Kansas’ attorney general is telling public schools they’re required to tell parents their children are transgender or non-binary even if they’re not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly says to do that.
Republican Kris Kobach’s action was his latest move to restrict transgender rights, following his successful efforts last year to temporarily block Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration from changing the listings for sex on transgender people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses to reflect their gender identities. It’s also part of a trend of GOP attorneys general asserting their authority in culture war issues without a specific state law.
Kobach maintains that failing to disclose when a child is socially transitioning or identifying as non-binary at school violates a parents’ rights. He sent letters in December to six school districts and the state association for local school board members, then followed up with a public statement Thursday after four districts, all in northeast Kansas, didn’t rewrite their policies.
The Kansas attorney general’s letters to superintendents of three Kansas City-area districts, Topeka’s superintendent and the Kansas Association of School Boards accused them of having “surrendered to woke gender ideology.” His letters didn’t say what he would do if they didn’t specifically require teachers and administrators to out transgender and non-binary students.
LGBTQ+ rights advocates saw the letters as seeking policies that put transgender and non-binary youth in physical danger but also as an attempt to tell transgender people that they’re not welcome. Jordan Smith, leader of the Kansas chapter of the LGBTQ+ rights group Parasol Patrol, said forced outing will create more anxiety for students and even push some back into the closet.
“It’s like they don’t want us to exist in public places,” said Smith, who is non-binary.
Five states have laws requiring schools to inform parents if their children use different pronouns, socially transition to a gender different than the one assigned at birth or present as non-binary, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which supports transgender rights. Another six have laws that encourage it, the project says.
Kansas is on neither list. A bill introduced last year would bar schools from using the preferred pronouns for a student under 18 without a parent or guardian’s written permission, but it did not clear a Senate committee.
GOP lawmakers did enact a law over Kelly’s veto that ended the state’s legal recognition of transgender and non-binary identities by defining male and female for legal purposes based on a person’s “reproductive anatomy” identified at birth. But Republican state Sen. Renee Erickson of Wichita, a vocal supporter and a former middle school principal, said it does not cover issues about whether schools must inform parents about a child’s gender identity at school.
Erickson said she now favors taking a look at the bill before a Senate committee, saying it addresses a “policy gap.”
“The parents have a right to know what is affecting their child. They’re an integral part, if not the most important part, in helping their child grow and develop with the values that the parent wants,” she said.
But Kobach didn’t cite Kansas law in his letters to the state school boards association, the Topeka school district and the Kansas City, Shawnee Mission and Olathe school districts in the Kansas City area. Instead, he cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions going back as far as 1923 that he said affirmed parents’ rights to control how their children are raised. His office released copies Thursday.
He told each of the four district that its policies on transgender students violated parents’ rights and said two other districts in the Wichita area quickly rewrote their policies after his letter arrived. In his letter to the school boards group, he noted it provides legal help to local districts.
“It would be arrogant beyond belief to hide something with such weighty consequences from the very people (parents) that both law and nature vest with providing for a child’s long-term well-being,” Kobach wrote in each of the letters.
State attorneys general serve as the lead lawyers for state governments, and most also oversee at least some criminal prosecutions. But they also look outward, and Kobach’s letters weren’t the first to issue warnings not grounded in a specific state law.
Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent requests to at least two medical providers that don’t operate in his state for information about providing gender-affirming care as part of an investigation, though it’s not clear what Texas law would cover them. Washington state’s attorney general invoked a law there to block Seattle Children’s Hospital from complying, and QueerMed, a Georgia-based telehealth provider, said on its website that it will not comply.
As for Kobach, Tom Alonzo, a Kansas City, Kansas, LGBTQ+ rights advocate, argued that the Kansas attorney general is bent on “intentional marginalization” of transgender people.
“There’s no excuse for it,” he said as he staffed a table Thursday in the Statehouse. “I was a gay kid hiding in high school. I remember how ugly high school can be if you’re out.”
While the Kansas City, Kansas, district declined comment, the other three districts said they deal with transgender and non-binary students case by case and seek to work with parents. The Topeka district expressed confidence that its practices are legal. The four districts are among the largest in Kansas and together have more than 88,000 students or 18% of the total for the state’s public schools.
The strongest response came from Michelle Hubbard, the Shawnee Mission superintendent, in her district’s response in December. She said “it is rarely the case” that students seek something “entirely opposed” by their parents.
She also chided Kobach for not citing actual cases in the district of parents’ rights being violated and suggested that he was relying on “misinformation” from “partisan sources.” She called his use of woke “as an insult” disappointing in an attorney general.
“We are not caricatures from the polarized media, but rather real people who work very hard in the face of intense pressure on public schools,” Hubbard wrote.
A transgender “bathroom ban” in North Carolina caused a national uproar in 2016. Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Nick Jonas and a long list of other A-list performers canceled shows in the state. Global corporations Deutsche Bank and PayPal torpedoed plans to expand in Cary and Charlotte. The NCAA moved its scheduled championship games elsewhere.
Now, eight years later, after Utah passed a similar bill on Monday, the reaction beyond the state’s borders appears to be more of a shrug.
Neither of Utah’s largest businesses released statements in response to the legislation. Tens of thousands of out-of-towners, and an ensuing economic boost, were just heading home from the Sundance Film Festival, held annually in Park City. Global sensation — and queer icon — Bad Bunny is slated to headline a concert in Salt Lake City in upcoming weeks. Next month, Salt Lake City will be hosting first- and second-round games in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Representatives for the NCAA, Bad Bunny and Sundance did not immediately return requests for comment.
In fact, nine other states passed so-called transgender bathroom bills in the years between those passed by North Carolina and Utah, with little fanfare as well.
