Tag: politics

Texas Legislature Passes ‘Bounty Hunter’ Ban on Abortion Pills

Read more at The Texas Observer.

On Wednesday evening (Sept 3), the Texas Senate approved an extreme bill that, pending the governor’s signature, will empower citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to Texans for at least $100,000 in damages. While Texas already broadly bans abortion, with House Bill 7 Republicans aim to halt the flow of abortion medication from out of state, one of the only remaining avenues for Texans to still access this care. The measure has been sent to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk and is slated to become law in about three months, barring successful legal challenges. 

Democrats and reproductive rights advocates caution the law will instill even more fear in abortion patients—living under bans since 2021—and may lead to additional pregnancy-related deaths in Texas. 

“This bill will harm women and could even lead to more pregnant women dying because they couldn’t access life-saving medications,” said Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat and chair of the Texas Women’s Health Caucus, on the House floor before the lower chamber cast its vote late last month. “The only reason we haven’t returned to the days of [pre-Roe v. Wade] ‘coat-hanger abortions’ is because of the medication abortion pill. I ask you: ‘When will this be enough? How many women have to die or suffer severe bodily injury because they couldn’t access the care they needed?’”

The GOP-backed attempt to “crack down” on abortion pills and those who provide them could potentially impact access in much of the country and serve as a blueprint for other states to adopt, a professed goal of Texas Republicans who support the bill. 

“HB 7 exports Texas’ extreme abortion ban far beyond state borders,” said Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist on reproductive freedom at the ACLU of Texas, in a statement. “It will fuel fear among manufacturers and providers nationwide, while encouraging neighbors to police one another’s reproductive lives, further isolating pregnant Texans, and punishing the people who care for them.”

Largely a revival of a bill that stalled in a House committee during the Legislature’s regular session (and also stalled during a first special session prior to the second special session that came to a close early Thursday morning), the so-called “Woman and Child Protection Act” claims to not target abortion patients. Domestic abusers or men who commit sexual assault resulting in pregnancy are not allowed to bring suit under the bill. Texas hospitals, doctors, and those who manufacture or distribute the pills for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriage management would be exempt; however, such medical gray areas have already confused and frustrated physicians, who say abortion law exceptions often don’t work in practice. 

The bill is modeled after Senate Bill 8, the 2021 “bounty hunter”-style six-week abortion ban that encouraged reproductive health vigilantism with $10,000 lawsuits and chilled abortion care in Texas nearly a year before the fall of Roe. HB 7 allows those connected to someone who seeks out abortion medication—for instance, a pregnant person’s parent or partner—to sue in Texas court a doctor, distributor, or manufacturer of the medication based anywhere in the country and reap the legislation’s hefty cash payout. 

Similar to its predecessor, HB 7 also seeks to evade judicial review by placing the power to sue in the hands of private citizens rather than state officials, preventing state court constitutional challenges to the law. It also relegates all appeals to the 15th Court of Appeals—a conservative court recently created to handle challenges to state statutes. 

Among the many troubling concerns raised by Democrats including Representative Erin Zwiener: An abortion doesn’t need to take place for someone to sue a drug manufacturer or provider under the bill; pills only need to be mailed, potentially incentivizing “sting operations” by anti-abortion activists. HB 7 also allows Texans unrelated to the person ordering the pills to bring suit—but they can only be awarded $10,000 with the rest directed toward a charitable organization of their choice (as long as they or their family members don’t financially benefit from the organization). Advocates with the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life have already openly suggested they could be a recipient of those funds. 

While both a near-total abortion ban and a law prohibiting the mailing of abortion pills went into effect in 2021, the latter has been difficult to enforce due to the fact that proving a violation of the law requires accessing people’s mail, a federal crime. 

With travel time, distance, and costs for abortion care rising dramatically, many abortion-seekers in Texas have relied on mail delivery of pills through online providers like Aid Access and out-of-state physicians, as a lifeline for care. About 2,800 Texas residents obtain abortion medication from telehealth providers across state lines per month, according to the Society of Family Planning. Texas accounts for the largest share of these types of patients nationally. (Across the United States, the total number of abortions has slightly increased since Roe was overturned in 2022, in part due to mail order access, raising the ire of abortion opponents.) Anti-abortion advocates in Texas and elsewhere consider these remaining channels a nagging loophole in abortion law and have worked to find ways to stop pill providers.

