic life
“As somebody who grew up trans, sports and other activities represented more than just competition,” Adrianna Suluai, the Policy & Advocacy Director at UTOPIA Washington, an organization dedicated to uplifting queer and transgender Pacific Islanders, told the press briefing.
“They were opportunities for me to participate, build confidence, and be around other young people and feel like I was a part of something. And when you’re a young person who may already feel different, sometimes simply having a place where you can show up and belong means everything,” Suluai added.
Suluai’s comment applies not only to the sports field but also to LGBTQ+ youth in classrooms, doctors’ and counselors’ offices, and the general public.
Because these ballot measures are often sold as ways to “protect children’ and strengthen “parental rights,” it’s all the more imperative that LGBTQ+ voters and allies understand them and share their potentially harmful consequences with other sympathetic voters.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed six pro-LGBTQ+ bills into law on Saturday, some of which were crafted as a direct response to the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on the community.
“The Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on the LGBTQ community, using medical records to target U.S. servicemembers and civilians alike, hurting countless people and betraying hard-won trust,” Newsom said in a statement on the bill package. “California will not stand for it.”
One bill, AB 1930, seeks to protect trans Californians’ medical records by barring state or local agencies from “cooperating with or providing information to an individual or agency from another state or a federal law enforcement agency… regarding a legally protected health care activity that is lawful in this state and performed in this state.”
The bill requires any agency that receives a subpoena, discovery request, or similar request to report it to the attorney general, who will assess whether the request meets certain requirements before deciding whether the information can be provided.
One such requirement is that “the requested information is related to an investigation or proceeding regarding activity that is unlawful under California civil or criminal law, and it identifies the California law under which the activity is unlawful.” The bill also protects the medical information of folks who have terminated a pregnancy.
The law is a response to the Trump administration’s efforts to intimidate hospitals across the country into ending gender-affirming care services for trans youth. The administration has subpoenaed the private medical records of trans youth from more than 20 hospitals in hopes of using them to prosecute health care providers, even in states that don’t ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. In some cases, judges have rejected the administration’s attempts. In others, hospitals have agreed to shutter their programs in response or have even complied with providing the records.
The other bills ban conversion therapy for minors; strengthen protections and resources for LGBTQ+ college students; limit out-of-state entities from accessing state data on LGBTQ+ people; reduce hurdles for insurance companies to cover HIV prevention medication; and, in response to the administration’s trans miliary ban, help military veterans who “received a discharge solely as a result of a specified executive order” to upgrade to an honorable discharge and prioritize those “who are able to demonstrate their less than honorable characterization of service was connected to a mental health condition, traumatic brain injury, sexual assault or harassment, or sexual orientation or… gender identity.”
Last week, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have prevented California from extraditing patients or providers as part of another state’s investigations into gender-affirming or reproductive care, explaining that it would “prohibit future governors from recognizing a request for extradition of a person subject to criminal liability based on allegations that the person engaged in specified healthcare activities.”
He acknowledged the importance of the bill’s goals and emphasized he does “share the author’s views on the importance of protecting these important healthcare services,” but also said that “extradition is an exclusively executive function” and he felt “troubled by the precedent that would be set if an outgoing administration agreed with the Legislature to erode the executive authority of an incoming Governor based on their shared policy preferences, regardless of how righteous and well-intended those actions may be.”
“This caution came precisely as red states were escalating their crackdowns, enacting increasingly hostile laws,” Reed wrote. “California could have served as a bulwark—a safe ground—but instead, Newsom hit the brakes.”
In other comments highlighted by Reed, Newsom said he’s “trying to understand as … the whole ‘pronoun’ thing,” and suggested that 25 might be too young for someone to transition.
The Education Department announced Monday it has formally rescinded the Biden-era Title IX interpretation that gave sex-based discrimination protections to students on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Schools now must go back to the Title IX code as held under the previous Trump administration in 2020, which the department says will protect women’s sports.
