Category: transgender

Trans man flees US after unending discrimination & violence: “I have to get out or I’m going to die”

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Since Elliot Hefty came out as a trans man in 2020, he has lost his job, been evicted, and received KKK flyers at his front door – all because of his gender identity. He was also a victim of sexual assault in a men’s bathroom and thinks his gender identity is what caused the perpetrator to act.

After the 2024 presidential election, a person shoved him on the street and began yelling anti-trans slurs. “I’m laying in the street bleeding. Not one person stopped to help me or see if I was okay. And I got up, and I’m bleeding. My hands are bleeding, my knees are bleeding, my face is bleeding.” It was then that he decided he had to leave the country.

“I have to get out or I’m going to die,” he said.

In a conversation with WABE, Atlanta’s public radio station, Hefty opened up about his decision to move to the Netherlands, along with his brother, Koda. The pair share a bedroom in a refugee center in Limburg, where Hefty said he enjoys support from the other LGBTQ+ asylum seekers from around the world who share a kitchen and common dining area with them.

Hefty is part of the record number of LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. fleeing the president’s anti-transgender policies by seeking asylum in other countries, according to a report released last Saturday by the LGBTQ+ asylum relocation assistance group Rainbow Railroad.

Simultaneously, fewer LGBTQ+ refugees from other anti-LGBTQ+ countries are seeking asylum in the U.S., a result of the president’s anti-immigration policies, according to the group’s report, Understanding the State of Global LGBTQI+ Persecution, which was released on World Refugee Day.

Last year, Rainbow Railroad received 20,215 direct requests for relocation assistance from queer and trans people, a 51% increase over 2024 and the highest number of requests the group has received since its founding in 2006.

Approximately 31% of last year’s requests came from people living in the U.S. The previous year, that percentage was about 13%. While past requests to leave the U.S. had in the past predominantly come from queer immigrants who had been resettled in the states, about 88% of the requests in 2025 came from American citizens who said they were fleeing the current administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

Exactly 1,177 U.S. residents reached out to Rainbow Railroad for support the day after the president was re-elected, Rainbow Railroad’s Chief Programs Officer Devon Matthews told The Los Angeles Blade.

“That single day generated more than twice the number of requests for help we had received from across the United States during the previous 10 months combined,” Matthews said.

Matthews also told WABE that the United States has joined the likes of Uganda, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, Canada, Turkey, and Kenya when it comes to the number of LGBTQ+ people seeking refuge outside of their home countries.

Hefty, whose lawyer is currently working on an appeal regarding his refugee status, said he has no plans to reenter the United States, not even to visit for a sibling’s wedding.

Trans people in the United States are also fleeing anti-trans red states and moving to blue states, some of which have declared themselves sanctuaries for trans rights.

An October 2025 survey by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) found that between November 2024 and June 2025, roughly 9% of trans people in the United States moved to another state, with 43% considering a move.

Gallup estimates there are roughly 4.5 million trans people in the country, meaning over 400,000 people (and their families) have relocated. As anti-trans legislation has only ramped up since June 2025, it’s safe to assume that the number of people relocating has increased as well.

But blue states are struggling to meet the demand. In May, for example, the Seattle LGBTQ Commission petitioned the city’s mayor to declare a civil state of emergency to accommodate the massive influx of LGBTQ+ people, which has strained the resources of community-based organizations that weren’t set up to handle this volume. Those organizations are responsible for a range of services, the letter explained, including “emergency financial assistance, transportation, housing navigation, legal support, safety planning, community connections, and access to gender-affirming healthcare.”

Doctors have also begged blue state legislators for more funding to accommodate the rise in demand for gender-affirming care services.

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Wanna pee in Idaho? First, get a forced DNA test to prove your gender, state GOP lawyer suggests

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

A recent court hearing on a lawsuit brought by six transgender Idahoans against the state’s latest bathroom bill has revealed just how unworkable the draconian new law would be. In fact, to enforce it, an attorney for the red state said restroom users might need to undergo forced DNA testing.

House Bill 752, which passed the Legislature this year with only Republican votes, prohibits trans people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity, both in government-owned buildings and private businesses that serve the public.

The law is set to take effect July 1.

The suit says the Idaho law — one of three recently passed by Republican legislatures that impose criminal penalties on offenders — violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, and privacy. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Idaho, and Lambda Legal.

At the hearing, the judge in the case — Chief U.S. District Judge for the District of Idaho, Amanda K. Brailsford — questioned the state over how exactly they would determine the sex at birth of an individual accused of violating the law, The Idaho Capital Sun reports.

Kell Olson, a trans attorney for Lambda Legal, told the judge that if police confronted him and asked for his ID, officers would find that his ID lists him as male. Brailsford noted, for the record, that most of the plaintiffs suing the state also have state-issued IDs with gender markers that are aligned with their gender identity. 

Idaho Solicitor General Michael Zarian suggested the solution was simple: “There is DNA testing.”

Pressed on whether DNA testing required consent, Zarian hedged, saying that wasn’t necessarily the case and that he doubted the accused would be asked to undergo DNA testing on the spot.