“We are cracking down, being vigilant, and giving Texans the tools necessary to enforce our existing abortion laws,” bill author and representative Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, told a House committee last month. “I believe this bill provides the nation’s strongest tool to protect Texans’ unborn and their moms. Texas is proudly leading the charge and we hope other states will follow.” 

Republicans and anti-abortion advocates have pushed the bill on the premise that women are being “victimized” by “dangerous” abortion pills, despite more than two decades of documented scientific evidence that proves mifepristone and misoprostol, the most common pill combination, are safe and effective drugs. 

In reality, the process entails minimal health risk, and legal abortion care overall is shown to be 14 times safer than childbirth. There were five deaths associated with mifepristone use for every one million people in the country since 2000, amounting to a 0.0005% death rate, according to a CNN analysis of federal Food and Drug Administration data. The risk of death by Penicillin is four times greater while Viagra is nearly ten times deadlier, as Howard noted during debate on the floor. Last month, more than 260 researchers, including those with the University of California-based group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, sent a letter to the FDA affirming the 25-year rigorous safety record of mifepristone. 

HB 7 is part of a broader, aggressive effort by Texas officials and anti-abortion advocates to attack individuals and groups that supply abortion pills to Texans. In an ongoing legal battle that could potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a New York-based doctor in 2024 for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a patient in Texas and, last month, sent cease and desist letters to abortion pill support groups in an attempt to put “an immediate end” to the shipment of abortion-inducing drugs across state lines. Paxton has also asked to join a lawsuit that seeks to restrict the FDA’s use of mifepristone, including the agency’s allowing it to be sent by mail.

Jonathan F. Mitchell, architect of the Texas abortion private enforcement scheme, is also working to bring down out-of-state providers, recently targeting a California doctor in federal court on behalf of a Galveston man who claims the doctor sent his girlfriend medication. 

Some of these efforts are being thwarted by the “shield laws” of other states, measures put in place to protect doctors in abortion-legal states like California and New York from being sued by states where abortion is banned. HB 7 is crafted to directly bypass these shield laws, setting up “interstate legal warfare,” according to Democrats including state Senator Molly Cook, who stressed that the bill is rife with constitutional violations

“This bill doesn’t stop at our borders,” said Senator Carol Alvarado, a Houston Democrat, on the floor shortly before HB 7’s passage. “Providers outside Texas can be sued in Texas courts for lawful conduct in their own states. This sets a dangerous precedent; it flies in the face of state’s rights and contradicts the rationale behind the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs that each state should set its own laws on abortion.”

Angel Foster heads the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, a telemedicine abortion pill service founded in 2023. One-third, or roughly 800, of the project’s patients per month are from Texas. Despite the threat of litigation, Foster’s organization will not succumb to fear and halt her practice of serving Texans; she still feels confident in protection from her state’s shield law. 

“This Texas law would be a tremendous overreach and is meant to scare us away from helping our patients. We know that blocking access to pills is a huge part of the anti-abortion movement’s agenda today,” Foster told the Observer. “But our mantra is ‘no anticipatory obedience.’ We are not deterred in our mission. We will not stop our work.”

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US appeals court rejects Trump bid to restore passport policy targeting transgender people

Read more at Reuters.

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to allow U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to refuse to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans that reflect their gender identities.

A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined, opens new tab to put on hold an injunction issued by a trial judge barring the U.S. Department of State from enforcing a policy it adopted at Trump’s direction.

“We’re thankful the court rejected this effort by the Trump administration to enforce their discriminatory and baseless policy,” said Li Nowlin-Sohl, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which pursued the case.

The White House had no immediate comment.

The lawsuit is one of several concerning an executive order Trump signed after returning to office on January 20 directing the government to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes, male and female.

The Republican president’s order also directed the State Department to change its policies to only issue passports that “accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”

The State Department subsequently changed its passport policy to “request the applicant’s biological sex at birth,” rather than permit applicants to self-identify their sex, and to only allow them to be listed as male or female.

Before Trump, the State Department for more than three decades allowed people to update the sex designation on their passports.

In 2022, Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration allowed passport applicants to choose “X” as a neutral sex marker on their passport applications, as well as being able to self-select “M” or “F” for male or female.