“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflect court orders and Congressional intent — reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions. We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
And the administration has pursued its own definition since President Trump returned to office, making deals with schools such as the University of Pennsylvania to take transgender athletes out of their women’s programs.
Opponents of the move say it will harm transgender athletes and weaken protections for sexual assault victims.
“Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students,” said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
A First Nation says it aims to defy Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government by establishing a safe haven for gender-affirming medical care.
Leaders of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation say access to health care is a treaty right and falls under its inherent jurisdiction.
Late last year, Smith’s United Conservative Party government used the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield its legislation from court challenges.
The law prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy to transgender and gender diverse children under 16.
The premier has said its aim is to protect children and their fertility. Doctors and national medical associations have pushed back, noting puberty blockers don’t render a person infertile.
This week, during a gathering to mark 150 years since the signing of Treaty 6, Saddle Lake Chief Dale Steinhauer said the law is one of many that are dehumanizing.
“No longer will our children and families have their rights taken away,” she announced at Fort Pitt Provincial Park, Sask., on Wednesday.
“When one group’s rights are removed, we are all affected.”
The nation, located 170 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, said it’s working to attract clinicians to provide care on its reserve land.
It has also started fundraising to develop its health law and defend it against potential legal challenges.
Steinhauer said clinicians who provide gender-affirming care on reserve land would be exempted from sanctioning by regulatory bodies.
“To the medical profession and regulatory bodies like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta: when will you stop this violence?” she said.
An email statement from the college said the organization respects Steinhauer and recognizes the treaty rights of all First Nations, as well as the rights and interests of transgender minors and their families.
“CPSA will continue to support regulated members in understanding their professional responsibilities while providing respectful, compassionate and evidence-informed care within the bounds of applicable legislation, including laws that apply to the treaty rights of First Nations.
When asked on Thursday, Smith said she doesn’t have any authority over the First Nation and respects its sovereignty.
“They are an independent nation, so I’ll be interested to see if they’re able to attract a doctor to do that,” Smith said while attending the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association annual conference in Edmonton.
‘I would have loved to have me as a doctor’
Dr. James Makokis, a two-spirit family physician from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, became emotional at the announcement while speaking about the impact of violence against two-spirit and transgender people, including self-harm.
“That is a public health emergency that has to stop,” said Makokis.
“When there’s a threat to the buffalo calves in the herd, all of the adult buffalo form a circle around those young ones, because they’re the next generation.”
Makokis said providing young two-spirit people with proper gender-affirming care is one way to combat high rates of suicide and other “horrible statistics” affecting the community.
“If I had someone that looked like me, that had braids like me, that spoke Cree like me, that understood our medicine and our ways of being, that would have been incredible,” said Makokis.
“I would have loved to have me as a doctor.”
For parents like Tyler Youngchief, councillor for Kehewin Cree Nation, Steinhauer’s announcement hits close to home. His seven-year-old son, Presley Miyoskwam Napew Youngchief, came out as transgender at the age of three.
“The moment he started vocalizing he was a boy and that’s who he is, there was no hesitation between my spouse or myself or his siblings,” Youngchief told CBC News. “It was just full-on acceptance right from our whole family.”
But both Youngchief and Makokis know the road to creating a gender-affirming care safe haven won’t be easy.
Youngchief said bullying in the form of homophobia and transphobia directed at Presley are his biggest concerns for the future.
Makokis added that fear is a familiar feeling for marginalized groups like trans and two-spirit people.
“It’s really important for us as individual clinicians, as individual physicians, as citizens of this democratic country known as Canada, for people to stand up,” said Makokis.
“Sometimes that means as individuals we have to risk losing some of our own individual freedoms, and in my case that could be my medical licence.”
Steinhauer cited the medicine chest clause unique to Treaty 6, which says the Crown will keep a medicine chest in the home of each federal government agent working on or near a reserve.
It’s widely understood by First Nations to be a commitment to provide comprehensive health care, and Indigenous leaders have criticized the Crown for failing to live up to the promise.
Steinhauer asked how the Alberta government could stop First Nations doctors from practising, or accessing the medicine chest.