Lambda’s Olson told the court that DNA testing usually requires a warrant. 

Both the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association and the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police called the proposed law impractical and unworkable.

There is no “clear or reasonable way” to determine a person’s sex at birth during a field contact without engaging in “invasive and inappropriate” questioning or searches, said one police group president.

Following the hearing, ACLU of Idaho attorney Emily Croston said the state didn’t help itself on the issue of enforcement.

“I don’t think the state has an answer for how you identify someone’s biological sex,” Croston told reporters. “Are we just going to look at folks as they enter a restroom and determine whether we think they look enough like a man or a woman? That’s ridiculous.”

The hearing only reinforced the plaintiffs’ argument that the law is unconstitutionally vague, and police organizations’ earlier doubts that it’s practically unenforceable.

Proving the former claim, Solicitor General Zarian tried using an exemption in the law to demonstrate how reasonable the ban is. The law allows individuals to use restrooms that don’t align with their sex if they are in “dire need” of going to the bathroom, he pointed out.

Pressed by Judge Brailsford, Zarian acknowledged that it “might be difficult to prove someone had a dire need,” but that vagueness, he claimed, doesn’t mean that the law itself is unconstitutionally vague.

Idaho law enforcement didn’t have to similarly tie themselves in knots when they formally opposed the ban during debate in the Legislature earlier this year. Both the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association and the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police called the proposed law impractical and unworkable.

There is no “clear or reasonable way” to determine a person’s sex at birth during a field contact without engaging in “invasive and inappropriate” questioning or searches, said one police group president.

The ACLU notes that analyses of public safety data have found policies inclusive of transgender people’s access to public accommodations have no impact on rates of harassment or violence, while policies that restrict access actually increase the risk of harassment and violence. Trans people are four times as likely as their cisgender peers to be the victims of violence.

Nine bathroom bans have passed by red state legislatures in recent years, but Idaho’s is the only one to cover private businesses as well as government buildings. A first offense is a misdemeanor, with up to one year in prison; a second offense jumps to a felony, with up to five years in prison.

A fourth violation would constitute a third felony conviction, punishable under Idaho’s persistent violator statute by a mandatory minimum of five years and up to life in prison. 

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America’s best and worst places to be gay and trans? Check your ZIP code

Read more at Yahoo.

Where is the best place to be gay in America? Increasingly, it’s a question of ZIP code.

While Massachusetts and California are known for championing supportive policies and rolling out the welcome mat to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer residents, other areas like Arkansas and Tennessee that have unfurled a wave of LGBTQ+ rollbacks have a less hospitable reputation.

Today, that divide is wider than ever, according to the latest State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index from Out Leadership shared exclusively with USA TODAY.

The index suggests America’s acceptance of gay people has continued a steep decline, reversing many of the civil rights advances that increased the well-being and safety of the LGBTQ+ population, Out Leadership’s founder and CEO, Todd Sears, told USA TODAY.

The national average score in the index has fallen for four straight years. The 10 highest-ranked states have held steady or improved, but the lowest-ranked have dipped more, and the middle ground is quickly disappearing, according to Sears.

On the index’s 100-point scale, the typical state scores just 53.1 and 26 states fall below 60, he said.

“When we started this index eight years ago, the goal was to show Americans the issues that were still live but invisible − HIV criminalization, conversion therapy, where state legislators actually stood − because once marriage equality passed, a lot of people assumed the work was done. It wasn’t,” Sears said. “What we’ve documented since is a genuine regression.”

4-year slide in gay and trans equality

Each year for the last eight, Out Leadership has released the index to map out where the 9% of U.S. adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual are least and most welcome. Created as an inclusion reference guide for business leaders, LGBTQ+ people soon began consulting it to figure out where they should – and should not – live and work.

For years, the index has measured such factors as the impact of state government policies and prevalent attitudes, from support for young people and families to health access and safety to nondiscrimination protections.

This year, Out Leadership added 12 new indicators to gauge the impact of anti-LGBTQ+ policies such as bathroom access restrictions, pronoun and name-use prohibitions and restrictions on adult gender-affirming care, Sears said.

Out Leadership decided to make the additions after the Supreme Court struck down state conversion therapy bans.

“For the last several years, we simply weren’t capturing forces that were already hitting LGBTQ+ citizens and their families,” Sears said.

As a result, the national average score fell five points to 60.87 out of 100. And the index shows even greater geographic polarization.

The gap between the most welcoming state – Massachusetts at 93.23 – and the least – Arkansas, 28.06 – widened from 55 points in 2019 to 65 points.

“Something Americans had come to take for granted, that LGBTQ+ people exist and deserve civil rights, has been thrown back into question,” Sears said.

From California to Arkansas, how states rank

Out Leadership’s new criteria boosted some states. California rose in the rankings for its leadership in pro-LGBTQ+ policy while Illinois gained ground for providing protections for access to gender-affirming care, among other measures.