Transgender, nonbinary and intersex people represented by the ACLU sued, arguing the policy unlawfully prevented them from obtaining passports consistent with their gender identities or with an “X” sex designation.

U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick agreed, saying the State Department’s policy was arbitrary and was rooted in an irrational prejudice toward transgender Americans that violated their equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

Kobick, a Biden appointee, initially issued a narrow injunction covering six individual plaintiffs but in June expanded it nationwide after granting the case class action status.

The 1st Circuit panel, comprised of three Biden appointed judges, said the administration failed to make a strong showing that an agency action implementing a presidential directive was unreviewable or meaningfully engage with Kobick’s conclusion the policy reflected “unconstitutional animus toward transgender Americans.”

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DOJ mulling rule that could restrict transgender individuals from owning guns

Read more at ABC News.

Senior Justice Department officials have held internal deliberations in recent days over potentially issuing a rule that could restrict transgender individuals from being able to own firearms, two officials familiar with the discussions confirmed Thursday to ABC News.

The policy discussions, which are believed to be in their early stages and driven in part by chatter in right-wing media, follow last week’s Minneapolis Catholic church shooting that the FBI has said was carried out by a transgender woman.

Such a proposal could face significant pushback not only from civil rights groups but from gun rights organizations, which have historically been resistant to the issuance of any regulations restricting people’s access to firearms.

There is no evidence to suggest transgender people are more likely to be violent than the general population. However, transgender people are far more likely than average to be the victim of a violent crime.

Still, the discussions have percolated in recent days among top officials in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Counsel, which provides legal advice to all executive branch agencies.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and other major medical associations do not consider being transgender a mental illness and recognize transgender and gender diverse identities as normal variations in human expression. The APA distinguishes gender dysphoria — which is defined as “clinically significant distress or impairment” that transgender individuals may experience when they feel a difference between their assigned sex at birth and their gender identity — as a separate diagnosis, and supports gender-affirming care while opposing practices that try to change a person’s gender identity.

DOJ officials have debated whether having a diagnoses of gender dysphoria could disqualify someone under a federal law that restricts people who are “adjudicated as mental defective” from owning guns, sources said.

The possible move would be the latest escalation in an ongoing push by the Trump Administration to restrict the rights of transgender individuals — and would appear to conflict with other moves by the Justice Department to lift what it has argued are unfair burdens restricting Americans’ Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

Among its efforts, the DOJ has proposed a new rule that could restore gun ownership rights to certain people with felony convictions, and has said it would pursue civil rights investigations into cities that it says engage in a pattern or practice of depriving local citizens of their Second Amendment rights.

Laurel Powell, director of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, told ABC News in a statement, “The Constitution isn’t a privilege reserved for the few; it guarantees basic rights to all. Transgender people are your neighbors, classmates, family members, and friends — and we deserve the full protection of our nation’s laws, not anti-American nonsense from the White House.”

“If rights can be stripped from one group simply because of who they are, they can be stripped from anyone,” Powell said.

A Justice Department spokesperson told ABC News, “The DOJ is actively evaluating options to prevent the pattern of violence we have seen from individuals with specific mental health challenges and substance abuse disorders. No specific criminal justice proposals have been advanced at this time.”

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Nation of Burkina Faso will start throwing gay people in jail

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The West African nation of Burkina Faso’s ruling junta unanimously passed a law banning homosexuality yesterday.

“The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years as well as fines,” said Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala. “If a person is a perpetrator of homosexual or similar practices, all the bizarre behavior, they will go before the judge.”

He said that foreigners will be deported under the law.

Burkina Faso has been under the rule of a military junta since September 2022, when former Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba – who himself came to power in a coup d’état several months earlier – was removed from his office. The civil unrest is a result of the government’s inability to contain an Islamist insurgency.

The Muslim-majority nation had been among the 22 out of 54 African states where same-sex relations were not criminalized. The one-time French colony didn’t inherit anti-homosexuality laws found in many former British colonies.

But the bill to ban homosexuality was supported by 71 unelected members of the transitional parliament yesterday as part of a wider set of family and citizenship law reforms “popularized through an awareness campaign,” officials said. The bill was initially approved by the military government’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, last year. Traoré has been shifting the country’s focus away from its close relationship with France and toward Russia.

