Tez Anderson decided to get tested for HIV after he moved to San Francisco in 1986 at the age of 25 and began dating his new boyfriend. When the results came back positive two weeks later, the doctor told Anderson he had 18 to 24 months to live. It was two days after his 26th birthday.
Devastated by the news, Anderson began planning his death. But decades later, he remained relatively healthy while watching many friends and acquaintances die of HIV-related illnesses. As he approached age 50, Anderson realized, “Oh, my God, I’m going to be an old man with AIDS. What am I going to do?”
“I had not put any money away in a 401K or savings or retirement account — dead people don’t need retirement accounts,” Anderson told LGBTQ Nation. “I didn’t make any plans for being old — I was making plans to die young.”
He began having panic attacks, awful nightmares, and feelings of depression and anger. He kept imagining himself as homeless. He also began lashing out at people close to him and worried that AIDS had somehow damaged his brain. Simultaneously, he went on prolonged medication treatments that gave him constant diarrhea and difficulty sleeping.
“It felt like I was having a nervous breakdown,” he told LGBTQ Nation. “I guess in some regards I was, but it was all around the idea that I am going to live, which most people would think seems illogical: to have a panic attack because I’m going to live.”
Having long had an interest in psychology and having undergone lots of therapy, Anderson began researching trauma and its possible impact on his life. While speaking to other gay men who had also survived the height of the pandemic, Anderson gradually came to understand that he and many others had been experiencing features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
He personally didn’t like the word “disorder,” however, because — considering all the death, illness, uncertainty, and stress they had experienced while caring for dying friends and facing widespread anti-gay stigma — their feelings seemed quite natural and logical to him.
Eventually, he coined the term AIDS Survivor Syndrome (ASS) and, in 2013, decided to hold a town hall at the local LGBTQ+ center so that other long-term HIV survivors could share their experiences.
He expected about 40 people to show up — over 250 attended. They wrote their feelings and experiences onto giant pieces of paper on the walls. Over the evening, they all realized that they were not the only ones with these feelings, and “that there was community in that survival,” Anderson said.
Anderson is now 66 years old and the executive director of Let’s Kick ASS, the nation’s first and largest group dedicated to improving the lives of long-term HIV survivors.
Around the time of the group’s first town hall, Anderson began collaborating with Dr. Ron Stall, a longtime HIV researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, who had been examining the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), a long-term study tracking the psychosocial and biological effects of HIV infection in over 7,300 gay and bisexual men since the late 1980s.
Together, the men identified the most common features of ASS: extreme emotional pain, trauma, and depression; survivor’s guilt and low self-esteem; suicidal ideation; anger, over-guardedness, and chronic anxiety; social isolation; fear of aging; and difficulty envisioning a future.
While ASS shares some features of PTSD and complex-PTSD — both of which are psychological illnesses listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) — both Anderson and Stall say that neither diagnosis encompasses all of ASS’ symptoms, a variety of traumas caused by the nearly 40-year duration of the AIDS pandemic.
While ASS is real, it’s not a widely recognized or diagnosable mental disorder. It’s unclear how many people with HIV survived the height of the AIDS epidemic and how many might currently suffer from ASS (though Stall found that 22% of gay and bi men who survived the AIDS epidemic reported experiencing three or more symptoms of ASS, including grief over lost partners). This makes it all the more necessary for Anderson and other activists and care professionals to raise social awareness about it.
Towards that end, Anderson also founded HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day, held every June 5, to honor, support, and raise awareness of the challenges they face. Through these and other efforts, ASS is gaining wider recognition.
“If you had HIV, you couldn’t go through a time as traumatic as the 80s and 90s without major life-changing ramifications,” said Michael Gottlieb, the pioneering doctor who was among the first to report on a cluster of diseases that would later be known as AIDS.
Gottlieb described ASS as an experience of “depression, isolation, economic hardship, careers put aside, and a feeling that society had no idea what you had been through and didn’t much care,” adding, “Going forward, [society at large] was dismissive of your relevance.”
Since coining the term, Anderson says the most eye-opening experience has been the large number of people who thank him in meetings, conferences, and on social media for explaining what they’re living through. They tell him that he helped naturalize their experience and erase the stigma and abnormality attached to it. He also notes that one doesn’t have to be LGBTQ+-identified or even HIV-positive to experience ASS; straight HIV-positive Black women and other HIV-negative survivors from the ’80s and ’90s can exhibit symptoms.
