Trans man says he was detained after using women’s restroom in South Carolina

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Trans man says he was detained after using women’s restroom in South Carolina

Sand Dollar Social Club (left) and Luca Strobel

Anti-trans lawmakers want to force trans men to use the women’s restroom. Here’s what happened when one did.

*This is reported by The Advocate.

A 25-year-old South Carolina trans man has gone viral on TikTok, saying he was accosted in a bar by staff, called slurs, and detained by police after using the women’s restroom.

Luca Strobel, who posts under the Tiktok handle @FulltimeCowboy, said he had gone to pick up his friend, Caroline Frady, also 25, at Sand Dollar Social Club in Folly Beach on the night of Friday, May 16, to be her “sober ride” home.

After a lengthy drive to the bar, Strobel said he stepped inside to use the men’s room. However, there were no stalls—only urinals, rendering it inaccessible to him as a trans man.

At first, an employee warned both Strobel and his friend against entering the bathroom of the “opposite” sex, but after a brief back-and-forth, Strobel said he believed he had permission to do so. He also said he and Frady were the only two people in the restroom, which Frady confirmed to Erin in the Morning.

That’s when a man who said he was the bar owner burst into the women’s room, peering over the stall to look at Strobel as he used the restroom.

“They’re looking over the top of the stall at me without my clothes on,” Strobel said in the video. “They can fully see me naked other than me having my shirt on, and they just start screaming that there’s ‘a man’ in here.”

He said the owner and employee ejected him and his friend from the bar — grabbing and pushing them out as they reportedly called Strobel anti-trans slurs. The police were waiting at the door, Strobel said.

The officer cuffed him “so tight that I can’t even feel my fingers,” Strobel said. “I still have a bruise on my knuckle.” Meanwhile, his arresting officer allegedly kept calling him a “little girl.”

“We didn’t get booked, but we did get cuffed, and when we got to the station, we were asking a bunch of questions that they refused to answer,” Strobel said. “They just kept saying, ‘Take it up in court, take it up in court, take it up in court.’”

Sand Dollar Social Club could not be reached for comment. The Folly Beach Public Safety Department did not respond to a request for comment.

In a follow-up video, Strobel said he was released on $500 bond, hit with a trespass notice barring him from entering Sand Dollar Social Club, and issued a ticket for public intoxication and disorderly conduct. Frady said she received the same.

In an interview with Erin in the Morning, Strobel emphasized that he had not consumed a single drink — he was there for the sole purpose of being the designated driver. He says officers did not breathalyze him.

There is no state law in South Carolina preventing a trans man (or any man) from using the women’s room in public accommodations, such as a bar. However, there has been an avalanche of anti-trans bills nationwide seeking such mandates, including in South Carolina, where lawmakers enacted a version of this policy targeting schools in 2024, and re-introduced it in 2025.

In other words, Strobel was using the bathroom that many conservative lawmakers and anti-trans pundits want to force him to use — and he got arrested anyway, seemingly because of the panic surrounding gendered bathrooms.

This kind of harassment is no stranger to trans and gender nonconforming people—in April, a trans girl in Florida was arrested for using the women’s bathroom in an act of protest against that state’s anti-trans bathroom bill. She washed her hands in the sink before being escorted out by police. In February, cisgender lesbian in Arizona made headlines after documenting her own experience having police interrogate her gender while she was using a women’s restroom.

Erin in the Morning’s 2025 anti-trans legislation risk map designates South Carolina as a “high risk” state to travel to. Last year, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed a trans-affirming health care ban for minors into law.

Strobel says he believes the bar staff knew he was trans because his shirt revealed his top surgery scars. Nonetheless, he said he refuses to “go stealth,” or hide his trans identity, because he believes that trans visibility in the South is important.

“Of course my safety is important to me, but at the end of the day, I want people to know that we exist,” Strobel told Erin in the Morning. “I want people to know that it’s OK, that just because you live here doesn’t mean that you can’t be who you are.”