The law goes into effect immediately.

Human rights groups have accused the government of cracking down on human rights with mass arrests and conscripting critics into the military.

In late 2024, neighboring Mali also banned homosexuality. Two other African nations – Ghana and Uganda – increased the punishments for homosexuality in recent years.

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“Bathroom bill” aimed at trans people approved by Texas House after decade of failed attempts

Read more at the Texas Tribune.

Texas House members clashed over a bill that would restrict which restrooms transgender people can use in government buildings and schools, but ultimately approved it late Thursday.

Representatives approved Senate Bill 8 on a 86-45 vote after several hours of tense debate that was at times interrupted by people in the gallery shouting insults at lawmakers who supported the bill. The House gallery, where visitors can watch proceedings, was emptied out by staff and Department of Public Safety officers after the disruptions continued.

SB 8 would restrict bathroom use in government-owned buildings, public schools and universities based of sex assigned at birth and would not allow exceptions for transgender inmates’ housing in prisons and jails. It would also bar those assigned male at birth from accessing women’s domestic violence shelters, unless they are under 17 and the child of a woman also receiving services.

Bathroom bills proposing civil or criminal penalties for entering restrooms not matching biological sex have been proposed in Texas for more than a decade, and 19 other states have successfully passed their own proposals. The Texas House, however, has largely failed to garner traction for bathroom bills after a tense battle over one proposal in 2017. The Texas Senate has passed six different bathroom bills since 2017.

A last-minute amendment from Rep. Steve Toth, R-Conroe, raised the proposed fines to $25,000 against institutions where violations occur, and $125,000 for any subsequent violations. The raised penalties would make SB 8 the most financially punitive bathroom bill in the country. The amendment was adopted without debate.

Supporters of SB 8, which has also been called the “Texas Women’s Privacy Act,” have said the bill is necessary to ensure safety and comfort for women in intimate spaces like changing rooms and bathrooms. The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Angelia Orr, R-Itasca, said the goal of the bill is to prompt political subdivisions to create their own policies to ensure bathrooms are secure.

“The preference of someone’s sexual appearance does not override the safety and privacy of a biological female,” Orr said.

Orr said the bill does not affect privately owned or funded businesses, and will not create penalties against individuals.

Opponents of the bill have called the restrictions unnecessary, and that the bill would incite harassment against trans people and cisgender people falsely accused of entering the wrong facility. Rep. Jessica Gonzalez, D-Dallas, said she personally had been accused of entering the wrong restroom in the Texas Capitol, which already has a policy similar to SB 8’s proposal.

Questioning from Democrats who opposed the bill attempted to zero in on how the bill would be enforced, as it outlines that agencies will take “every reasonable step” to ensure the policy is followed. Orr said during questioning that it would be up to agencies how to enforce their policy. Previously when the bill was heard in committee, Orr said the policies would be determined based on how someone looked.

“Who do you think is more uncomfortable in the bathroom today? A cis woman, or a trans woman wondering if she’s about to be harassed?” Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, asked.

During testimony in both chambers through the session and on the House floor on Thursday, tensions between lawmakers for and against the bill flared. Several members argued in small groups multiple times and were separated by staffers as debate continued on the floor. At one point, Toth heckled Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, for using Bible quotes as he spoke on a failed amendment designed to kill the bill. Toth was warned by a House staffer for the remarks.

Anchia later argued with Rep. Hillary Hickland, R-Belton, away from the floor debate after she chastised his use of the Bible and countered with her own quotes as she expressed support for the bill. Other members cited religion several times after to channel their support and opposition to the bill.

“Everyone is born a child of God, and everyone who is born into this life deserves to be treated that way,” Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas said. “That is what the Bible says. That is what our hearts tell us. And the only time we act differently is when we get into politics.”

Representatives with family violence shelters expressed concern about the bill’s exclusivity during testimony earlier in the month, and said it could affect not just trans victims of domestic violence, but cisgender women with teenage dependents or adult dependents who are disabled. While four other states have similar sex-based restrictions on shelters, they still allow trans victims to be accepted if they have separate sleeping quarters.