Allison Scott, who volunteered as an on-the-ground activist in North Carolina to fight HB 2, described this week’s lackluster reaction to Utah’s “bathroom bill” and the several others that have been passed in recent years as “very telling.”
“We were all saying that with HB 2: ‘It’s not over,’” said Scott, who is also the director of impact and innovation for the Campaign for Southern Equality, an LGBTQ advocacy group. “Now, here we are several years later and we’ve seen these bills grow and increase and grow and increase year over year over year, and we’re right back not only where we started but worse.”
While the enactment of the Utah law has immediate implications for the state’s trans community, the tepid response to its passage also reflects a broader retreat on transgender rights that less than a decade ago galvanized corporate America, elite sports and Hollywood.
Utah House Bill 257, which is titled “Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying and Women’s Opportunities,” limits transgender people’s access to bathrooms in public schools and government-operated buildings. These include restrooms at Salt Lake City International Airport, which is managed by local government, and in Utah’s public hospitals and universities. It also specifies the state’s legal definition of “male” and “female” is based on a person’s genitalia at birth rather than their gender identity.
The bill makes exceptions for trans people who have received genital surgery and changed their gender marker to match their gender identity on their birth certificates.
Critics of the legislation have said the law will create a “dangerous situation for trans youth.”
Supporters of the legislation have argued that without a measure in place, men posing as trans women will go into women’s public restrooms and commit sexual misconduct.
Rep. Kera Birkeland, who sponsored the Utah law, said that the bill was necessary to close a “giant loophole for predators” and will only criminally charge offenders who commit “an offense of lewdness,” as the bill states.
“If the people just go in and use the bathroom the way they’re supposed to be used, they will be fine. That has remained consistent throughout the bill, throughout any change,” Birkeland said in a phone call. “We’re not targeting just people who are transgender or people who are like, ‘I’m going to miss my flight, I’m going to duck into the men’s bathroom because the line is shorter.’”
She also pushed back on criticism that the bill would create an environment where Utahns are policing trans people in public restrooms, pointing to a provision in the bill that would criminally charge people for falsely reporting trans people in public restrooms.
“We do not want to incentivize any vigilante people out there trying to be jerks,” she said. “The whole goal is just to ensure that everyone feels like they have a safe place to do private things.”
Erin Reed, a transgender journalist and advocate, pushed back on this, arguing that the legislation will create disruption for trans people regardless of the bill’s specifics.
“People are not going to go through the fine points of a 12-page law,” Reed said. “More likely than not, you’re just going to see trans people and cis people challenged in bathrooms.”
Aside from Utah and North Carolina, lawmakers in nine other states have enacted similar legislation in recent years, including in Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky, according to a tally by The Associated Press. The measures largely restrict trans people’s access to restrooms solely in schools or in schools and government-operated buildings.
But North Carolina’s law, HB 2, went further, barring trans people from using restrooms and changing facilities that matched their gender identities in most public spaces.
HB 2 — which was later partially repealed in 2017 — also prevented local governments from passing LGBTQ nondiscrimination measures and rendered then-existing protections, including one in Charlotte, moot. For this reason, the law affected a much broader segment of the population compared to today’s bills and therefore drew national ire, said Shannon Gilreath, a professor at Wake Forest University’s School of Law and a faculty member of the university’s gender and sexuality program.
“When one’s own interests are not directly compromised by some form of discrimination, one is less likely to respond or to care,” Gilreath said. “I might not believe that’s necessarily the right attitude to have — to do what’s expedient versus to do what’s right in a situation — but that’s human nature.”
Some studies back Gilreath’s line of reasoning.
A survey from the nonpartisan research group Public Religion Research Institute conducted last year found an estimated 79% of Americans support anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people. Policies that largely favor trans Americans solely received significantly less support, the poll found. However, Americans who say they know at least one trans person are much more likely to support pro-trans policies, a 2022 survey from the Pew Research Center found.
Reed said that what’s changed from 2016 to now is that people — and even billion-dollar corporations — have become afraid of provoking the far-right.
She pointed to a group of conservative provocateurs who collectively have amassed tens of millions of social media followers in part by stoking outrage over LGBTQ issues. In several instances, threats of violence have followed the subjects of posts made or amplified by the group of right-wing influencers.
“These people are scary,” Reed said. “If the NBA All-Star Game threatened to pull a game right now? In this atmosphere? Today? They’d get bomb threats from conservatives.”
Last year, bomb threats were made to Budweiser factories across the country after trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s brand partnership with Bud Light created an online firestorm in pockets of right-wing social media. Target also pulled some of its LGBTQ-themed merchandise for Pride Month from its shelves last year after it said it received “threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and wellbeing while at work.”
Reed also suggested that it might not be politically advantageous for Republicans to go against the grain when it comes to issues that affect trans people.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine faced political blowback after vetoing a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors in the state in December. Former President Donald Trump urged Ohio state lawmakers to override the veto, writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he was “finished” with the Republican governor. Ohio senators overrode the governor’s veto last week.
In recent weeks, local activists had been unsure whether Utah Gov. Spencer Cox would sign HB 257. Cox in 2022 vetoed legislation that aimed to limit transgender students’ ability to compete on girls sports teams in school, citing the disproportionate rate of suicidal ideation among trans kids.
Conservative lawmakers introduced more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures across the country, according to a tally by the ACLU, with the majority of them targeting trans people. Seventy-five of those bills became law, including a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in Utah, which Cox signedinto law.
Cox signed Utah’s “bathroom bill” on Monday evening with little fanfare and issued a short statement after weeks of speculation on his position.