On the other hand, Strobel said this recent incident has made him feel that he may no longer have a choice; that the risk of further transphobic violence is too great to remain. Strobel said he is raising funds to relocate somewhere that he can finally, after all these years, not just feel authentic, but be safe.

May 30, 2025 0

Trans Activism in Real Estate – LGBTQ REALTORS Discuss Red States ,Blue States and Better Countries

What happens when real estate meets resistance, advocacy, and identity? In this candid conversation, LGBTQ+ real estate professionals Callen Jones, Bob McCranie, Kimber Fox, and Leslie Wilson sit down to discuss the evolving challenges of being openly queer in an industry—and a country—facing political pushback.

🏳️‍🌈 Topics covered include: How anti-LGBTQ+ legislation affects clients and agents The role of advocacy in real estate Why “just doing business” isn’t neutral anymore Personal stories from the frontlines of inclusion in housing

📍 Whether you’re an agent, ally, or advocate, this video unpacks the real stakes of LGBTQ+ visibility in today’s market.

May 28, 2025 1

Hockey star kicked out of women’s restroom by ‘gender police’ who thought she was a man

*This is reported by Outsports.

Hockey star Madison Packer played in five All-Star Games and is the second-highest goalscorer in the history of the Premier Hockey Federation, which was the forerunner to the National Women’s Hockey League.

Packer is widely recognized as an icon of women’s sports. Yet not for the first time, Packer recently found herself being misgendered as a result of gender policing she believes is escalating in line with heightened anti-trans rhetoric.

Two weeks ago, the 33-year-old posted an Instagram story to say that in late April she had been “forcibly removed” from a women’s bathroom stall in a Florida nightclub.

She was prompted to go public after learning of a woman who was kicked out of a Boston hotel bathroom, having been ordered by an attendant to “prove” she was female.

Packer, who spent eight seasons with the Metropolitan Riveters in the NWHL and PHF, wrote “sounds familiar” when sharing an article about the incident on social media.

She describes her own experience in Florida as “humiliating” and connects it directly to the ongoing discourse in society that suggests trans people pose a threat in women’s spaces.

“The entire bathroom situation is absurd,” Packer tells Outsports.

“The fear-mongering and outright propaganda we have perpetuated against the trans community in this country is pathetic.”

Packer says she had been with her wife and their friends at the club in Naples, Fla., when she left them to visit the restroom.

“Upon walking in, the female bathroom attendant several times said, ‘Sir sir,’ as to get my attention,” recalled Packer. “I am a cis female. I don’t respond to ‘sir.’”

During her playing days, the former power forward was a vocal leader on and off the ice, partnering with You Can Play on the organization’s LGBTQ advocacy initiatives.

She ignored the attendant and headed into a stall.

It was then that Packer felt the attendant pulling her backwards by the shoulder.

“Again, she addressed me as ‘sir’ and told me I was in the wrong bathroom. We proceeded to argue over the bathroom I was in until I showed her my driver’s license.”

In Florida, trans people are prohibited by law from using public bathrooms and gendered facilities that align with their gender identity in all government-owned buildings, including K-12 schools and colleges.

The law applies only to facilities run by the state, but there have been several reports of trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people being challenged when using restrooms inside private businesses.

The Movement Advancement Project lists five other states — Arkansas, Montana, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — as having passed bathroom bills similar to that of Florida.

For women like Packer, who in her own words is “masculine presenting,” the chances of being confronted in a restroom are by no means limited to certain states.

She says that a few years ago, she was also involved in a physical altercation with a male bouncer in the bathroom of a bar in Connecticut.

It’s natural for her to speak out about the damage done by gender policing. After announcing her retirement from hockey last November, Packer and her wife, Anya Battaglino, started a podcast called “These Packs Puck” in which they discuss queer parenthood and navigating life after pro sports.

Battaglino is also a former NWHL player. She came out as gay via an Outsports essay in 2018; the couple married the following year, and they now have two kids together.