Consideration of these additional factors tanked the rankings of some states. Bathroom bans, health care restrictions and other state measures pummeled Florida while Texas slipped because of anti-trans legislation.

Even LGBTQ+ friendly states fell in the rankings.

Maine, for example, declined, not because it passed unfriendly laws, but because the new indicators rewarded states that enacted protections that it had not. South Dakota, on the other hand, gained five positions because it has not adopted much of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that other states have.

Bottom line, half of America is increasingly unfriendly to the LGBTQ+ population, Sears said. “The math shows it,” he said.

Surge in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment

From Pride parades to the federal legalization of same-sex marriage, for decades, America’s acceptance of gay people was on a steady march.

Bias against gay people declined from 2007 to 2020 and was on track to disappear altogether, according to a 2022 study by Tessa Charlesworth, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji.

Then in the early 2020s, the trend reversed. Anti-gay bias jumped 10 points from 2021 to 2024.

By Gallup’s measure, acceptance of LGBTQ people – at an all-time high four years ago – has fallen every year since as public approval of LGBTQ+ legal protections recedes and transgender rights become a culture-war flashpoint.

The political shift has spilled over into the broadly supportive corporate world, which – despite a track record of backing the nation’s LGBTQ+  population – shrank Pride Month budgets, flashed fewer rainbow flags and downplayed solidarity amid the “go woke go broke” backlash against Target and Bud Light and pressure from activists to roll back LGBTQ+ commitments.

They’re out, their employers were proud. Then came the DEI backlash.

According to Charlesworth’s research, bias has been rising in most states since 2020.

Nearly two-thirds of states have seen an increase in implicit bias towards gay people – automatic judgments made about others based on sexual orientation – and three-quarters have seen an increase in explicit bias – the attitudes, prejudices, or stereotypes toward a person or group on a conscious level, she said.

“Geography certainly plays a role in the overall amount of bias toward gay, lesbian and trans people,” Charlesworth told USA TODAY. “There are systematic patterns across places that shape where is more tolerant and accepting versus more hostile.”

Even socially progressive cities in conservative states are no longer as safe or welcoming, Sears said. Surveys show many LGBTQ+ residents in red states have considered uprooting their lives or have already fled.

“Over the next 12 to 18 months, companies are going to feel this, and many already are,” he said. “There’s a talent flight underway. LGBTQ people are leaving anti-LGBTQ states, families of trans, nonbinary, and gay young people are relocating, and employees are going back into the closet. Whatever someone is hiding at work, they’re not bringing their full self, and they’re not bringing everything they could to the company. That’s why the economic impact will be felt for a long time.”

5 highest-ranking states for LGBTQ+

1. Massachusetts

2. New York

3. Connecticut

4. New Jersey

5. Illinois

5 lowest-ranking states for LGBTQ+

50. Arkansas

49. Tennessee

48. Idaho

47. South Carolina

46. Florida

Corrections & Clarifications: Out Leadership updated its methodology which resulted in some score and ranking changes for states in the index.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The best and worst places for gay people? See where your state ranks

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Maine kills anti-trans ballot measure over forged & invalid petition signatures

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) ruled on Tuesday that Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine, an anti-transgender campaign, submitted invalid and forged signatures in its bid for a November ballot measure that sought to ban trans students from school sports and restrooms. As a result, the measure will not appear on the voting ballot this November, Erin in the Morning reported.

The campaign, bankrolled by out-of-state billionaire Richard Uihlein, submitted 79,692 signatures — well over the 67,682 required to qualify. However, a court review of the campaign’s petitions in May invalidated 12,542 of the signatures, leaving the campaign 532 signatures short of the required number.

Some of the signatures were thrown out because the collectors didn’t witness the signing (as required by state law). Others were invalidated because the signatures did not match the voters’ signatures on voter registries, because the signatories signed more than once, because the signers weren’t registered voters, or because the signatures were forgeries. Collectors were paid $3 to $4 per signature.

Though Bellows approved the signed petitions as valid in March, following a court evidentiary review, she ruled on Tuesday that the petitions fell short of the required number of signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.

The ballot measure would’ve defined a student’s sex as “a biological status as male or female recorded at birth on the person’s original birth certificate,” effectively ending any legal recognition of trans students, not just in the cases of restrooms and sports. It also would’ve carved trans students out of legal protections enshrined in the Maine Human Rights Act (a statewide anti-discrimination law), and would’ve allowed cisgender students to sue any school that allowed trans students to use sex-segregated school spaces alongside them.

In a statement celebrating Bellows’ ruling, David Farmer, campaign manager for the Campaign for Free and Fair Schools coalition, said, “The paid, out-of-state signature gatherers and the billionaire who paid to try to put this question on the ballot failed to follow the rules. We believe that the appeals process and the reviews by the Secretary of State are working as the law intends. They are protecting the integrity of our elections.”

Even if voters had approved the measure in November, it would likely have faced legal challenges, since it would’ve resulted in trans students and their families facing harassment and discrimination.