“We want public facilities that are safe and accommodating for everyone and this bill increases privacy protections for all,” the statement read.
The law is effective immediately.
In addition to Utah, legislators in five states — South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas and Iowa — have introduced their own “bathroom bills” or legislation that further expands “bathroom bills” already on the books, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The year: 1969. Man landed on the moon, the Beatles gave their last concert on top of the Apple building in London, and we mourned Judy Garland’s death. But most notable for me was the Stonewall Uprising on June 28.
As a gay African-American man, I am an activist and a pioneer. I have experienced some of the brightest and darkest highlights of LGBTQ history. So much has changed and I know my generation has made a significant contribution to the growth and positive changes. My mantra: “I’m living my best life!”
The year of the Stonewall Uprising, I was beginning my studies at Parsons School of Design. It was a turning point in my life. I felt equipped to leave my family nest and ready to be independent, a trait that was instilled in me at an early age.
As soon as I arrived in New York, the city was swarming with so much energy that it was hard to contain myself. New York City has always been a significant influence on gay life, art, music, fashion, commerce, and innovations on all fronts. I took some time to discover myself during those years, learning to navigate the city and indulge in self-expression.
The diversity of New York is something I have always loved. In fact, it was the openness and freedom of expression that led me to accept my sexuality. I gradually acclimated to my new life and adventures, only later realizing what an accomplishment it was to move to New York City and succeed at the tender age of 18.
As a textile designer and artist in the Garment District, I continued to take drawing classes at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art to keep my skills sharp. While in the workforce, I complied to corporate standards in the workplace to be taken seriously and avoid discrimination. But even so, I accepted my truth and began to live unapologetically as a gay African-American man.
One of the hard truths I had to learn – and something many people still refuse to acknowledge – is that the LGBTQ community has always been splintered and separated. I made it a point to nurture friendships with young gay people, mostly people of color. Most of my gay and bi friends attended venues that attracted people like me, where nightlife was flourishing and the creative community thrived. We saw diverse venues like David’s Loft in Manhattan, the first private dance club, as well as Andre’s, Jays, and the Big Apple in Harlem, all catering to people of color. I saw the 70’s as a “Golden Age” of gay life and freedom of self-expression.
Overwhelmed with a thirst for knowledge and enthusiasm to discover more about the LGBTQ experience, I moved to Berlin, Germany, in 1979. I was influenced by many Black figures who paved the way, including Josephine Baker, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin. Moving to another country allowed me to escape racial disparities back home.
I was emboldened to continue advocating for LGBTQ people of color, which became crucial as we were hit with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As a result of attending so many funerals weekly, I became exhausted and fearful for my own health. I moved back to the U.S., making the best of my time in the Midwest professionally, but also prioritized being an advocate for HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQ community as a whole.
Together, gays and lesbians organized community events, prepared meals, and initiated housing projects for suffering people who had been on the street. Fundraisers were held to raise money for those in need. Organizations like AmfAR (the Foundation for Aids Research) made their debut, as well as the drag ball Night of a Thousand Gowns and the Design Industry Foundation for AIDS. The late great Larry Kramer founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP, two organizations that changed the narrative in New York City and the world, invoking lifesaving solutions and resources for the LGBTQ community.
In 1995, the introduction of protease inhibitors – drugs that impede the spread of the virus – added longevity to a generation that did not expect to survive.
Returning to New York in the early 2000s and having reached my 50th birthday, I began to think about how I was beginning this stage in my life. My generation of LGBTQ folks have now become elders, with organizations like SAGE helping us age with dignity.
As we age, there are challenges in housing, healthcare, and other life support systems for our cohort. Many of us do not have families and face discrimination and isolation because of our sexual orientation, making LGBTQ elder support groups critical. I remain an advocate for older adults so we can keep our independence as we age.
As I continue to share my experiences before and after 50 years of Stonewall activism, I age with pride and dignity.
Alston Green is a longtime activist and fighter in social justice and LGBTQ movements. A creative thinker and a passionate spokesperson, Alston has worked with the Intergenerational Media Literacy program with Senior Planet (OATS) and SAGE – two organizations that offer aging adults an opportunity to explore, learn, mingle and renew their passions, to keep abreast of the ever changing world of digital technology and how it impacts everyone’s lives daily.
Stephanie Vigil, a queer Colorado state legislator, flipped her district from Republican to Democrat. Now, she’s ready to make some other changes.
While the GOP has launched repeated attacks on transgender students nationwide, a local effort to prevent teachers from asking a teenager about their preferred pronouns has spawned a response from Vigil.
She’s introduced a bill requiring teachers to use a student’s preferred name in the classroom. Deadnaming a trans student would be considered discrimination.
“Making sure that we can create space for them to be seen and heard as their true self is very important,” said Nadine Bridges, the executive director of One Colorado, told the local news after the bill was introduced. “It’s a great opportunity to kind of create equity and inclusion in schools.”
A controversial effort by a school board that would have prevented school staff from accommodating trans students was ultimately defeated after students, parents, and activists objected.
“I’m kind of old-fashioned,” one school board member said at the time. “I know a boy when I see one, and I know a girl when I see one.”
The board has reservations about the proposed law too, insisting that “parents are responsible for determining the upbringing, education, care, and moral development of their child.”
“Parents do have the right, for their specific child, to make whatever decisions they deem best for that young person,” Bridges said. “They do not have the right to make decisions for every student that attends a charter school or a public school.”
“We’re talking about pronouns and names and making sure that a young person can be seen as their authentic selves. Why wouldn’t anybody want to create space for that?”
The bill would also create a task force to “examine existing school policies and provide recommendations to schools on how to best implement student non-legal name change policies.”