On the latest episode, they talk about how being challenged in Florida left Packer “very upset” on what was, by coincidence, Lesbian Visibility Day. The couple had posted to Instagram to mark that awareness day, using an old photo taken in a Palm Springs restroom to make a point.

Anya wrote the caption: “Minding mine. (Wish the government would do the same).”

A little over a week later, Packer shared more details of her confrontation after reading online about what had happened in the Boston hotel.

In its reporting of that incident, CBS News quoted the executive director of PFLAG Greater Boston, Nina Selvaggio, who said: “For gender nonconforming lesbians, women in general, being harassed in public restrooms is a tale as old as time.

“I do think the surge in national anti-trans rhetoric is contributing to an increased policing of women’s bodies and their expression of gender.”

Packer told Outsports she agrees “wholeheartedly” with Selvaggio’s comments.

“I find it infuriating that we’re now going as far as to dictate or try to regulate what ‘female’ looks like.

“I’ve shared locker rooms and bathrooms with straight men, gay men, gay women, straight women, trans men, and trans women… I’ve never once had an altercation or inappropriate exchange with a trans person.

“I think we’re concerning ourselves with the wrong groups when it comes to restroom safety.”

May 21, 2025 0

Trans woman now fears travelling without legal gender documents. She’s not alone.

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation

Transgender woman Michelle Rosenblum, of Ventura, California, has been planning a family vacation to Hawaii, but recent law changes regarding identification documents have made her wary of travel.

After President Donald Trump’s election to a second term last November, Rosenblum had been rushing to get her identification in order as a safety precaution.

According to Rosenblum, she updated her California birth certificate to show she had transitioned and renewed her passport.

Rosenblum was shocked to receive a letter from the State Department telling her she needed to correct her information on her passport application to show her biological sex at birth.

As Rosenblum prepares to fly, she fears that the discrepancies between her California Real ID and her passport will create problems when traveling. While the federal government requires Real ID for air travelers, states oversee the gender marker listed on the IDs.

Rosenblum is now debating traveling with a stack of documents, such as her birth certificate, Social Security card, and a court order showing her gender change.

Rosenblum tells The Los Angeles Times, “In the 10 years that I’ve been transitioned, I have never felt like, ‘Whoa, I need to get all my papers together.’ I was never concerned about traveling.”

Rosenblum’s experience echoes similar concerns that trans people have about traveling, as noted in a recent survey conducted by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. In the survey, 302 trans, nonbinary, and other gender non-conforming American adults were surveyed — nearly a third said they were travelling less frequently as a result of the 2024 election.

Though the survey was conducted a month before Trump’s official inauguration. Trump’s campaign focused heavily on attacking the rights of trans people. On the day of his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order directing the federal government to no longer acknowledge the existence of trans people in any capacity. This led the State Department, which issues passports to U.S. citizens, to announce they no longer accept gender markers that do not align with a person’s sex assigned at birth.

Trump’s continual attacks on the trans community in his official capacity as president have emboldened many GOP members to begin proposing anti-trans legislation in their home states, making travel even less desirable.

In the survey, nearly 70% of respondents said they’d be less willing to vacation in states they viewed as more hostile to trans people, particularly states that hold a GOP majority.

The survey also showed that 48% of respondents were considering moving to or had already moved to states they viewed as safer, particularly states with a liberal majority, such as Washington, California, New York, and Minnesota.

Lead author of the survey, Abbie Goldberg, wrote, “When you feel that you need to consider moving, you’ve been pushed to a certain point…. If you’re a trans person living in the U.S., particularly in a state with not a lot of protections and some explicitly anti-trans legislation, you’re thinking about your physical safety, your children’s safety at school, the possibility you could be fired from your job, and no way to push back.”

Rosenblum said she is grateful to live in California, where she is protected by anti-discrimination laws but as she gets ready for vacation, she said, “It feels like people are trying to shove me back into the closet.”

May 21, 2025 0

A Bill That Would Ban Pornography in the U.S. Also Takes Aim at Trans People

*This is reported by Them.

Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill that would dramatically redefine the U.S. legal definition of “obscenity” to include any sexual content, escalating the right-wing campaign to define transgender people as inherently pornographic and obscene.

On May 8, Utah Sen. Mike Lee reintroduced his “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” (IODA) with support in the House from Illinois Rep. Mary Miller. Lee is a fervent anti-trans Republican, having previously pressured Amazon to stop selling a trans-themed children’s book and supported legislation to ban trans students from school sports leagues. Miller, meanwhile, is perhaps best known for intentionally misgendering trans Rep. Sarah McBride earlier this year, and for declaring in 2022 that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was a “historic victory for white life.”

The bill would add a new definition of “obscene” speech to the Communications Act of 1934: if passed, obscenity would be redefined as anything which “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion”; “depicts, describes, or represents, an actual or simulated sexual act […] with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person”; and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” (Legally, appealing to the “prurient interest” means that something elicits sexual desire in the viewer.)

The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This is the third time Lee has introduced IODA, as Mashable noted, following IODA’s defeat in 2022 and 2024.

IODA had not yet received any cosponsors at time of writing, meaning it’s uncertain whether the bill will gain enough Congressional support to pass. But its intent is nevertheless chilling for U.S. free speech law, advocates say. “Obscene” speech — which is not protected by the First Amendment — was defined in the 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California, in which the Court established a three-pronged test to determine whether a given image or statement is legally obscene. Under the “Miller test,” speech is considered obscene if “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” would consider it appealing to the prurient interest, and if it also depicts sexual activity “in a patently offensive way.”

IODA’s text would effectively remove the Miller test’s reliance on “community standards” and whether material is “patently offensive” from obscenity law, making it significantly easier to bring legal cases against any depiction of sexual activity — whether through photography, film, or even the written word.

Jacob Mchangama and Ashkhen Kazaryan, representing the think tank The Future of Free Speech, called IODA “dangerous” in an editorial for MSNBC on Tuesday. “By discarding the concept of community standards, the IODA removes a key safeguard that allows local norms to shape what counts as obscenity,” Mchangama and Kazaryan wrote. “Without it, the federal government could impose a single national standard that fails to account for regional differences, cultural context or evolving social values.”

By making standards for obscenity more subjective, IODA could also open the door for conservatives to legally declare trans people in general to be “obscene.” Lee is a longtime ally of the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank responsible for drafting Project 2025, a massive policy blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term. (Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to head the Office of Management and Budget in February.) The sprawling 920-page document falsely declares that trans people are a threat to children, that transitioning itself is equivalent to pornography, and that pornography must be outlawed in the U.S.

“Pornography [is] manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children,” Project 2025’s forward reads in part. “Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women [….] Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.” The document also claims that children in public schools “suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries,” referencing right-wing campaigns against Drag Story Hour events and LGBTQ+ books of any kind.

“If you pull back and you look at the broad picture of censorship that’s going on, from any information about trans people to sexual health information, certainly to anything that has adult content, they are following their promises in Project 2025. And this is just another attempt,” Ricci Levy, president and CEO of the sexual freedom nonprofit Woodhull Freedom Foundation, told Mashable this week.

The right-wing campaign against “obscenity” and anything deemed “pornographic” is moving forward at the state level as well. In January, Oklahoma State Sen. Dusty Deevers, a Republican, introduced legislation that would ban all pornography across the board and establish a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for “trafficking” in porn. New age verification laws made Pornhub inaccessible in 16 states earlier this year, covering most of the Southern U.S.

It’s not just Republicans who are pushing for such laws, however. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, signed another such age verification bill into law earlier this week. And in Congress, Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Majority Leader John Thune joined with Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act on Wednesday, which free speech advocates say would threaten LGBTQ+ speech while failing to protect children online.

“Its outrageous that Democrat lawmakers are still willing to go along with this charade just to score ‘protect the children’ political points,” wrote Evan Greer, director of the free speech nonprofit Fight for the Future, in a Bluesky post reacting to KOSA’s return on Wednesday.