Transgender journalist Erin Reed noted that Uihlein is a major funder of the American Principles Project, a right-wing conservative organization that has spent tens of millions on anti-trans election ads. Reed also noted that an independent analysis published by Atmos and HEATED found that 80% of the nation’s 45 major anti-trans organizations have gotten funding from billionaires or fossil fuel companies. 

Reed also noted that anti-trans ballot measures will go in front of voters in both Washington and Colorado.

“Both efforts are also funded by conservative megadonors,” she wrote, “and both are part of the same strategy that produced the Maine initiative: Use ballot initiatives to roll back trans rights in states whose elected legislatures have refused to do so.”

Uihlein and Protect Girls Sports in Maine’s efforts came after Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) repeatedly refused to comply with the president’s extortive attempts to withhold federal education funding in retaliation for the state’s trans-inclusive school policies.

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Maine, challenging the state’s trans-inclusive interpretation of Title IX. That legal battle is currently ongoing.

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A surprising country just topped Europe’s trans rights rankings

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Transgender Europe (TGEU) has released its annual Trans Rights Index and Map, which ranks countries by the protections and opportunities that they offer for trans and nonbinary people. While there have been net positives across Europe, TGEU notes that the gains have not been caused by larger political and climate shifts.

The report “reveals a year of change on paper across Europe and Central Asia but not sustained political progress,” TGEU writes. “While more developments have been recorded than in recent years, many of these hard-won shifts are driven by activists and courts rather than proactive government action.”

The map is co-funded by the European Union and is done in partnership with ILGA Europe’s Rainbow Map. For the Trans Rights Index, they measure each country against 32 indicators across six categories: Legal Gender Recognition, Asylum, Hate Crime/Speech, Non-Discrimination, Health, and Family.

Coming in at the top of the rankings as a clear winner this year was Iceland, which met 30 out of the 32 indicators. It missed one point under Asylum. While gender identity is supported by its laws and it has legal gender recognition for refugees, it does not expressly include gender identity in other asylum policies. Similarly, under Hate Crime/Speech, it got points for having legislation against hate crimes and hate speech targeted at trans people, but it doesn’t have a policy tackling hatred, which can be important to understanding potential threats to trans people in a country.

After Iceland, several runners-up are in close proximity, with Malta fulfilling 28 of the 32 indicators, Spain at 27.18, Belgium and Norway both at 25.5, and Germany at 24.57.

Across the 54 countries studied for the Trans Rights Index, there’s a wide margin in how they treat trans people. Austria, Germany, Iceland, and Malta are the only four countries that have fully met the criteria for nonbinary gender recognition. Meanwhile, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Russia, and Slovakia still have frameworks in place that make legal gender recognition impossible for trans people. Russia is at the bottom of the ranking, meeting zero of the 32 criteria.

TGEU also provides commentary on how the political climate has shaped the rankings compared to previous years. Notably, they point to “targeted and deliberate regressions” in what they call “rollback as a political strategy.” Belarus introduced an “anti-propaganda law” in April, which criminalized the promotion of trans rights and representation. The country also reinstated compulsory medical requirements for legal gender recognition. Slovakia also introduced a block on legal gender recognition. And the United Kingdom gets a special mention for the “ambiguity” around the nation’s Gender Recognition Certificates after last year’s Supreme Court ruling.

The organization also highlights that progress across Europe and Central Asia over the last year is due to the tireless work of activist groups and court responses. For example, Czechia brought in new legal gender recognition guidelines that no longer include forced sterilization and surgical requirements after a Constitutional Court ruling. TGEU explained, “These guidelines followed years of advocacy and litigation by trans activists and represent one of the most significant shifts in the region this year. However, as these changes are not fully enshrined in legislation, they remain vulnerable to rollback.”

Of course, TGEU also makes the point that while these positive legal moves are a great sign, they’re not the full story. Laws on paper don’t always translate to “safety, dignity, or the ability to access human rights for trans people.” With that in mind, TGEU calls on governments to do their part to secure trans rights in these countries and to support efforts to establish stronger protections.

“Regional and national leaders must now step up,” the report states, “put court rulings and laws into practice, and hold those accountable who treat human rights like an a la carte menu.”

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The ultimate guide to getting the most out of traveling with joy and safety while trans

Read more at GayCities.

Since Trump took office last year, traveling as a trans person has felt terrifying.  

I used to travel by plane frequently. As a consultant, I was in a new state at least quarterly for client visits and onsite training. But last year, things changed for me, as they did for many others.

When I changed my name (over 10 years ago), I did not change my gender marker. The name on my ID is “Rex” while my gender marker shows “F”. The reasoning on my name change petition marks “the petitioner seeks to conform their name to their gender identity.”

I’ve heard stories from friends and community members whose passports were reissued with their name or gender marker unconsensually reverted to their assigned sex at birth. 

In Kansas, transgender individuals received letters from the state informing them that their driver’s licenses were no longer valid due to the passing of SB 244. TSA has also removed its “Guidance for Transgender, Non-binary, and Gender Non-conforming Passengers” page.