In an article published in the opinion section of The New York Times, opinion columnist Pamela Paul wrote a 4,500-word article filled with factual errors and unfounded assumptions about transgender care and the lived experiences of transgender people. Although the article is presented as a piece on detransitioners, the interviews serve as vehicles through which Paul packages inaccuracies and disinformation with faulty citations and claims that are not supported by the evidence she presents. The article is the latest in a seriespublished by The New York Times to do so, and a simple fact check of the claims presented easily debunks the article’s central premises as highly misleading.
It is notable that this is not the first time Paul has waded into LGBTQ+ issues with the seeming goal of covering for anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Previously, she wrote an article criticizing LGBTQ+ organizations for the use of the word “queer,” a word that many LGBTQ+ people use to describe themselves. She has written articles accusing transgender people of “erasing women.” However, this article is certainly her longest and most in depth attempt to tackle transgender issues; in doing so, she misses the mark.
Claim: Rapid onset gender dysphoria and transgender social contagion is making people trans.
Fact: Rapid onset gender dysphoria and transgender social contagion is not a validated theory, has been widely debunked as pseudoscience by major medical organizations.
“Most of her patients now, she said, have no history of childhood gender dysphoria. Others refer to this phenomenon, with some controversy, as rapid onset gender dysphoria, in which adolescents, particularly tween and teenage girls, express gender dysphoria despite never having done so when they were younger. Frequently, they have mental health issues unrelated to gender. While professional associations say there is a lack of quality research on rapid onset gender dysphoria, severalresearchershave documented the phenomenon, and many health care providers have seen evidence of it in their practices.”
At the beginning of the article, Paul discusses “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” and “social contagion” as potential reasons for the apparent increase in transgender individuals in recent years, raising concerns that these individuals will detransition. However, her sources clearly contradict her premise. Her first source, used to support “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” is an article by Lisa Littman that has been retracted. Littman is notably one of the only researchers to argue for the theory, which has been repeatedlydismissed for lacking factual support and for recruiting subjects from anti-trans websites. Recently, unable to validate the theory, she collaborated with Leor Sapir, who lacks a background in transgender mental health care and works at the anti-trans Manhattan Institute, to broaden the definition of “Rapid” so that even a period of two to four years could be considered rapid. She then published it in a journal run by Ken Zucker, an anti-trans “expert” whose clinic was closed following accusations of conversion therapy.
The second set of links, claiming to show “several researchers” documenting the phenomenon, actually refers to only three researchers, not “several.” These “researchers” include Lisa Littman’s personal website, a retracted article by Michael Bailey (Lisa Littman’s treasurer), and another article by Lisa Littman herself. The sources cited for the “documented phenomenon” are the anti-trans website Transgender Trend and a SurveyMonkey poll distributed on Reddit and Twitter.
The only source that correctly represents the consensus is the source showing that professional organizations oppose ROGD as pseudoscientific. In a letter from over 60 psychological organizations, the coalition for the Advancement & Application of Psychological Science calls for the elimination of the term, stating, “There are no sound empirical studies of ROGD” and “there is no evidence that ROGD aligns with the lived experiences of transgender children and adolescents.” Paul, however, simply and misleadingly presents this letter as the organization stating “there is not enough quality research.”
A study in the prestigious journal Pediatrics entirely debunked the concept of ROGD, determining that most transgender people know their gender identity for years before they come out and seek treatment for gender dysphoria. When transgender people finally do come out, many are overjoyed to finally reveal their true self to the world around them – to others, however, the process may seem “rapid.” To ascertain whether transgender identification occurs “rapidly,” researchers directly asked transgender teenagers: “How long have you known you were transgender?” They discovered that on average, transgender people know their gender identity for four years before first coming out and presenting for treatment.
Claim: Stephanie Winn, a “licensed marriage and family therapist,” spoke out in favor of “approach gender dysphoria in a more considered way” but then was “investigated” for conversion therapy.
Fact: Stephanie Winn suggested the treatment of transgender youth with acupuncture to “see if they like having needles put in them” and stating it could “help spark desistance.” She also pushed the idea that transgender men should be estrogen to make them feel more feminine.
“They have good reasons to be wary. Stephanie Winn, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Oregon, was trained in gender-affirming care and treated multiple transgender patients. But in 2020, after coming across detransition videos online, she began to doubt the gender-affirming model. In 2021 she spoke out in favor of approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way, urging others in the field to pay attention to detransitioners, people who no longer consider themselves transgender after undergoing medical or surgical interventions. She has since been attacked by transgender activists. Some threatened to send complaints to her licensing board saying that she was trying to make trans kids change their minds through conversion therapy. In April 2022, the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists told Winn that she was under investigation. Her case was ultimately dismissed, but Winn no longer treats minors and practices only online, where many of her patients are worried parents of trans-identifying children.”
Paul then attempts to take readers through to other researchers who are, presumably, being “unfairly treated” for their “unorthodox” views on transgender people. One of those people is Stephanie Winn, who she presents as a “licensed marriage and family therapist” in Oregon. She claims that Winn simply spoke out “in favor of approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way” and was attacked for this. A simple click on Paul’s link, however, shows how this is a highly misleading claim and misrepresents the brutality of what Winn was proposing.
In the thread linked by Paul, Winn muses that transgender men have a “sense of being less feminine” and could be made to feel more feminine by giving them estrogen. There is absolutely no research behind this claim, and in fact, giving transgender people the hormone of their assigned sex at birth has been tried in the past with disastrous effects. In a paper published in 1967 by Harry Benjamin, one of the first major researchers into transgender care, he stated: “I have heard rather frequently in the patient’s history that androgen had been used in the past in an attempt to cure the transsexualism by masculinization. It is the wrong treatment. It aggravates the condition by increasing libido without changing its character or direction. Androgen is contraindicated.”