“When you call the hotline, it is often the moment before you believe you will die. I don’t say that with hyperbole,” said Molly Voyles, director of public policy at the Texas Council on Family Violence, during the House State Affairs committee hearing last week when SB 8 was discussed. “Many women fleeing have a son who is 18 still in high school, or a child with a disability over that age for whom they are the primary caretaker. A choice to leave that includes leaving without your child is not a choice at all.”

SB 8 will be sent back to the Senate to approve the changes. Lawmakers have until Sept. 13 to approve any legislation during the second special session.

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House Republicans file bill to bar trans students from bathrooms, sports teams

Read more at The Hill.

House Republicans introduced legislation Tuesday to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ school sports, moving to advance one of the Trump administration’s top priorities. 

The measure, titled the Safety and Opportunity for Girls Act, would define “male,” “female” and “sex” by reproductive function in Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination in education. Schools receiving federal funds would be barred from allowing transgender students to use restrooms or locker rooms or play on sports teams that match their gender identity, according to the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.). 

Miller introduced a similar measure to block locker room access for transgender students in March and spearheaded an earlier effort to reverse former President Biden’s expanded nondiscrimination protections for transgender students under the Congressional Review Act last summer. 

A news release from Miller’s office says the latest bill, which has 11 Republican co-sponsors, would preserve Title IX’s “original intent” and shield the decades-old law from reinterpretation “by radical leftists or activist judges.” 

President Trump’s administration has argued repeatedly that Title IX already prohibits transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams or using girls’ bathrooms and changing rooms at school. More than two dozen investigations into states, schools and athletic associations that accommodate transgender students have been opened since Trump’s return to office in January. 

School officials in states including California, Maine, Minnesota and Virginia assert their policies are compliant with state and federal law. 

A February executive order signed by Trump states that the U.S. opposes “male competitive participation in women’s sports” as a matter of “safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” Trump warned schools at a signing ceremony that his administration was putting them “on notice.” 

“If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” he said. 

The Supreme Court agreed in July to decide whether states can ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school sports. Since 2020, more than half the nation has adopted laws barring trans students from participating on teams that match their gender identity. 

Laws in four states — Arizona, Idaho, Utah and West Virginia — are blocked by court orders, and New Hampshire’s ban on trans athletes is partially blocked. In February, the two New Hampshire high schoolers suing the state expanded their challenge to include the Trump administration. 

House Republicans, joined by two Democrats, passed legislation in January to ban transgender student-athletes from girls’ sports teams — an effort ultimately thwarted by Senate Democrats. 

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Texas uses special session to push “discriminatory & harmful” anti-trans & anti-abortion bills

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

Despite mounting public protest, Texas lawmakers are fast-tracking two anti-trans and anti-abortion bills. Both measures are being advanced during a special legislative session convened by Governor Greg Abbott (R), who has made restricting transgender rights and reproductive freedom central to his agenda.

Senate Bill 8, an anti-trans “bathroom bill,” would require government buildings —including public universities — to designate restrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities strictly by “biological sex,” instead of gender identity. SB 8 penalizes institutions, not individuals: a first violation carries a $5,000 fine, with repeat violations rising to $25,000 each. It also empowers the state attorney general to investigate complaints.

“I will say it again: SB 8 does NOT protect women.  It is an unconstitutional and a direct attack on the rights of the Trans community,” state Rep. Jessica González (D), who represents District 104 and chairs the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus, wrote on X. “This bill is nothing less than discriminatory and harmful, and it has no place in Texas.”

The state Senate approved SB 8 earlier this month, and it was subsequently greenlighted by the House State Affairs Committee on August 22, despite about 100 activists gathering at the Texas Capitol to protest it, with nearly half of the protesters participating in a sit-in.

Cameron Samuels, an incoming student at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, told The Daily Texan that bills like SB 8 are designed to erase trans lives. “We are the experts of our lived experiences and this hate and bigotry relies on our inability to tell our stories,” Samuels said.

“They are seeking to silence and erase our narratives. But when we are telling our stories and demonstrating a more accurate reflection of what it means to be a transgender Texan, then we bust those myths and we challenge those narratives.”

According to Equality Texas, testimony on the bill was halted after just two hours, leaving nearly 100 people who had signed up to speak without the chance to testify. After Republicans ended the testimony early, Democratic Representatives Jessica González and Donna Howard held a “people’s hearing” in the Texas Capitol auditorium. SB 8 is now awaiting a final vote and debate on the House floor.