May 19, 2025 0

Military ordered to identify troops with “symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria” to kick out

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

The military has been ordered to identify troops who either have or may have gender dysphoria, the psychological term for the distress caused by one’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth not being the same. The goal is to get started on forcing transgender people out of the military ahead of the June 6 date set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to start the purge.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration could start forcing transgender people out of the military, while several legal challenges to the trans military ban are being heard by lower courts. Hegseth then said that transgender service members would have until June 6 (or July 7 for those in the reserves) to voluntarily leave the military and have a chance to keep some of the benefits they accrued in their time in the armed services.

Orders issued yesterday, Advocate reports, will have each branch of the military start identifying transgender people to kick out after June 6. It tells each branch to identify people who have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or “symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria” and review their medical records.

“Commanders who are aware of service members in their units with gender dysphoria, a history of gender dysphoria, or symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria will direct individualized medical record reviews,” the directive says. It also reaffirms that gender-affirming care is banned for transgender active-duty members of the military.

Stars and Stripes reports that an unnamed senior Defense Department official explained that commanders can now start medical screenings for servicemembers who don’t identify as transgender but who they suspect may have gender dysphoria.

“[This] is also consistent with what we expect and require of commanders generally, to ensure that their service members are fit and capable for duty — whether it’s under this policy or any other qualification where they may have concern that that service member requires medical intervention or is not able to perform their duties,” they said.

“The implementation requires some steps to ensure that those who go forward in service remain eligible to meet the high standards of the department. The department requires high standards to ensure that the force is ready to fight and win the nation’s wars as called upon.”

On May 8, Hegseth issued a memo saying that transgender servicemembers would have until June 6 to voluntarily start the process of leaving the military and get an honorable discharge, which would make them eligible for voluntary separation pay, as well as some health care and employment assistance benefits.

“There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge,” said Rae Timberlake of the trans service member organization Sparta Pride. They are one of the estimated 1000 transgender service members choosing to leave the military voluntarily now in order to get some of the benefits they have been earning throughout their career that might not be available if the military forces them out for being transgender after June 6.

“This is not voluntary,” they said. “This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress.”

National Center for Lesbian Rights attorney Shannon Minter told Advocate that the May 15 memo is “disturbing.”

“From the beginning this policy has been implemented in a rushed and chaotic manner that is completely unnecessary and deeply disrespectful to these service members, who deserve at the very least clear information and an orderly process so that they can make informed decisions that will have such a profound effect on their lives and their families,” he said.

“It is also deeply concerning that the separation codes that this guidance indicates will appear on the records of officers who are involuntarily separated will create the false impression that they are some sort of risk to national security. This is grossly untrue and will needlessly limit their civilian employment opportunities.”

The purge stems from an executive order issued in January that said that trans people can’t lead “an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle and that not using pronouns associated with a person’s sex assigned at birth violates the military’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.” This runs counter to actual studies of transgender people in the military that have found that they can serve without issue.

The executive order led to several lawsuits challenging it, including a lawsuit filed in Washington state brought by seven transgender servicemembers and one trans person who wants to join the military. A federal judge in that case issued a temporary injunction, blocking the Department of Defense from implementing the ban while the court heard the case.

Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the injunction, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to lift it. So, the DOJ appealed to the Supreme Court, which lifted the injunction earlier this month.

Stars and Stripes reports that there are around 4200 service members with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

May 16, 2025 0

UK plummets down European rankings for LGBTQ+ rights – after topping list just a decade ago

*This is reported by Pink News

The Rainbow Map and Index has been published annually since 2009 and ranks all 49 European countries on legal and policy practices for LGBTQ+ people.

The latest rankings, published on Wednesday (14 May), show that the UK had dropped to 22nd, with an overall score of 46 per cent, making it now the second-worst country for LGBTQ+ laws in western Europe and Scandinavia – above only Italy.