Winn has also advocated for the treatment of transgender youth with acupuncture, stating, “they can see how they like having needles put in them.”
“So Your Kid Wants To Live As The Opposite Sex” by Stephanie WinnStephanie Winn has not been investigated or attacked simply for “approaching gender dysphoria in a more considered way.” Rather, attacks on Winn are linked to extremely cruel suggestions and musings around how transgender youth should be dealt using cruel, coercive, and painful conversion therapy techniques.
Claim: Transgender people may actually just be gay, and transitioning is a form of “conversion therapy.”
Fact: Gender and sexuality are different, many transgender people identify as gay or bisexual after transition, and gay acceptance is higher than trans acceptance.
Gay men and women often told me they fear that same-sex-attracted kids, especially effeminate boys and tomboy girls who are gender nonconforming, will be transitioned during a normal phase of childhood and before sexual maturation — and that gender ideology can mask and even abet homophobia. … “I transitioned because I didn’t want to be gay,” Kasey Emerick, a 23-year-old woman and detransitioner from Pennsylvania, told me. Raised in a conservative Christian church, she said, “I believed homosexuality was a sin.”
The claim that transgender people are “actually just gay” is one that has been made repeatedly by those opposed to gender affirming care, and one that has been repeatedlydebunked. Paul wades into this claim by featuring Kasey Emerick, who claims that “believing homosexuality was a sin” played into her transition.
Factually, though, attitudes towards transgender people tend to be “significantly more negative” according to an article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. This contributes to a much higher rate of violence and discrimination. Many transgender people, such as celebrity Laverne Cox, report that the most common response to coming out is, “couldn’t you have just been gay?”
According to the 2012 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, most transgender people identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer after transition. If transition was being used to “cure” being gay, it is a startlingly ineffective cure.
Claim: 80% of transgender individuals desist from being transgender if they go through puberty without intervention, and another study suggests that 30% of individuals stop taking hormone therapy medication.
Fact: Detransition rates are estimated to be between 1-4%. The study citing an 80% detransition rate is based on faulty outdated data, using criteria no longer in use. Furthermore, the study indicating a 30% discontinuation rate is based on military families not refilling their prescriptions through Tricare, rather than actual discontinuation of hormone therapy.
The claim that 80% of transgender youth detransition has been widely debunkedand is contradicted by modern research, which indicates regret and detransition rates of 1-4%, according to a review of newer peer-reviewed studies by Cornell University. Recent studies reveal that 97.5% of transgender youth maintain a stable gender identity after five years. The older article Paul references is a journal article in a publication with a very low impact factor; this article does not provide new data, and instead discusses the same two outdated sources commonly associated with the exaggerated “80% detransition rate” claim: Kenneth Zucker’s research from the 1990s on detransition, which uses outdated diagnostic criteria for “gender identity disorder” that misclassified feminine gay men as “disordered,” and Steensma’s studies from 2011/2013, known for similar methodological shortcomings.
Both of these studies share a similar problem that explains why the numbers are so different when compared to modern studies around transgender care: they utilize outdated criteria for “gender identity disorder,” which misclassified tomboys, masculine lesbians, and effeminate gay men as “disordered.” Notably, Zucker advocated for conversion therapy, arguing that “a homosexual lifestyle in a fundamentally unaccepting culture simply creates unnecessary social difficulties.” He also employed techniques aimed at coercing trans kids to conform to their assigned sex at birth, such as withholding cross-gender toys and advising parents “not to give in” to their trans youth’s desires to wear clothing that aligns with their gender identity.
The old criteria noted that to be diagnosed with “gender identity disorder,” you did not need to desire to be “the other sex.” Instead, the disorder was about gendered behavior that was deemed “too masculine” or “too feminine” by society, and purposefully included gay people who didn’t “act man or woman enough.” The new criteria, however, require the transgender youth to desire or insist to be the other sex.
Steensma’s2011 and 2013 studies had similar issues in his research, which in some ways had even worse methodological flaws. Steensma used the old criteria, which is not the way that gender dysphoria is diagnosed today. Worse, the two studies classified every youth who did not return to the clinic as having “desisted” or “detransitioned” with no long term follow-up. Half of the participants in the studies did not return and all were classified as having “desisted.” The sample sizes were tiny at the getgo – only 53 people were in the first study and 127 in the second study. Given the fact that a large portion if not the majority of Steensma’s patients were classified under decades old criteria and assumed permanently detransitioned simply for refusing to follow up, these studies cannot be used to make any reasonable claim of high desistance rates.
The last study that Paul refers to is a study released two years ago on military continuance of care. That study looked at all hormone therapy distributed under the military Tricare health insurance plan and determined that 30% of people stopped receiving their hormones through Tricare. What the study does not do, as Paul claims, is support the idea that “30% of people discontinued hormone therapy.” In fact, there are many reasons why people would no longer fill their hormone therapy through a military Tricare plan, especially towards the end of the study in 2017-2018:
The Trump administration began targeting transgender servicemembers, and many transgender servicemembers likely stopped filling their hormone prescriptions through Tricare for themselves or their family members, fearing being targeted.
Tricare has notoriously poor transgender care coverage, as evidenced by many military members responding to a thread discussing the results of this study, and many transgender servicemembers may opt to get their medication through a low cost alternative such as Planned Parenthood
Hormone therapy can be discontinued for surgery, fertility and pregnancy planning, and many other purposes.
Some nonbinary patients may obtain all the results they wish from hormone therapy before discontinuing, desiring no future results.