Protesters also rallied against House Bill 7, a sweeping measure that seeks to sharply restrict access to abortion medication. HB 7 would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, mails, prescribes, or provides abortion pills in Texas, with damages starting at $100,000 per violation.

The measure mirrors earlier “bounty” laws but expands them by targeting the most common method of abortion in the United States. On August 25, the House State Affairs Committee passed a revised version of the bill.

“Despite already having a total abortion ban on the books—one that is wreaking havoc on the state’s health care infrastructure and tragically taking the lives of pregnant people—the Texas legislature is voting on SB 7, another horrifying bounty hunter bill,” the Center for Reproductive Rights said on X. “If enacted, one of the very last avenues for Texans to access critical reproductive care will be closed off.”

Lawmakers have until September 13 to pass the bills during the special session. If approved, SB 8 and HB 7 would add to Texas’s growing slate of anti-trans and anti-abortion laws.

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Americans seeking refugee status in Canada have spiked since Donald Trump’s return to office

Read more at KRLD.

Referral claims for refugee protection in Canada from people in the U.S. have already surpassed last year’s total, based on data from Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). These referrals also spiked the last time President Donald Trump was in office.

While there were 204 U.S. claim referrals to the board’s Refugee Protection Division total last year, 245 claims were referred to the RPD from January through June of this year. Trump was inaugurated in January.

For some perspective, there were 216 referrals listed from Afghanistan during that same time period this year, 62 listed from El Salvador, 2,784 listed from Mexico, 265 listed from Palestine, 260 listed from Syria, 403 listed from Venezuela and 131 listed from Yemen.

At the start of former President Joe Biden’s term in 2021, there were 118 claim referrals from the U.S., with the same number the following year – both a drop from 154 in 2020. In 2023, the number of referrals increased to 157.

However, back in 2013 – the first year that the IRB has data for – there were just 69 referrals. That was during the second term of former President Barack Obama, and while he was in office during 2014 and 2015 referrals were at 88 and 69 respectively. They increased to 129 in 2016, when Trump was campaigning against Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

During Trump’s first year in office in 2017, the referrals skyrocketed to 869. In 2018, they were still higher at 642, followed by 423 in 2019.

When asked by Newsweek about the referral increase this year, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said: “Why does Newsweek care about this .00007 percent of the population who want higher taxes, worse health care, and anti-American trade policies?”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has pushed hard for strict new immigration policy, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in major cities, the establishment of “Alligator Alcatraz” and more. He has also engaged in tariff wars with countries across the world, including Canada, Mexico and China. Those are particularly notable since they are some of the country’s major trading partners, and these tariffs are expected to raise prices here in the U.S. Republicans have also blamed Canada for bad air quality in the U.S.

Bloomberg reported this week that officials from the U.S. and Canada are expected to discuss tariffs soon. That outlet has also reported on an influx of people from the U.S. attempting to cross the border into Canada. It said that “during the first six days of July, Canadian officials at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle border crossing – the busiest land port between New York and Quebec – received 761 asylum claims, a more than 400% increase from the same period a year ago.”

In Canada, refugee advocates, federal government departments and immigration lawyers were already bracing for asylum claimants from the U.S. in January, according to the CBC.

“With Trump, crystal balls are hard to keep clear,” said Gabriela Ramo, past chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section, per the outlet.

In addition to the crackdown on illegal immigration, reasons why people might be seeking to leave the U.S. cited by Newsweek include U.S. policy shifts and court rulings have restricted access to gender-affirming care, limited who can serve in the military, and imposed rules on participation in sports and the use of certain facilities. This month, Audacy reported that the president’s approval rating even among his own party was slipping. This Tuesday, Gallup reported that Trump’s polling was “tepid” this month at 40%. Economist approval tracking updated Tuesday showed that his rating was up slightly compared to the previous week at 41%.

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Transgender people in Kenya just won a major court victory

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

A trans woman’s court victory in Kenya could have wide-ranging implications for trans rights in the East African nation, after a judge agreed she suffered inhuman and degrading treatment at the hands of government authorities and directed Parliament to enact protections and recognition in law for trans Kenyans.

The plaintiff, Shieys Chepkosgei, was detained in 2019 and charged with “impersonation,” despite the fact that she had held official documents, including a birth certificate and passport with female sex markers, while living in another country where she had also competed in women’s athletics.