Greater awareness about ASS is particularly important now, Anderson says, as the current presidential administration has cut research and programs into HIV awareness and prevention. At the same time, Anderson says that most medical authorities are primarily interested in the physical effects of HIV and HIV medication on aging bodies, and most mental health professionals may have never heard of ASS, leaving those who struggle with it to the internet to find more information and support.
Anderson is still figuring out his future: He has developed multi-drug resistance to various HIV-treatments and currently takes three pills a day and a shot every six months just to keep his viral load undetectable. He and other people with ASS have experienced rapid aging and deterioration, making them look much older than they actually are. The isolation caused by ASS makes it feel immensely healing, he said, whenever people acknowledge them with genuine interest, kindness, assistance, and care.
Despite all the hardships, he thinks ASS has given him and its other survivors a special gift.
“For a population like long-term survivors who have lived so close to death for now 30 or 40 years, we have something to offer. We’re a resource about life and death, and our view of the world, I think it’s valuable. We’re not just people who need help. We are people who are restored,” he said.
“I want people to feel like this experience meant something for them and for their experience in the world, and how they’re a repository of the knowledge that most people don’t have,” he continued. “Many of us have, at some point, become comfortable with the idea of dying. It has been difficult: a lot of therapy, a lot of crying…. Living with one foot in the grave and one foot in the living is a unique perspective, and it helps us be sort of death doulas, if you will.”
The federal government’s chief workplace civil rights agency has reversed course on one of its most consequential transgender rights precedents, allowing federal agencies to bar trans employees from using restrooms that align with their gender identity.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has reversed a key portion of its 2015 landmark transgender rights ruling, narrowing protections for transgender federal employees and intensifying a growing clash between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats over the future of workplace equality.
In a 2–1 decision issued February 26, the EEOC ruled against a transgender federal employee who filed a discrimination complaint after being denied access to the women’s restroom at work. The policy barring her from the restroom had been adopted under President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” issued on the day of Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.
That executive order declared it the policy of the United States to recognize only binary sexes, male and female, and directed federal agencies to remove all references to “gender ideology” from policies and guidance. It called for the revision of forms, communications, and internal documents to reflect a person’s sex assigned at birth, and for protections in “intimate spaces” to be enforced on that basis.
The new federal sector appellate decision overturns a portion of Lusardi v. Department of the Army that held it was unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit a transgender employee from using restrooms consistent with their gender identity. The 2015 ruling also concluded that repeated, intentional misgendering could violate federal law. The original Lusardi decision arose from a complaint filed by a transgender civilian employee of the Army who was barred from using the women’s restroom and instead directed to use a single-user facility.
The EEOC concluded that the agency’s actions violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination, building on its earlier 2012 ruling in Macy v. Holder, which held that discrimination against transgender people constitutes discrimination “because of sex.” The commission wrote at the time that denying restroom access consistent with a worker’s gender identity “deprived Complainant of equal status, respect, and dignity in the workplace.”
Under the new decision, federal agencies may exclude transgender employees from bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. The ruling states that a “man who identifies as a ‘transwoman’ is still a man; a woman who identifies as a ‘transman’ is still a woman,” and misgenders the employee who brought the complaint. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the commission acknowledged that existing case law did not support its new interpretation.
“This green lighting of discrimination against hardworking Americans is an egregious abdication of responsibility by the EEOC, capitulation by Chair Andrea Lucas to Donald Trump’s orders, and will make the job of keeping workers safe harder everywhere,” HRC Director of Legal Policy Cathryn Oakley said in a statement. “To transgender workers reading yet another in the long string of attacks on your dignity from this administration: We will not stop fighting for an America where you can go to work, get a paycheck, and make it home to put food on the table without having to fear that your ability to provide for yourselves and your family hinges on weathering discrimination and bigotry in the workplace.”
The decision applies only to federal agencies subject to the EEOC’s administrative complaint process. It does not extend to private employers and does not bind federal courts, which remain governed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, holding that Title VII protects gay and transgender workers from discrimination because of sex.
Out U.S. Rep. Mark Takano of California, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, criticized the move.