Transgender people may simply have not filled the medication through insurance and instead utilized online pharmacies, which have grown increasingly popular.
Transgender patients can easily fill prescriptions through GoodRX plans, which would allow them more privacy.
Transgender people may have been forced off care by military decisions
Even the authors of the article themselves state that they likely overestimate discontinuation:
“We only collected information on medication refills obtained using a single insurance plan. If patients elected to pay out of pocket for hormones, accessed hormones through nonmedical channels, or used a different insurance plan to pay for treatment before and/or after obtaining gender-affirming hormones using TRICARE insurance, we did not capture this information. This means that our findings are likely an underestimate continuation rates among transgender patients.”
There are many more factual errors contained within Paul’s article; it is 4,500 words long and covers virtually every anti-trans claim made in legislative hearings across the United States. Many advocates for transgender people, medical experts, and journalists have weighed in to cover other aspects of Paul’s piece. You can find those here:
The National LGBTQ Task Force announced on Tuesday that long-time transgender rights activist and community leader Kris Hayashi has joined the organization as its director of advocacy and action.
Hayashi most recently served as the executive director of the Transgender Law Center and previously led the Audre Lorde Project as its executive director/co-director.
“We could not be more excited or honored to welcome Kris Hayashi to our team and the Task Force family. Kris will bring immeasurable expertise to our advocacy and policy work as our community, especially our trans and non-binary siblings, are under unrelenting and unprecedented attacks,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement.
Hayashi told The Advocate that he was “honored” and thrilled to be joining Johnson and the Task Force. But he understands there is a real danger to LGBTQ+ rights, specifically to the rights of transgender people.
“I will say that particularly at this moment, particularly at this time when trans communities, when nonbinary communities, when we are facing an escalation in attacks on our rights and our lives, I am excited to be joining the Task Force to be able to support and continue the organization’s work to really build an LGBTQ progressive movement that centers trans power, resistance, and joy,” he said.
The work he has before him isn’t anything new, Hayashi explained.
“As a trans person, as a person of color, as a queer person here in the U.S., from a pretty young age, I understood that the world was not set up for me to survive and thrive,” he said.
That experience led him to a professional career in advocacy and activism from California to New York.
“I was really fortunate and privileged to have mentors — from Black power movements, from migrant justice movements, from environmental justice movements — who really took me under their wing, and I really learned from them the ways that our communities have in the past and continue to speak truth to power, to fight for justice, and to build strong movements,” Hayashi said.
As he sets out to lead the Task Force’s advocacy and action arm, Hayashi said it’s important to understand the violence LGBTQ+ people already face. Attacks on transgender and nonbinary people were already endemic. Now, there’s a more legislative turn that’s amplifying the attacks.
“In this moment, trans and nonbinary people are facing just an extreme escalation in attacks on our rights and lives across the globe, but specifically here in the U.S.,” Hayashi said. “Over 20 states have passed laws that ban and in some cases criminalize our health care. Similarly, states have banned trans you from playing sports. We’re seeing attacks on our ability to get identity documents, [go to] bathrooms, even [our names].”
He continued: “It’s very clear that the conservative right is using attacking trans and non-binary people to advance their anti-democratic agenda, which ultimately impacts everyone.”
Hayashi said that local LGBTQ+ leaders are still trying to combat such measures, but they need support. They need more help.
That’s where, he said, the Task Force and his work comes in.
“[Local leaders] cannot do it alone,” he said. “This is a time when we need to bring all of our resources and all our capacities into this fight because there is just so much at stake, not just for trans people, but really for all of us.”
Findings from the National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey counter the right-wing narrative about “transition regret” by showing how gender-affirming care improves trans people’s lives, while the survey also documents the continued discrimination and marginalization trans Americans face.
The NCTE released its “Early Insights” report of survey findings Wednesday. The survey includes data from 92,329 binary and nonbinary trans people across the U.S., the largest number of participants ever. “Early Insights” is the first in a series of reports to be released from the survey.
Ninety-four percent of respondents who lived at least some of the time in a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth reported that they were either “a lot more satisfied” (79 percent) or “a little more satisfied” (15 percent) with their life than before their transition. Nearly all of those who were undergoing hormone treatment or had received at least one form of gender-affirming surgery said this health care had improved their lives.
Respondents also reported substantial family support, with more than two-thirds of trans adults saying that their families were either supportive or highly supportive of their identity and gender expression.
“It’s impactful to see so many trans people report life satisfaction when they live according to their gender identity and get the health care they need, but we also see that trans people face substantial barriers to living full, healthy, and authentic lives,” Dr. Sandy E. James, co-principal investigator and lead researcher for the survey, said in a press release. “As the most comprehensive source of data about trans people in the U.S., these findings fill an important gap in our knowledge and serve as a critical resource for understanding and addressing the needs of trans people.”
Trans people still face discrimination and mistreatment at work, at school and elsewhere, according to the survey.
Eleven percent of respondents who had ever held a job said they had lost a job because of their gender identity or expression.
Eighty percent of adult respondents and 60 percent of 16- and 17-year-old respondents who were out or perceived as trans in elementary or secondary school said they went through one or more forms of mistreatment or negative experience.
Of those who had seen a health care provider within the previous 12 months, 48 percent reported having at least one negative experience because they were transgender, such as being refused health care, being misgendered, or being verbally or physically abused.
Most respondents reported being denied equal treatment due to their gender identity or being verbally harassed, physically harassed, or harassed online.
Respondents also faced economic challenges. Thirty-four percent were experiencing poverty. The unemployment rate among respondents was 18 percent. Nearly one-third had experienced homelessness in at some point.