These actions don’t just invalidate and dehumanize transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive (TGX+) people. They also increase the risk of harassment and violence by forcibly outing us.

Last year, I traveled out of state for work only one time. I took the one hour flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for a conference. As I went through security, I wondered, “When they check my ID, will they look at my gender marker this time?” “Will it flag an additional security check?” “What will happen if they find out that I’m trans?”

Last year, Lambda Legal held a Know Your Rights: Passports webinar in response to over 1,000 requests from TGX+ folks seeking information on passports and travel. This webinar helped demystify some of the fears circling in the TGX+ community (such as clarifying that current non-expired passports with an “X” gender marker remain valid until replaced or expired).

It also encouraged deeper consideration of traveling while TGX+.

As I consider travel this year and beyond, I’ve developed some personal travel guidelines to help keep me safe. Organizations can adopt these to support the safety of their TGX+ employees, too.

Here are some considerations for TGX+ individuals while traveling…

1. Always travel together.

There is safety in numbers. Travel with a trusted friend or colleague and use the buddy system at crucial checkpoints (security, restrooms, etc.).

2. Consider all options.

What is the best mode of transportation for you? Car? Train? Plane? For me, traveling by plane feels the most precarious, and I am not willing to do it without support from a trusted source. Take time to consider which travel options are the safest and most suitable for your needs.

3. Make a safety plan.

Ensure you create a safety plan that includes considerations for where you are traveling, a point person who knows all your travel details, and an emergency contact who is available if necessary (this can be a person or a reputable organization such as Lambda Legal). For planning support, check out the Travel While Trans database.

4. Always bring documents.

When traveling, carry your identification (e.g., passport) and court-ordered official documents stating any name and gender marker changes. Before traveling, make copies of all documents and forms of identification. Keep one copy at home, and give another to a trusted confidant in case your documents get lost or confiscated. Contact Lambda Legal if any issues arise during travel.

While I’ve heard plenty of stories from other trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive folks who have traveled nationally and internationally without issues over the past year, I feel the need to be prepared to support my safety in the worst-case scenario.

We shouldn’t have to make these considerations, but they are important steps to take for the safety and well-being of TGX folks. Trans people deserve to exist without fear. The more equipped we are, and the more support we have to navigate the current climate, the more we can create a future that centers our joy, which is what traveling should truly be about.

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Who really cares for trans lives in an ‘LGBTQ-friendly’ country?

Read more on The Loop.

Belgium often prides itself on being an LGBTQ-friendly country, yet anti-trans activists hide their transphobia behind superficial pro-trans statements. Rylan Verlooy explores how this paradox affects trans people’s activism. Here, they show how resistance takes the form of everyday acts of educating others, strengthening community spaces, and caring for trans lives

The myth of LGBTQ-friendliness

Belgium is often hailed as an ‘LGBTQ+ paradise‘ because of its comprehensive and inclusive legislation. In 2003, it was the second country worldwide to introduce marriage for registered same-sex couples and, since 2006, adoption rights. Since 2018, trans people have been able to legally change their binary sex marker based on self-determination. Still, Belgium’s LGBTQ-friendly image has been damaged by recent reports on transphobic violence, the persistent exclusion of non-binary people from state recognition, and the rising presence of anti-gender politics targeting trans people.

This poses a contradictory reality for trans people. On the one hand, the state provides some legal protection for some trans people. Trans people are part of Belgian narratives about the country’s LGBTQ-friendliness. On the other hand, transphobia is still widespread and invigorated by anti-gender politics. How can a country celebrate LGBTQ+ inclusion while simultaneously allowing for anti-trans politics?

Anti-trans politics in an ‘LGBTQ-friendly’ country

While the UK and the US are reversing trans rights and introducing anti-trans bills, Belgian anti-trans actors mostly employ a different strategy. Adapting to Belgium’s LGBTIQ-friendly image, they often claim to support trans rights and to empathise with trans people. But at the same time, they push pathologising anti-trans narratives and promote conversion therapy. They commonly describe trans women as ‘biological men’, and trans men as ‘girls with gender dysphoria’, or ‘victims of the woke craze’.

Some Belgian anti-trans actors often claim to support trans rights, but at the same time push anti-trans narratives and promote conversion therapy

Furthermore, they normalise misgendering in the media and in everyday interactions. Being misgendered is often a daily reality for trans people. However, in anti-trans politics, it is a consistent and intentional strategy to deny trans identities. This normalisation of misgendering also affects how friends and family speak about trans people in an increasingly negative way. Non-binary people in particular are the target of ridicule, making it harder for them to open up to families and friends.

The illusion of trans-inclusivity

Anti-trans actors sometimes preface statements with pretend support for some trans rights. Claims such as ‘we respect everyone, also people who transitioned’ allow anti-trans actors to gain legitimacy with a broader public. Indeed, it gives them an aura of trans-inclusivity. Furthermore, their affiliations with self-claimed ‘trans experts’ at universities, research institutes, and hospitals lead the media to present these actors as competent even when they have no professional experience working with trans people. Like other anti-gender actors, Belgian anti-trans actors create scientific-sounding discourse that serves their ideological agenda. Such discourse undermines trans rights – and disregards scientific rigour.