Chepkosgei was arrested by Kenyan police while visiting a teaching hospital, Q News reports.

She was remanded to a women’s facility, strip-searched, and ordered by a court to undergo “gender determination,” which included a genital examination, hormone testing, blood sampling, and radiological testing.

Chepkosgei challenged her detention and the nonconsensual medical examinations in court, arguing they were unconstitutional, violated her inherent dignity, and highlighted a legislative gap in the treatment of transgender persons in custody in Kenya.

Justice R. Nyakundi of the Eldoret High Court agreed that Chepkosgei’s rights to dignity, privacy, and freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment had been violated, according to Jinsiangu, a Kenyan intersex, transgender, and gender non-conforming rights group. She was awarded the equivalent of about $8000.

But the judge went a step further, directing the Kenyan government to initiate legislation in Parliament addressing the rights of transgender Kenyans, either with new protections or by amending current legislation on the rights of intersex people currently moving through Parliament.

“This is the first time a Kenyan court has explicitly ordered the State to create legislation on transgender rights, and a first on the African continent,” Jinsiangu’s Lolyne Ongeri told Mamba Online.

“If implemented, it could address decades of legal invisibility and discrimination faced by transgender persons by establishing clear legal recognition of gender identity, protections against discrimination in employment, housing, healthcare, and education, and access to public services without bias or harassment.”

Kenya has a fraught history with LGBTQ+ rights, with colonial-era penalties for same-sex behavior still in effect, and discriminatory legislation modeled on Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act – which allows for the death penalty for homosexuality – introduced in Parliament.

Same-sex relations remain criminalized, with “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” and “gross indecency” punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Transgender people in Kenya face widespread stigma, discrimination, and violence. Current law bars trans Kenyans from legally changing their gender identity from the one assigned at birth.

While LGBTQ+ people have found relief in the courts, homophobia pervades Kenyan society and the legislature.

In 2023, Kenya’s Supreme Court affirmed a decision granting an LGBTQ+ rights group official status and legal recognition as a non-governmental organization (NGO). The decision ignited protests in the country’s second-largest city, led by clerics and homophobic politicians.

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More than 20 hospitals have rolled back gender-affirming care amid anti-trans crackdown

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

At least 21 hospitals and health systems have suspended or reduced health services for transgender minors and young adults in 2025, according to an NBC News analysis. Many providers cited fears of federal investigations and the potential loss of government funding.

This rollback comes against a backdrop of escalating legal attacks on transgender health care. In recent years, 26 states have passed bans restricting gender-affirming care for minors, with six making it a felony to provide certain treatments. Roughly 40% of trans youth ages 13 to 17 now live in states where access to care is restricted, according to KFF. In June, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban, effectively green-lighting similar laws nationwide.

At the federal level, restricting access to transition-related care has become a main policy objective of the administration. In January, the president signed an executive order directing federal agencies to cut off funding for gender-affirming care for minors and instructing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and criminalize providers and health centers that offer such care. In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the DOJ to investigate providers, hospitals, and clinics that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth.

The crackdown escalated earlier this summer when federal prosecutors issued subpoenas to more than 20 hospitals and clinics. In August, sixteen states and the District of Columbia filed suit in an attempt to block the administration’s investigations. However, several providers that received subpoenas chose to suspend offering gender-affirming care instead of waiting for the outcome of the lawsuit.

The chilling effect has extended even into Democratic-led “sanctuary” states, where lawmakers have promised protections for transgender people. While attorneys general in those states initially reminded hospitals that scaling back gender-affirming care could violate state anti-discrimination laws, none have pursued enforcement actions. In practice, this has allowed hospitals to quietly eliminate or reduce programs without consequence.

According to the NBC News review, twelve hospitals have either stopped or announced plans to stop prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy to patients under 19, four hospitals have ended surgeries for minors, and one facility halted all gender-affirming care for trans youth under 18. At least seven university-affiliated health systems, including Stanford Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), University of Chicago (UChicago Medicine), University of Pennsylvania, Rush University Medical Center, the University of Michigan, and Yale New Haven Hospital, have ceased offering some or all trans-related health services.

An additional five hospitals have scrubbed their websites of pages advertising transgender services for minors.

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