Regarding the impact of discriminatory laws, 47 percent of respondents had thought about moving to another state because their state government considered or passed anti-trans laws and 5 percent had moved out of state because of this. The top 10 states from which respondents moved for this reason were Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
“Trans people deserve equal access to the same societal benefits as everyone else — access to good jobs, affordable health care, stable housing and to feel safe in their communities,” said Josie Caballero, director of the survey. “The ‘Early Insights’ report highlights how much further the U.S. still needs to go to achieve trans equality.”
NCTE developed the survey in partnership with the National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition, the TransLatin@ Coalition, and the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance.
“Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and fairness,” added Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of NCTE. “We need laws at the federal and state level that make sure all people — including trans people — are treated fairly. No one should ever face discrimination in employment, housing, health care, education, and other areas of life just because of who they are. Transgender people are here to stay, and we are proud of who we are.”
In the past century, there have been three waves of opposition to transgenderhealth care.
In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, they cracked down on transgender medical research and clinical practice in Europe. In 1979, a research report critical of transgender medicine led to the closure of the most well-respected clinics in the United States. And since 2021, when Arkansas became the first U.S. state among now at least 21 other states banning gender-affirming care for minors, we have been living in a third wave.
On the other hand, the archives of transgender medicine demonstrate that backlash against these practices has historically been rooted in pseudoscience. And today, an anti-science movement that aims to discredit science altogether is fueling the fire of the current wave of anti-trans panic.
The 1930s − eugenics and sexology collide
In the 1920s, the new science of hormones was just reaching maturation and entering mainstream consciousness. In the field of sexology – the study of human sexuality, founded in 19th century Europe – scientists were excited about research on animals demonstrating that removing or transplanting gonads could effectively change an organism’s sex.
In 1919, the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin, which became the world’s leading center for queer and transgender research and clinical practice. Hirschfeld worked closely with trans women as co-researchers throughout the 1920s. Several trans women also received care at the institute, including orchiectomies that halted the production of testosterone in their bodies.
Within months of Hitler’s rise to power in early 1933, a mob of far-right studentsbroke into and shuttered the institute for being “un-German.” Some of the most famous images of Nazi book burning show the institute’s library set ablaze in an outdoor plaza.
Nazi ideology was based on another prominent field of science of that time: eugenics, the belief that certain superior populations should survive while inferior populations must be exterminated. In fact, Hirschfeld’s sexology and Nazi race science had common roots in the Enlightenment-era effort to classify and categorize the world’s life forms.
But in the late 19th century, many scientists went a step further and developed a hierarchy of human types based on race, gender and sexuality. They were inspired by social Darwinism, a set of pseudoscientific beliefs applying the theory of survival of the fittest to human differences. As race scientists imagined a fixed number of human races of varying intelligence, sexologists simultaneously sought to classify sexual behaviors as innate, inherited states of being: the “homosexual” in the 1860s and the “transvestite,” a term coined by Hirschfeld himself, in 1910.
But where Hirschfeld and other sexologists saw the classification of queer and trans people as justifications for legal emancipation, eugenicists of the early 20th century in the U.S. and Europe believed sexually transgressive people should be sterilized and ultimately eradicated.
By the 1970s, trans medicine went mainstream. Nearly two dozen university hospitals were operating gender identity clinics and treating thousands of transgender Americans. Several trans women and men wrote popular autobiographical accounts of their transitions. Trans people were even on television, talking about their bodies and fighting for their rights.
Yet trouble was brewing behind the scenes. Jon Meyer, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, was skeptical of whether medical interventions really helped transgender people. In 1979, Meyer, along with his secretary Donna Reter, published a short academic paper that ushered in the second wave of historic backlash to trans medicine.
In their study, Meyer and Reter contacted previous patients of the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic. To understand whether surgery had improved patients’ lives, the authors developed an “adjustment scoring system.” They assigned points to patients who were in heterosexual marriages and had achieved economic security since their operations, while deducting points from those who continued to engage in gender nonconformity, homosexuality, criminality, or sought mental health care.
Meyer and Reter believed that gender-affirming surgeries were successful only if they made model citizens out of transgender people: straight, married and law-abiding.
In their results, the authors found no negative effects from surgery, and no patients expressed regret. They concluded that “sex reassignment surgery confers no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation,” but it is “subjectively satisfying” to the patients themselves. This was not a damning conclusion.
Yet, within two months, Johns Hopkins had shuttered its clinic. The New York Times reported that universities would feel pressure to similarly “curtail their operations and discourage others from starting to do them.” Indeed, only a handful of clinics remained by the 1990s. Transgender medicine did not return to Johns Hopkins until 2017.
In requiring trans patients to enter straight marriages and hold gender-appropriate jobs to be considered successful, Meyer and Reter’s study was homophobic and classist in design. The study exemplified the pseudoscientific beliefs at the heart of transgender medicine in the 1960s through the 1980s, that patients had to conform to societal norms – including heterosexuality, gender conformity, domesticity and marriage – in order to receive care. This was not an ideology rooted in science but in bigotry.
The 2020s − distrust in science
As in the 1930s, opposition to trans medicine today is part of a broad reactionary movement against what some far-right groups consider the “toxic normalization” of LGBTQ people.
But widespread distrust in science and medicine in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected how Americans perceive trans health care. Prohibitions on gender-affirming care have occurred simultaneously with the relaxing of pandemic restrictions, and some scholars argue that the movement against trans health care is part of a broader movement aimed at discrediting scientific consensus.
Yet the adage “believe in science” is not an effective rejoinder to these anti-trans policies. Instead, many trans activists today call for diminishing the role of medical authority altogether in gatekeeping access to trans health care. Medical gatekeeping occurs through stringent guidelines that govern access to trans health care, including mandated psychiatric evaluations and extended waiting periods that limit and control patient choice.