Together with parent organisations, self-declared ‘anti-woke’ academics, and Catholic groups, they form a well-connected network. This network promotes conversion therapy, the restriction or abolition of gender-affirming healthcare, and the exclusion of trans people in sports. However, the ostensible support for trans rights by these actors makes it harder to resist.

Care as radical resistance

Against the backdrop of anti-trans politics, everyday practices of resistance are increasingly important to trans communities. This includes educating others, but also practices of care to support each other and themselves.

Misinformation is a key strategy in anti-trans politics. Educating others on trans issues is therefore increasingly important for trans activists. There is a growing need for a ‘trans 101’; a simple introduction into trans issues and needs. However, many would rather educate people on intersecting injustices instead of constantly focusing on basic information about their trans lives.

Belgium may portray itself as LGBTQ-friendly, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the country’s trans people are safe in public. Building and maintaining community spaces for trans people is therefore crucial

To care for one another, building and maintaining community spaces is crucial in a society that marginalises trans experiences. During interviews, more and more people reported the need for a welcoming space where trans people can simply exist. Activists want to unite trans people on the dancefloor, in talking groups, or in community kitchens. They emphasised that even though Belgium is seen as LGBTQ-friendly, that doesn’t necessarily mean trans people are safe in public, hence the importance of these trans-inclusive spaces.

Creating a liveable life

Other everyday activist practices include providing haircuts for trans people, cooking together, having movie nights, or acting as ‘queer mother’ offering emotional support to help trans youth navigate society. These everyday examples of care, along with the creation of community spaces, are crucial in sustaining trans people’s survival, and keeping alive the hope of a liveable life amid the lived consequences of anti-trans politics.

Everyday acts of care, such as providing haircuts for trans people or offering emotional support to trans youth, are crucial to keep alive the hope of a liveable life

These everyday practices of care are what Hil Malatino alludes to when he developed the concept of an ‘infrapolitics of care’ that ‘enables both political resistance and intracommunal survival and resistance’. These daily acts of care are a radical political act aimed at trans survival. Indeed, these instances of resistance are often unexpected and messy, but constitute a palpable way to practice solidarity when facing intricate strategies of marginalisation in a country that claims to be LGBTQ-friendly.

Caring for trans voices in research

While my research concentrates on the specific context of Belgium, its results echo the transnational dynamics of anti-trans politics, even in countries not considered LGBTQ-friendly. Trans voices disrupt this image of LGBTQ-friendliness and reveal how anti-trans rhetoric unfolds against the backdrop of a structural exclusion.

To further make sense of anti-trans politics across contexts, it is essential to attend to the voices of trans activists. Listening to their insights can lead to a more robust understanding of the issues at stake in anti-trans politics and the continuous structural transphobia. Their voices reveal the importance of everyday instances of resistance to anti-trans politics and transphobia, because these exclusionary currents affect trans people’s everyday lives.

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Texas Children’s Hospital must create country’s first “detransition clinic” under legal settlement with state

Read more at KSAT.

The Texas attorney general has secured an unusual settlement over child transgender care that compels Texas Children’s Hospital to create the nation’s first ever “detransition clinic” in addition to paying the state $10 million. 

According to Attorney General Ken Paxton, the multidisciplinary clinic would offer medical care to patients “who were subjected to ‘gender-transition’ procedures.” The care would be free to patients for the first five years of the clinic’s operation. The move follows an investigation that began in 2023 by the attorney general’s office into Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. That same year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14 that bars transgender children from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapies.

Gender-affirming care is an umbrella term for the treatment of gender dysphoria, or the discomfort that comes when someone’s gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender-affirming care ranges from “socially transitioning” — using different pronouns or dressing differently — to puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions.

“Today is a monumental day in the fight to stop the radical transgender movement,” Paxton said in a statement issued Friday. “I applaud Texas Children’s Hospital for changing course and committing to being a part of the solution by agreeing to form a first-of-its kind Detransition Clinic that will help provide free care to those who have been victimized by twisted, morally bankrupt transgender ideology.”

Texas Children’s will fund all services provided through the “detransition clinic” for the first five years. 

The settlement also requires the hospital to pay $10 million for billing Texas Medicaid after the state accused the hospital of illegal ‘gender-transition’ interventions, including by using false diagnosis codes. It also required Texas Children’s to terminate and revoke the medical privileges of five physicians. Paxton and the hospital have not released the name of the physicians or a copy of the settlement. 

Texas Children’s, the nation’s largest pediatric hospital, said in a statement that it made the “difficult decision” to settle with the attorney general’s office to close a legal chapter that has been, “wrought with falsehoods and distractions.” 

The hospital said it spent three three years producing more than 5 million documents to both the state and the U.S. Department of Justice. 

“All reviews and investigations continue to support the facts – we have been compliant with all laws,” the hospital statement said. “To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation … We stand proud knowing we will always put our purpose over politics and that we have and will continue to follow the law.”