“Have the colonial governments not learned enough from their own history?”
Alberta’s health-care law is one of three from the UCP government impacting transgender people across the province.
Another requires parental consent for students under 16 to change their names or pronouns at school. The third bans transgender athletes 12 and older from participating in amateur competitive female sports.
NDP MLA Brooks Arcand-Paul, who represents Edmonton-West Henday and is shadow minister for Indigenous relations, said the Alberta NDP support Saddle Lake Cree Nation’s exercise of sovereignty.
“As a two-spirit person, I wish I had this protection when I was younger. I wish I had this understanding that our two-spirit kin are scared,” Arcand-Paul told CBC News. “I wish I didn’t have to think I did not belong here.”
A coalition of blue states has come together to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging its plan to strip federal funds from gender-affirming care for minors. The lawsuit alleges that the administration is overstepping its authority by trying to dictate what medical procedures can and can’t be covered by federal funding.
“[The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)] has disregarded the law and its own policy precedent in another attempt to restrict transgender individuals’ access to crucial care,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “We will not stand by as the Trump administration oversteps its authority and twists the facts to justify its bad-faith agenda against transgender Americans. We will continue to fight to secure access to medically necessary care and protect transgender individuals’ abilities to prosper as their authentic selves.”
The lawsuit targets Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of HHS, as well as Dr. Mehmet Oz in his role as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Last month, the departments finalized a plan to prevent federal Medicare and Medicaid plans from covering gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 18, and to bar plans under the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from covering the care for anyone under 19.
The plan spent months in a public comment period during which is received nearly 35,000 comments, over 90% of which opposed the plan. Despite this, the rule is set to go into effect on October 13 with little change to the text of the final document.
The lawsuit wastes no time highlighting to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts that the administration’s new plan is not about healthcare, but an attack on trans people.
The introduction states, “The Administration seeks such broad and unprecedented powers in part to advance its social policy agenda, a key component of which involves relentless attacks on a small and vulnerable population—transgender individuals—whose very existence the President scapegoats to stoke national division.”
The lawsuit makes a case that the proposed rule oversteps states’ rights by regulating the practice of medicine, a responsibility that both Congress and existing legal precedent have made clear is reserved for the states themselves. The suing states also say that HHS has cherry-picked its evidence and failed to make a case for its ban on gender-affirming care funding, and that the plan change violates the Social Security Act and HHS precedent by excluding care that has been deemed medically necessary by the states.
The lawsuit also highlights that Congress left the decision for what should be covered by Medicare and CHIP to the states, and therefore the federal government cannot simply impose a rule to prevent the states from exercising their own will.
“The federal government does not have the authority to dictate what medically necessary care New York provides to its residents,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “This unlawful rule threatens access to health care for transgender young people and undermines states’ ability to administer our own Medicaid programs. New York will continue to stand up for patients and defend our authority to provide the care they need.”
The lawsuit additionally includes a nod towards a longstanding argument that banning gender-affirming care is discrimination based on sex, as under the proposed rule cis patients will still be able to receive coverage for the same treatment and care that is being denied to trans patients.
In his statement, Attorney General Bonta was keen to highlight that this proposed rule does not stop anyone from practicing gender-affirming care in any state where it is still legal (which includes California). The only restriction is on the use of federal funds, and the rule explicitly still allows for state funds to be used for the care.
An earlier HHS attempt saw the department pushing a rule that would have barred hospitals and clinics that provided gender-affirming care from receiving any form of federal funding at all. However, a judge struck that rule down in April and the Trump administration seemed to back off from trying to appeal that ruling in July.
Trans journalist Erin Reed called the states’ lawsuit “the next major step in the fight to protect transgender healthcare,” since the removal of federal funding would be ” a virtual death sentence for any hospital system.”
Reed noted that over “40 hospitals and health systems have stopped or paused their programs in capitulation” to the administration despite there being no federal law against the care. Some of these institutions have stopped providing the care in violation of state or local laws that explicitly protect transgender people from healthcare discrimination.