It is not clear how the current third wave of backlash to transgender medicine will end. For now, trans health care remains a question dominated by medical experts on one hand and people who question science on the other.
Even as Catholic dogma continues to repudiate same-sex marriage and gender transition, one of the most prominent religious orders in the United States — the Jesuits — is strengthening a unique outreach program for LGBTQ Catholics.
The initiative — fittingly called Outreach — was founded two years ago by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who is one of the country’s most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic Church.
Outreach, a ministry of the Jesuit magazine America, sponsored conferences in New York City in 2022 and 2023, and last year launched a multifaceted website with news, essays and information about Catholic LGBTQ resources and events.
On Tuesday, there was another milestone for Outreach — the appointment of journalist and author Michael O’Loughlin as its first executive director.
O’Loughlin, a former staff writer at online newspaper Crux, has been the national correspondent at America. He is the author of a book recounting the varied ways that Catholics in the U.S. responded to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s — “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.”
O’Loughlin told The Associated Press he’s excited by his new job, viewing it as a chance to expand the range of Outreach’s programs and the national scope of its community.
“It’s an opportunity to highlight the ways LGBT people can be Catholic and active in parishes, ministries and charities,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear about to being too public about it. … I want them to realize they’re not alone.”
O’Loughlin says his current outlook evolved as he traveled to scores of places around the U.S. to promote his book, talking to groups of LGBTQ+ Catholics, and their families and friends, about how to make the church more welcoming to them.
Those conversations made O’Loughlin increasingly comfortable publicly identifying as a gay Catholic after years of wondering whether he should remain in the church. Its doctrine still condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.”
The latest expansion of Outreach occurs amid a time of division within the global Catholic Church as it grapples with LGBTQ issues.
Pope Francis, a Jesuit who has met with Martin and sent letters of support to Outreach, has made clear he favors a more welcoming approach to LGBTQ people. At his direction, the Vatican recently gave priests greater leeway to bless same-sex couples and asserted that transgender people, in some circumstances, can be baptized.
However, there has been some resistance to the pope’s approach. Many conservative bishops in Africa, Europe and elsewhere said they would not implement the new policy regarding blessings. In the U.S., some bishops have issued directives effectively ordering diocesan personnel not to recognize transgender people’s gender identity.
Amid those conflicting developments, Martin and other Jesuit leaders are proud of Outreach’s accomplishments and optimistic about its future.
“There seems to be deep hunger for the kind of ministry that we’re doing, not only among LGBTQ Catholics, but also their families and friends,” Martin said by email from Ireland, where he was meeting last week with the the country’s Catholic bishops.
“Pope Francis has been very encouraging, allowing himself to be interviewed by Outreach and sending personal greetings to our conference last year,” Martin added. “Perhaps the most surprising support has been from several bishops who have written for our website, as well as some top-notch Catholic theologians who see the need for serious theological reflection on LGBTQ topics.”
Martin will remain engaged in Outreach’s oversight, holding the title of founder.
The Rev. Brian Paulson, president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, evoked both Jesus and the pope when asked why his order had embraced the mission of Outreach.
“Pope Francis has repeatedly called leaders in the Catholic church to emulate the way Jesus spent his ministry on the peripheries, accompanying those who had experienced exclusion,” Paulson said email. “I think the work of Outreach is a response to this invitation.”
Paulson also said he was impressed by Martin’s “grace and patience” in responding to the often harsh criticism directed at him by some conservative Catholics.
There was ample evidence of Outreach’s stature at its conference last June at a branch of Fordham University in New York City. The event was preceded by a handwritten letter of support sent to Martin by Pope Francis, extending “prayers and good wishes” to the participants.
“It’s a special grace for LGBTQ Catholics to know that the pope is praying for them,” Martin said.
Another welcoming letter came from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.
“It is the sacred duty of the Church and Her ministers to reach out to those on the periphery,” he wrote to the conference attendees.
The keynote speakers included Fordham’s president, Tania Tetlow, and the closing Mass was celebrated by Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration on Wednesday backed off its plans to impose rules that advocates feared would have restricted gender-affirming medical treatment for adults in a way no other state has.
The rules proposed by two state departments would have required the psychiatrists, endocrinologists and medial ethicists to have roles in creating gender-affirming care plans for clinics and hospitals. And patients under 21 would have been required to receive at least six months of counseling before starting hormone treatment or receiving gender-affirming surgery.
The Department of Health and Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services both issued revised proposals Wednesday after gathering public comment. Both said in memos that they were swayed by what they had learned as transgender people and care providers weighed in. The Health Department said it received 3,900 comments. In the new versions, the rules would apply only to the care of minors, not adults.
Over the last few years, 21 states have adopted laws banning at least some aspects of gender-affirming care for minors. Some are so new they haven’t taken effect yet, and a ban in Arkansas was struck down in court. But so far, only Florida has restricted care for adults.
The departments said the rules will now advance to the next step of review before being implemented.
The draft rules would still require that patients under 18 receive at least six months of mental health counseling before they can receive gender-affirming medications or surgeries. The revisions made Wednesday also expand the list of mental health professionals qualified to provide the required counseling, adding clinical nurses, social workers, school psychologists and some physicians.
Further, a medical ethicist would no longer be required to have a role in developing facility-wide treatment plans for the care. In a memo, the Health Department said that change was made partly because institutions already use medical ethics professionals to develop policies.
Some parts of the rules regarding care for minors could have a muted effect. Last month, the Legislature banned gender-affirming surgeries and hormone therapies for minors by overriding DeWine’s December veto of that measure, which would allow children already receiving treatment to continue.