The Texas Medical Association and Texas Hospital Association declined to answer questions for the story.

Unclear what services clinic will provide

Texas Children’s, one of the world’s leading pediatric hospitals based in the heart of Houston’s medical center, did not say how it will roll out its clinic or what services it will provide, though the hospital said in the statement that the clinic will include “supportive, multidisciplinary services we already deliver to all patients who need our care.” 

Detransitioning is the stopping or reversal of transitioning care by social, medical or legal means, and it is rare for people to regret transitioning after taking hormone therapy and surgical interventions. 

On the clinical side, detransitioning could mean stopping hormone treatment or procedures to reverse previous surgeries. Similar to transitioning, detransitioning requires intensive mental health assessments to root out other factors that might be creating the desire to stop transitioning, according to research. Common reasons for destransitioning include lack of family support, financial barriers and social pressure. 

When someone chooses to detransition, “it is not normally because of healthcare complications,” said Andrea Segovia, senior field and policy director for the Transgender Education Network of Texas. 

Segovia is concerned that access to mental healthcare will not be woven into the clinic’s services. In March, Paxton released an opinion saying that mental health providers licensed by the state cannot provide gender-transitioning care to minors under state law. It’s not clear if Paxton believes state law bars detransitioning mental healthcare as well.

For those who do want to detransition, the resources already exist, said Kellan Baker, senior advisor for the Movement Advancement Project, a national think tank that focuses on LGBTQ policies. 

Detransitioning services, although they are rarely needed, can and have been offered properly when accompanied with mental health resources. But Baker said he’s not confident that this clinic, born out of a heated conflict between a hospital and the attorney general, has the best intentions for the transgender community. 

“Texas Children’s is not creating this clinic — the Texas attorney general is creating it,” Baker said. “A clinic created by a politician via legal intimidation is not in the best interests of any patient. Doctors should be the ones making decisions about how to provide medical care, not politicians.”

‘Resource that no one is asking for’

Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for the LGBTQ community, said in a statement that the attorney general is “blackmailing a hospital system into creating a resource that no one is asking for.” 

Pritchett said Texas’ politically-motivated detransition clinic “ignores the actual science and years of data about the overwhelming benefits of gender-affirming care.” 

Several medical associations including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and American Psychiatric Association, have supported evidence-based gender-transitioning care as appropriate and medically necessary for children.

Pritchett added that it is “embarrassing that a hospital once revered for its care has lost its integrity and put politics over patients.”

Dallas state Rep. Jessica González who chairs the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus said in a statement that the settlement is “shameful, and is the furthering of an agenda to eradicate transgender people from the eyes of society.” 

Transgender people make up about 1% of the population, which is why, Segovia said, it is “infuriating” that the state is creating the detransition clinic as access to other healthcare services are struggling — such as rural hospitals and reproductive care. 

Texas Children’s has to fully fund the clinic for five years, which will take away attention and limited resources from the hospital’s other departments such as care for children with cancer and infants with heart conditions, González said. 

“Using a settlement to compel a hospital to build an ideologically framed clinic opens the door to more state interference in medical practice, more dangerous stigmatization that truly harms

young Texans, and, sadly, more lives lost in our nation’s suicide epidemic,” said González, one of the few only queer representatives in Texas. 

Houston state Sen. Molly Cook, who is also openly queer, said Paxton is manufacturing a political spectacle because providers know how to help someone detransition and the state doesn’t need a clinic to train them on it. 

“This is an asinine waste of money that is typical of Texas’s out-of-touch statewide leadership,” Cook said in a statement. “Texas Children’s already provides care for patients who choose to change a course of treatment.”

The need for such a clinic in Texas is made even smaller by the fact that the state’s ban on gender-transitioning care for minors has resulted in very few Texas children receiving such care statewide. 

The five doctors that Paxton said Texas Children’s will need to fire adds to the four doctors he’s already sued to stop providing gender-affirming care. He’s also sued Children’s Health System of Texas, headquartered in Dallas, accusing them of violating SB 14. Some parts of Texas already suffer from a pediatric endocrinologist shortage in the wake of SB 14. 

Segovia with the Transgender Education Network of Texas said she’s worried that other states will follow Texas’ lead in forcing more of these clinics to open. 

“It’s terrifying what other states will take from this.”

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Canadian doctors denied patients gender-affirming care, citing Trump’s executive order

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

McGill University in Quebec has denied gender-affirming care to at least two trans American students since March, when the school adopted a preemptive policy denying hormone replacement therapy over fears the Trump administration would retaliate, two sources say.

The new policy is an embarrassment, said an American staffer for The Montreal Trans Patient Union (TPU), who spoke to CBC on the condition of anonymity.

“These are American laws. American laws don’t apply in Canada,” they said.

The staffer and another member of TPU, Emma Gimbert, were at a meeting at McGill’s Student Wellness Hub in March when doctors brought up the change in policy.