The UK was named the best place in Europe for LGBTQ+ rights, with an 86 per cent rating, in 2015. But it has been falling ever since and dropped seven places from last year’s position, mainly because of the recent Supreme Court ruling which deemed that the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act was based on “biology” and excluded trans people.

For laws that relate to the recognition of trans people’s gender identity, the UK is now ranked 45th. ILGA-Europe said that the Supreme Court’s verdict constituted a legal block on effective recognition of trans people’s identities. The only other European nations in a similar position are Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary and Russia.

While Scotland had had introduced the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which came into effect last year, the legislation only applies to the devolved nation so had only a minimal effect on the UK’s overall score.

Malta tops the new list, with a score of 89 per cent, followed by Belgium (85 per cent), Iceland (84 per cent), Denmark (80 per cent) and Spain (78 per cent).

Other nations above the UK include Finland (70 per cent), Ireland (63 per cent), Austria (54 per cent), Croatia (49 per cent) and Estonia (46 per cent).

‘The UK must do better’

Commenting on the rankings, ILGA-Europe’s executive director, Chaber, said: “The time to push back is now, before the targeted attacks we’re seeing in countries like Hungary, the UK and Georgia become the norm rather than the exception. Political leaders must lead by example and turn their words into action.”

A spokesperson for TGEU, the European transgender rights network, claimed that while the UK was once a “frontrunner on equality”, it now has a Supreme Court, prime minister and equality watchdog “singing from the same hymn sheet as anti-trans campaigners”.

They went on to say: “The UK Supreme Court’s decision, which defined a ‘woman’ for the anti-discrimination law, has severely undermined legal certainty for trans people. Furthermore, it has reinforced privacy risks and exclusion from essential services such as hospital wards, public toilets, changing rooms and refuges, as well as reception centres for asylum seekers.”

Meanwhile, Equality Network chief executive Rebecca Don Kennedy said: “It is shameful that having been ranked best in Europe for LGBTI+ laws 10 years ago, we have fallen so far. For our treatment of trans people after the Supreme Court ruling, we are now known as one of the worst countries in Europe. The UK must do better.

“Scotland, when analysed separately, has in the past been considered progressive and a beacon of LGBTI+ equality and human rights. That seems to be quickly deteriorating. We ask the Scottish government to act now and do everything they can to improve the lives of LGBTI+ people and to not submit to growing anti-LGBTI+ narratives both globally and right here in Scotland.

And Vic Valentine, the manager of Scottish Trans, said: “That the UK has slipped so far down the rankings for LGBTI+ equality in Europe is an important reminder that we can’t take progress for granted.

“From the outside, the UK is viewed as a cautionary tale of how things can go backwards rather than forwards. But none of this is inevitable.

“Governments and parliaments can – and should be – forced to protect and promote the rights of everyone. Yet politicians across the UK are quietly watching on as last month’s Supreme Court ruling seems to have set back trans people’s rights by two decades. It is very much in their power to put us back on the right path.

‘We call on the UK government to urgently take whatever action is needed to ensure that trans people can live safely and freely, and [to] reverse this decade of decline in the rights of LGBTI+ people.”

May 15, 2025 0

Montana Court Strikes Down Ban on Healthcare for Transgender Youth

*This is reported by Lambda Legal.

Today, a Montana Court struck down SB 99, a 2023 Montana law that categorically bans often life-saving health care for transgender youth. The Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in Cross v. Montana, holding that SB 99 violates the constitutional rights of transgender youth who are seeking gender-affirming care and the healthcare professionals who are providing that care.

The lawsuit challenging SB 99 was brought by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the ACLU of Montana. This ruling removes completely the threat hanging over Montana transgender youth and their families that their access to critical medical care would be terminated.

“I will never understand why my representatives worked so hard to strip me of my rights and the rights of other transgender kids,” said Phoebe Cross, a 17-year-old transgender boy. “It’s great that the courts, including the Montana Supreme Court, have seen this law for what it was, discriminatory, and today have thrown it out for good. Just living as a trans teenager is difficult enough, the last thing me and my peers need is to have our rights taken away.”