“The EEOC was created with the explicit mission of protecting American workers from discrimination—but under Trump and Chair Andrea Lucas, the Commission has abandoned its duty in order to push Trump’s radical, anti-equality, and anti-worker agenda,” Takano said in a statement. “The Supreme Court made clear in Bostock that transgender workers are protected from discrimination; the EEOC cannot [undo] those protections.”
The decision comes as Democrats attempt a legislative response. Earlier in February, Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington reintroduced the BE HEARD Act, a workplace harassment bill that would end mandatory arbitration and nondisclosure agreements, expand civil rights protections to independent contractors and interns, extend the time to report harassment, and clarify that federal civil rights law protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“Every worker should be safe and respected in their workplace; this shouldn’t be controversial,” Pressley said. “Under the Trump Administration, the EEOC is weakening protections and exposing workers to discrimination, harassment, and abuse at their jobs.”
A man from North Carolina who targeted gay men, stalked them and sent them death threats since 2016 has been sentenced to three years in federal prison.
David Ryan Winters, aged 40, was convicted on cyberstalking charges after targeting men in the Raleigh-Durham area.
The court heard that Winters himself was gay, and that he volunteered at Raleigh’s LGBT Center in 2013 and 2014.
However, the News & Observer reported that “his behavior there bothered others to the extent staff told him he could visit but no longer volunteer”.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said that Winters was “enraged at the gay community” for rejecting him and targeted his victims by looking up personal information about them and sending them threatening messages online.
Court documents outlined how Winters went to some of his victims’ homes, sent them pictures of their houses and even threatened to kill them. He reportedly wanted to make headlines by repeating the Pulse nightclub mass shooting that took place in Orlando in 2016.
US Attorney Ellis Boyle said: “We believe in protecting all citizens who deserve to live their lives in peace. This antisocial behavior cannot fester without serious attention and prevention.
“Thanks to our dedicated law enforcement partners for taking this very seriously and putting this criminal behind bars.”
Boyle also told the court that “the evidence that the defendant selected the victims in this case because they are gay is overwhelming”.
Notably, one of Winters’ victims was out gay Raleigh City Council member Jonathan Lambert-Melton.
Speaking to WRAL News, the council member said: “I have probably pages of accounts I’ve blocked that are all him, and he just makes new ones. There were some messages that were sent to people in my network who don’t even live in North Carolina, suggesting that I should die.”
In his impact statement at Winters’ sentencing, Lambert-Melton said: “I felt like I was under a weighted blanket. The only time that weight was lifted was while he was incarcerated.”
30-year-old trans man Lio Cundiff has been hailed as a hero for jumping into Chicago’s frigid Lake Michigan to save a baby whose stroller was blown into the water by a strong gust of wind.
Cundiff recounted hearing the mother scream and then observing her being frozen in shock. “And so I just jumped in,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “My only thing was, ‘You got to get this baby out of here.’ If she’s going down, I’ll go down with her, but the goal is to get us both up.”
Cundiff told ABC 7 Chicago that the mother was clearly “too panicked to do anything.”
“I was, like, ‘I guess I’m jumping in… I wasn’t going to let that baby die. That’s crazy.”
He held on to the stroller, in which the 8-month-old girl was strapped, while treading water for several minutes. He said the pair went under a few times, but they were ultimately helped up a ladder to safety and transported to hospitals in separate ambulances. Both are reportedly in good condition.
“I’m just glad the stroller was up, not face down,” Cundiff said, speaking to ABC from his hospital bed. “The baby dipped under a couple times, but I was able to keep her up. And she was breathing and crying when we got her out.”
“I hope she has a really cool future, and I’m happy I was there,” Cundiff said.
“I’m so happy that this baby has a chance for a future and a life,” Cundiff’s mom, Karen Cundiff, told the Tribune. “I’m so glad both [he] and the baby are OK because both of them could have died.”
Cundiff has also defended the mother, who has reportedly been criticized for causing the accident due to alleged carelessness. “When you almost lose your kid like that, you don’t need the world judging you too, especially when it wasn’t anything on purpose,” he said. “There was no neglect or anything like that. It was just a freak accident.”
Cundiff is a comedian and performs across the city. He described his sense of humor as “darker” and said his harrowing experience may come up in his future sets.
His best friend also started a GoFundMe for his medical expenses and lost wages, calling him a “true hero.”