Transgender students are absorbing the consequences of a growing fight in Cabarrus County Schools, where two federal lawsuits and a Trump administration investigation are challenging how the district handles bathroom access, LGBTQ advocates say. For months, parents, elected officials and community members clashed over whether transgender students should be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. But advocates say another question has received less attention: What does the fight mean for LGBTQ students going to school every day?
“When I think about a trans girl going into a girl’s restroom, I worry about her harassment, not what she will do to other young people,” said Sarah Mikhail, CEO of Time Out Youth. Time Out Youth serves LGBTQ young people ages 13 to 24 in Charlotte and surrounding communities. Within the organization, young people regularly talk about the broader social climate surrounding bathrooms, sports and LGBTQ issues in schools, she said. Mikhail said the effect shows up in basic routines. Some young people Time Out Youth works with avoid school bathrooms entirely because they do not feel safe using them. She said that kind of vigilance does not stay confined to the restroom. Students who are constantly calculating where they can go, who might be watching them or whether an adult will support them can have a harder time concentrating, asking for help or feeling comfortable enough to learn. “We have young people that do not go to the bathroom all day at school,” Mikhail said. “This is not uncommonly reported.”
LGBTQ students not only face school rules, they also hear messages from politicians, social media, family members and community leaders about what gender means and what transgender people should be allowed to do. For some students, those messages arrive before they even figure out how they identify or whether they feel safe coming out. That uncertainty, she said, can impact whether students feel comfortable telling a teacher they had a hard night, asking for help on an assignment or using the name and pronouns that feel right to them. “You need to feel emotionally okay to share and be yourself at school,” Mikhail said. “So then you can be open to learning.” How Cabarrus became a legal battleground Cabarrus County Schools does not have a separate policy governing transgender students’ bathroom access. School board attorney William Isenhour has said the district handles the relatively rare situations on a case-by-case basis while attempting to comply with federal law.
The district has repeatedly pointed to a 2020 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board. In that case, the court ruled a Virginia school board violated Title IX and constitutional protections when it required a transgender boy to use bathrooms based on his sex assigned at birth or use a private restroom. Because the Fourth Circuit includes North Carolina, Cabarrus officials have said the ruling binds the district. The Trump administration now takes a different view. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title IX investigation into Cabarrus in June after complaints that the district allowed transgender students to use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. Federal officials said the administration interprets Title IX based on biological sex and is investigating whether the district violated the privacy and safety rights of female students. On July 31, three anonymous 17-year-old Cox Mill High School students and their parents sued the district. Represented by the conservative legal organization America First Legal, they argue transgender students should not be permitted to use multi-person bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their gender identity.
A second lawsuit followed one week later. Cabarrus father Brandon Matthews sued after school officials declined to promise they would notify him if transgender students were permitted to use the same sex-segregated bathrooms or locker rooms as his children. He argues parents have a constitutional and religious right to receive that information and request another arrangement. The Cabarrus controversy comes as transgender rights have become a major national political talking point, with fights over girls’ sports, bathroom access and school policies playing out in courts and school board meetings. ‘Stop arguing about bathrooms’ Rebecca Herrick, a mother of three Cabarrus County Schools students, said she sees the bathroom fight as a distraction from other issues in the district. Her own children have thrived socially in CCS, Herrick said, and she wants transgender students to be treated the same. She said the controversy pulls energy away from issues that affect students more, including the district’s ongoing financial and operational challenges.
“It is time to stop arguing about bathrooms,” Herrick said. “By shifting the conversation to social issues, they are successfully diverting public energy.” Herrick said she worries that it sends a message about who belongs in school when adults devote so much attention to policing which bathrooms students use. She said the repeated lawsuits and public fights over bathrooms risk turning transgender students themselves into the subject of controversy. “These bathroom bills and the resulting lawsuits create a climate of fear and exclusion that treats transgender students as problems rather than children who deserve support,” Herrick said. ‘They’re just kids’ Joshua Jernigan said he is already hearing that fear from families. Jernigan founded the Gender Education Network, which works with transgender and gender-diverse children age 12 and younger and their families across North and South Carolina.