“Today, the court saw through the state’s vitriol and hollow justifications and put the final nail in the coffin of this cruel, and discriminatory, law,” said Lambda Legal Staff Attorney Nora Huppert. “No parent should ever be forced to deny their child access to the safe and effective care that could relieve their suffering and provide them a future. Because Montana’s Constitution protects their right to privacy, transgender youth in Montana can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can continue to thrive.”

“We are very pleased that the Court saw through the State’s unfounded arguments about why gender-affirming medical care should be treated differently from other forms of care,” said ACLU staff attorney Malita Picasso. “The Court recognizes SB 99 for what it truly is, an effort by the State to legislate transgender Montanans out of existence.”

“The Montana Constitution protects the privacy and dignity of all Montanans,” said Akilah Deernose, ACLU-MT Executive Director. “In the face of those protections, cruel and inhumane laws like SB 99 will always fail. Today’s decision should be a powerful message to those that seek to marginalize and harass transgender Montanans.”

In its ruling, the court stated:

“[t]he Court is forced to conclude that the State’s interest is actually a political and ideological one: ensuring minors in Montana are never provided treatment to address their “perception that [their] gender or sex” is something other than their sex assigned at birth. In other words, the State’s interest is actually blocking transgender expression.”

Plaintiffs in the case include Molly and Paul Cross and their 17-year-old transgender son Phoebe; Jane and John Doe joining on behalf of their 16-year-old transgender daughter; and two providers of gender affirming care who bring claims on their own behalf and on behalf of their Montana patients.

On December 11, 2024, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction that SB 99 was likely unconstitutional under the Montana state constitution’s privacy clause, which prohibits government intrusion on private medical decisions. The ruling rested entirely on State constitutional grounds, insulating transgender adolescents, their families and health care providers from any potential negative outcome at the United States Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the landmark case brought by Lambda Legal, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal on behalf of three families and a medical provider challenging a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for transgender youth on the grounds the ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

More information about the case is available here.

May 14, 2025 0

Texas House Passes Bills to Ignore the Lives of Thousands of Queer Texans

The below is from the Equality Texas Facebook page.

The news out of the #txlege is heavy, but we will continue to fight back against anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation at the Capitol and across Texas.

These bills will have a massive impact on trans Texans. This week is a time of grief and a source of pain for many. During this time of uncertainty and confusion, please hold on to each other and know that you are not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Texans are in your corner.

This past Monday, we passed a key landmark. All House bills that had not been referred out of committee are no longer eligible to become law. That means that 139 of the 200+ bad bills have died—bills that would have criminalized being trans or sought to ban trans care for adults outright.

“Despite some of the worst bills dying, the news of HB 229 and HB 778 passing the House weighs heavy on all of us. No matter where the fight takes us, we will survive, and we will do it together.” -Brad Pritchett, Interim CEO of Equality Texas

If you are struggling right now, please consider reaching out to:

Trans Lifeline: (877) 565-8860

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Equality Texas Support: equalitytexas.org/help

May 13, 2025 0

Texas House votes to strictly define man and woman, excluding trans people from state records

*This is reported by The Texas Tribune.

Dozens of trans people and their allies gathered in the outdoor Capitol rotunda Friday, chanting at the top of their lungs.

They will not erase us.

The next day, the Texas House of Representatives preliminarily passed a bill that aims to do just that.

House Bill 229 strictly defines men and women based on the reproductive organs they were born with, and orders state records to reflect this binary. The bill, titled the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” lays out the “biological truth for anybody who is confused,” said author Rep. Ellen Troxclair, an Austin Republican.

The bill passed on second reading 86-36 after an at times tense debate, and is expected to be finally approved next week before going to the Senate, which has already passed several bills with a similar focus.

Surrounded by a cadre of Republican women, Troxclair said the goal of the bill was to ensure women’s rights aren’t “eroded by activists” as more people come out as trans and nonbinary. Democrats argued against the bill for almost three hours with Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, saying “it is harmful, it is dangerous, and it is really freaking insulting.”