“He’s always been the first to make others laugh and lend a helping hand,” the fundraiser states, “and now he needs our support more than ever.”
In an interview with the Guardian, Cundiff said he hopes the moment emphasizes that trans people are just human beings. “Because all I did was a human act,” he said. “We are human, and we’re the same as everyone else. And we don’t deserve the hate that we’ve gotten.”
During last month’s quarterfinal game between Canada and Czechia at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, a player from the National Hockey League shouted a homophobic slur, seemingly toward a referee.
Radko Gudas plays defense for the Anaheim Ducks and represented his home country, Czechia, at the men’s hockey tournament at the Winter Olympics. But during a heated exchange last week, he shouted that someone, seemingly a referee, was a “f***ing c**k sucker,” as seen in videos of the incident shared to social media.
Gudas shouted the term while arguing with the referee over a two-minute penalty he received in the second period for unnecessary roughness against Brandon Hagel, a player for Canada’s Olympic team and left winger for the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. During the game, Gudas also injured Canada’s team captain, Sidney Crosby, who was forced to sit out for the rest of the game. Czechia went on to lose the game 4-3, eliminating the country from medal contention.
Canada ultimately faced the United States in the Olympic final, where the U.S. earned its first gold medal in men’s hockey since the so-called “miracle on ice” in 1980, when it defeated the Soviet Union.
According to the Code of Ethics for the International Olympic Committee, which oversees Olympic programming, athletes cannot engage in discrimination “on any grounds,” including sex and sexual orientation. Gudas did not address his usage of the term in interviews after the quarterfinal game.
HIV patients and advocates in Florida are reeling after the Department of Health’s sudden move to cut off about 12,000 people from receiving affordable HIV medication, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times.
The Department utilized an “11th hour” legal loophole on Tuesday, just one day before a hearing in a lawsuit filed against the state by AIDS Healthcare Foundation over changes to its AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).
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Louise Wilhite-St. Laurent, an attorney representing AHF, was one of many outraged citizens, and called the move “legal subterfuge” at a press conference on Wednesday.
AHF filed the suit in January after the state announced its plans to enforce new eligibility limitations for recipients of the program that helps low-income patients living with HIV obtain affordable, lifesaving medications. Previously, people earning 400 percent of the federal poverty level (about $60,000 a year) were eligible for the program, but now the eligibility limit has been reduced to 130 percent of the poverty level. This means only individuals with an annual income of about $21,000 or less will continue to receive assistance.
With the new limitations going into effect Sunday, March 1, those being cut from the program have been left in a state of shock and scrambling for solutions.
“The stress this is causing for many of us living with HIV right now is indescribable,” Michael Rajner, an HIV advocate and longtime ADAP client, told the press. “The fear, the panic of not knowing where to turn to [within] a health care system in this state that’s falling apart.”
However, Eduardo S. Lombard, an attorney representing the Department of Health, said the “suggestion of subterfuge is just theatrics,” and the state claims the cuts were necessary due to a lack of funding for the program.
But AHF is already fighting back. On Thursday, the foundation filed a complaint challenging the use of the emergency rule, stating there was no “immediate danger to the public health, safety, or welfare” in order to justify the sudden change in eligibility. Tom Meyers, general counsel for AHF, said the organization is planning on fighting the move with “all due speed.”
House and Senate Democrats also spoke out against the questionable utilization of the emergency rule. Sen. Shevrin Jones called the move “reckless” and added, “Florida should not be the state that turns a preventable budget issue into a preventable public health emergency.”
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On his first day back in office, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, which contains several provisions rolling back trans rights including a ban on the use of federal funds for gender-affirming health care in prisons. The following month, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) issued a memo outlining their compliance with the order and that they would be removing nearly all accommodations for trans people. This would include access to gender-affirming hormones, clothing and other items like razors and chest binders.
In March 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over these restrictions, arguing they violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. In June, a federal judge granted the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Kingdom v. Trump, a preliminary injunction, blocking the BOP from enforcing the order or its memo while the trial continues. The injunction is still in place as the lawsuit is ongoing.
However, eight current or formerly incarcerated trans people who spoke with Uncloseted Media testified to being denied or impeded in their access to some form of gender-affirming accommodation covered by the injunction. Additionally, a review of legal documents from Kingdom v. Trump and BOP Administrative Remedy forms uncovers several reports of the bureau refusing to comply with the injunction, and plaintiffs’ counsel confirmed cases of noncompliance at 19 different prisons.