Jernigan said his organization has heard directly from families since the lawsuits and federal investigation intensified attention on the district. Some have reached out worried about what the legal fight could mean for their children and whether it will make school feel less safe. “We’ve had a lot of families reach out in a bit of a panic,” Jernigan said. He said transgender and gender-diverse children may not follow the legal arguments themselves, but they hear how adults in their communities talk about people like them. When they hear phrases like “these people” or “those people,” Jernigan said, they understand they are being singled out. That can be especially unsettling for children approaching middle school, he said, when situations involving locker rooms and trying to fit in already feel scary. “There’s nothing sinister or nefarious about trans kids,” Jernigan said. “They’re just kids who want to go out for recess and hate math.”
Seattle leaders could soon distribute $300,000 to LGBTQ+ organizations to welcome displaced transgender people to the city. The boost for local nonprofits comes as social services feel the strain of a massive influx of people fleeing persecution in Republican-led states.
The Seattle City Council’s Finance, Native Communities & Tribal Governments Committee voted last week to allot money from the city’s JumpStart Fund to the Seattle Human Services Department, according to Source One News. The increase in LGBTQ+ people moving to Washington comes as many Republican-controlled states enact policies hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, from outlawing gender identity-related health care for minors to criminalizing the use of restrooms that do not correspond with a person’s sex assigned at birth.
The JumpStart Fund comes from revenue generated by a tax on the city’s biggest employers and helps pay for housing services and economic recovery efforts launched after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck proposed a budget amendment allotting $300,000 for grants to organizations that serve the LGBTQ+ community. The money won’t be restricted to serving trans and queer refugees from other states, but the proposal comes as organizations helping those populations plead for support.
Seattle’s LGBTQ Commission in May formally requested that Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson declare a state of civil emergency because of the mass migration to the Emerald City. To date, the city has not officially declared such an emergency.
“Community-based organizations are already responding to this crisis: Gender Justice League, TRACTION, KOI, MANTIS, UTOPIA, Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center, and other citywide and countywide organizations and mutual aid networks have provided support for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and families. Many IDPs have relocated from states such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, and Idaho due to anti-trans legislation, threats to personal safety, and barriers to healthcare and legal recognition,” reads a recommendation from the commission.
The increase in displaced LGBTQ+ people has caused significant new demand for services, the commission said, including emergency financial aid, transportation, housing assistance, legal help, safety planning, community support, and access to gender-affirming care.
Funding for the grants must now be approved by the full Seattle City Council. The funding was not included in a budget recommendation from Wilson’s office.
The federal agency that runs Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will no longer pay for gender-affirming care for minors who don’t identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Aug. 12 that it finalized a rule after more than a year of taking steps to use the federal government’s power to limit this type of medical care.
“We are not going to pay for our innocent children to undergo these barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies,” President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post.
The rule goes into effect Oct. 13 and includes a six-month grace period for children with government insurance who are currently using hormone therapy, according to HHS. It does not affect mental health coverage.
“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a news release. He said the move is “protecting children from potentially irreversible harm.”
HHS did not say how much federal money it currently spends on surgeries, puberty blockers or hormone therapy, or how many children enrolled in government health insurance are receiving gender-affirming care.
Most gender-affirming care is sought by young adults, not children, but as many as one in four people getting this type of care are covered by Medicaid.
Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, called the move “another cruel, overreaching attack” on transgender youth.
“Decisions about a young person’s care should be between the patient, their parents, and their provider – not politicians,” Takano wrote.
Trump first took action against gender-affirming care for minors with an executive order in January 2025. In April 2025, Oz told states not to use Medicaid funding for surgeries or hormone treatment.
In December, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his department was beginning an administrative process to end funding for hospitals who provide gender-affirming surgeries.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates medical devices, also sent warning letters to manufacturers of breast binders telling them not to market their devices to children with gender dysphoria.
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