If this bill becomes law, more than 120,000 trans Texans would be forced to be defined in state records by the sex they were assigned at birth, rather than the gender they identify as, even if they’ve already legally changed their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

Saturday’s debate rehashed a deep fracture over sex and gender that has animated the Texas Legislature, and much of the country, for the last five sessions. In previous years, legislators focused on tangible questions of bathroom access, youth sports and gender-affirming care for minors.

This year, the proposals that have gained the most traction reflect a more fundamental question: what is a woman?

For conservative lawmakers, the answer is simple, and best defined by reproductive organs. For trans people and their allies, the answer is simple, and best left to an individual’s assertion of their gender identity.

Only one of those groups controls the Texas Capitol.

“We’re a state that believes in truth, and we’re a state that honors the hard-won achievements of women, the women who fought for the right to vote, to compete in sports and to be safe in public spaces, to be treated equally under the law,” Troxclair said on the floor. “But if we can no longer define what a woman is, we cannot defend what women have won. We cannot protect what we cannot define.”

In the bill, a woman is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” and a man is “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.” Democrats criticized this as overly simplistic, excluding trans people, but also intersex people and those who can’t conceive children.

“Any biologist knows there are variations in sex chromosomes, hormone levels and other traits … where an individual’s biological characteristics don’t align with typical male or female categorization,” said Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat from Houston. “The real question is, do you believe that all people have the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of their own personal happiness?”

This bill aligns with an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott, who declared in January that Texas only recognizes two sexes, male and female, and a non-binding legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said state agencies should not honor court opinions to change someone’s sex listed on official documents.

At the Capitol rally on Friday, Lambda Legal senior attorney Shelly Skeen said revoking these changed documents, and preventing people from changing them in the future, “affects every aspect of our daily lives.” Having a birth certificate or drivers’ license that reflects a different sex than their physical presentation, or that doesn’t align with their passport or other documents, could leave trans people in a legal limbo and potentially open them up to violence, she said.

It could impact the state facilities, like prisons, they are sorted into, the bathrooms and locker rooms they are supposed to use and the discrimination protections they are entitled to, Skeen said. Unlike other bills, like the so-called “bathroom bill,” this legislation does not have civil or criminal penalties for using a facility that doesn’t align with one’s sex.

Troxclair did accept one amendment, by El Paso Democrat Rep. Mary González, to clarify how intersex people, who are born with both sets of reproductive organs, fit into these definitions.

The chamber also preliminarily approved Senate Bill 1257, which would require health insurers that cover gender-affirming care also cover any adverse consequences and costs of detransitioning. The bill, authored by Sen. Bryan Hughes and sponsored by Rep. Jeff Leach, passed 82-37.

Leach said he brought this bill on behalf of people who were left with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills because their health insurance wouldn’t cover the costs of detransitioning.

“The illustration that I think best describes this is, if you take somebody to the dance and they want to go home, then you have to take them home,” Leach said during the debate on Saturday.

The bill says that any insurance company that covers gender-affirming care must cover all detransition-related costs for its members, even if that person wasn’t on the health insurance plan at the time they transitioned. Democrats filed more than half a dozen amendments to narrow the scope of the bill, critiquing the bill as a health insurance mandate. None of the amendments passed.

Last session, Texas lawmakers outlawed gender-affirming care for minors. Trans advocates worry that raising the cost of covering gender-affirming care will result in health insurers not covering the treatments for adults, either.

“If you can make it painful enough for providers and insurers, health care is gone,” said Emmett Schelling, the executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas. “It doesn’t just feed into gender-affirming care. It bleeds into health care that we all need, that we all deserve.”

Speaking on the floor Saturday, Rep. Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, said the Legislature was telling insurance companies not to cover gender-affirming care.

“The reality is this bill, however you couch it, is about eliminating the existence of trans individuals in Texas,” Johnson said. “Stop pretending that you’re for freedom. Stop pretending that this is about the kids.”

May 10, 2025 0