“They said they wouldn’t be prescribing HRT to American citizens who were under 19 because of the executive order that Donald Trump issued,” Gimbert said.

The student was referring to Trump’s executive order, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation, issued a year ago in January, which directs federal agencies to carry out the American president’s crusade against transgender identity across the U.S. government.

“If you told me a month ago that a U.S. executive order would be influencing how doctors do their job across the border, I would have been like, no, that can’t be the case,” Gimbert said.

Canadians have been overwhelmingly critical of Trump and his trolling threats to their sovereignty since the start of his second term. McGill’s decision, from fiercely independent Quebec, no less, would seem antithetical to the rest of Canada’s posture facing Trump.

About 1000 Americans are currently enrolled at McGill, a public research university in Montreal known as “the Harvard of Canada.” Among nearly 40,000 students, a high proportion are from abroad.

Adding to the absurdity of a Canadian university bowing down to an American president, the decision may have been based in part on a clerical error.

The TPU staffer explained.

“The doctors said the reason for this was specifically the fact that the form the U.S. released had provisions for targeting Canadian doctors and taking down their information.”

The document in question was a snitch form issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to report health professionals administering gender-affirming care to minors in the U.S.

The drop-down menu, like many forms online, included the word “province” along with “state.”

Panicked administrators at McGill apparently thought that word put a target on Canadian medical professionals’ backs. HHS had even removed it by the time McGill denied the HRT to their American students.

McGill would neither confirm nor deny the existence of a policy barring Americans from gender-affirming care for fear of retaliation by Trump.

“Access to gender-affirming care is available to McGill students, including international students,” the university said in a statement.

“The medical aspects of this care are provided by licensed physicians. These decisions are not made by the university,” the school added, in a probably doomed effort to evade accountability from Canadians incensed at McGill’s failure to defend their independence.

“I think it’s definitely important for them to acknowledge what’s been going on because the way they’re currently treating this, it’s kind of covert,” Gimbert said. 

“We know this is something that they’re aware of. It’s just not something that they’re publicly talking about.”

Added the American TPU staffer: “I mean, we don’t say that 18-year-old Americans can’t buy alcohol here because the drinking age in the U.S. is 21.”

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Colorado passes new conversion therapy bill just after Supreme Court ruled against its ban

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Colorado’s legislature has just passed a bill to curtail conversion therapy in the state. It now goes to Gov. Jared Polis‘ (D) desk. Polis is gay, has been supportive of LGBTQ+ rights in the past, and is expected to sign it.

The bill, H.B. 26-1322, or the Civil Actions for Conversion Therapy Survivors Act, would allow conversion therapy survivors to sue therapists for damages if they tried to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill defines conversion therapy as treatment provided by a licensed mental health professional with the “predetermined outcome” of changing someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation. This effectively keeps the bill from applying to members of the clergy or lay ministries – most conversion therapy in the U.S. is performed by religious organizations, not licensed therapists – and creates an exemption for discussions of LGBTQ+ identities that come up in therapy, a matter of contention in a recent Supreme Court case.

The legislation passed the state senate last week in a party-line vote after already passing the Colorado House of Representatives. The state senate amended the bill so it had to pass the state house again, which happened late last week, the Colorado Daily Camera reports.

The bill was introduced as the Supreme Court considered a challenge to Colorado’s previous ban on conversion therapy, passed in 2019. That ban on conversion therapy has never been enforced in the state, but a Christian therapist sued, saying that it violated her freedom of speech. She argued that it would ban her from even discussing LGBTQ+ identities with her clients, even though the state said repeatedly that it would not.

The Court ultimately ruled against the ban in Chiles v. Salazar, saying that it violated therapists’ First Amendment rights, and sent the case back to a lower court to reevaluate the law under a higher legal standard. Experts believe this means that Colorado’s 2019 conversion therapy ban – and bans like it passed in 26 other states and hundreds of municipalities – will likely eventually be overturned by courts.

The new bill is an attempt to circumvent the Court’s decision by treating it as a civil matter. The bill was introduced by state Reps. Alex Valdez (D) and Karen McCormick (D), and in the Colorado Senate by state Sens. Lisa Cutter (D) and Kyle Mullica (D).

LGBTQ+ rights advocates supported the bill, including trans National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter, who referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles as “specific guidance about how to amend conversion therapy laws to be viewpoint-neutral.”

“Given the urgency of this issue and the danger that conversion therapy poses to youth, Colorado moved swiftly,” he said. “Today this legislation is moving to the desk of Governor Polis and will protect Colorado’s youth and families from this discredited practice.”

“Colorado’s story is still being written, and today we took another step toward becoming a state where LGBTQIA+ people can live openly, safely, and fully as themselves,” said One Colorado executive director Nadine Bridges in a statement. “This victory belongs to the survivors, advocates, and community members who refused to let this issue be forgotten.”

Conversion therapy is a harmful practice based on the idea that LGBTQ+ identities are the result of trauma and that LGBTQ+ people need to fundamentally change who they are in order to be a good person. The practice has been linked to several harmful results, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicidality.

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