“The fact that they are refusing to comply with the injunction at facilities all around the country is deeply concerning,” says Megan Noor, a staff attorney at TLC who is working on the case.
“I’ve been trying to fight in the ways I know how, which is to utilize the courts, and to make sure that the fourth estate knows what’s going on inside these prisons,” Grace Pinson, a trans woman incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Butner in North Carolina, told Uncloseted Media.
Denied Health Care
Some trans people have been denied access to their hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for months at a time. In a declaration to the court in Kingdom v. Trump, Rebecca-James Meskill, who is incarcerated at FCI Talladega in Alabama, says she was taken off hormones due to the executive order and did not receive them again until six months after the injunction was issued. During that time, she says she frequently broke out in hives, and the dysphoria about her thickening body hair caused her to scratch her arms to the point of scarring.
“Being off of hormone therapy has left me feeling diminished in every aspect of life,” Meskill wrote in her declaration. “My body has started re-masculinizing and my body hair is growing thicker and faster—all of which makes me feel hopeless and like I need to avoid people.”
Benjamin Wills, a trans man who had been on hormones for nine years prior to his incarceration in December 2024, was not provided with a prescription by the BOP until four months after the preliminary injunction went into effect. The class counsel in Kingdom v. Trump also allege that at least one trans woman continues to be denied access to hormones, though the BOP disputes these claims.
Valerie Simpkins, who, like the rest of the trans women we spoke to, is housed at a men’s prison, says that she was denied hormones for months after the injunction at FCI Butner and wasn’t able to get back on them until she was transferred to a different prison.
“You honestly feel like you’re going crazy,” Simpkins—who has been incarcerated since 2013 for child porn charges—told Uncloseted Media. “You’re constantly snapping on people. … You really feel like you’re losing your mind, because I had been on it for close to 11 years, and then they just take you off.”
For those who’ve remained on hormones, treatment has been interrupted. Karessa-Rose Hernandez, incarcerated for charges on multiple counts of bank robbery, had previously been prescribed injections of estrogen. But when her treatment was restored in July at United States Penitentiary (USP) Tucson in Arizona, staff switched her onto patches, which have a much lower dose of the hormone. She says this caused her estrogen levels to plummet and she began to develop rashes from the patches.
“They took me off [the shot], I never saw a doctor to do it, they never explained to me why they were doing it,” she told Uncloseted Media.
Denied Accommodations
While many are still able to access their hormones, other accommodations are being denied. Pinson, a prolificjailhouse lawyer serving time for mailing a death threat to President George W. Bush in 2007, has been held since October at the Maryland Annex, a unit at FCI Butner with stricter security and harsher conditions. While there, she says she’s been denied access to makeup, feminine undergarments and items to shave her face and body. In a legal declaration, she testified that the gender dysphoria this has caused has led to thoughts of self-castration.
“I have been in a really bad place,” Pinson told Uncloseted Media. “I just want to go home and be done with all this so bad.”
According to BOP records from July obtained by The Remedy Project, a prisoner advocacy nonprofit, Pinson alleged that Butner Warden David Rich made it “crystal clear” that he “believe[s] that [the preliminary injunction] will be overturned by a higher court … and until then, nothing will be changing.” Rich, who is no longer employed at Butner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“He told me he would not be following [the injunction] at all because that is what he believed was going to happen. Trump would appeal and win,” Pinson says. “He told me flat out, he and his staff would be ignoring the injunction from Judge Lamberth in the Kingdom case and even to this day they are still ignoring it.”
Similarly, Shay Gladney, a trans woman incarcerated at USP Coleman in Florida, told Uncloseted Media that “nothing has changed” for her since the injunction. She’s been unable to get a new set of undergarments in the past year, and while staff let her put in a special purchase order (SPO) for them along with makeup and other products last summer, she says they still haven’t arrived.
“They keep saying ‘just be patient, be patient,’ and I just gave up,” Gladney says.
Uncloseted Media reviewed legal declarations from five individuals, including Pinson and Simpkins, stating that their respective prisons denied them access to most or all gender-affirming items which they had been able to access prior to the executive order. The BOP has disputed two of these claims.
Mya Dye. Photo courtesy of Dye.
“[It feels] shitty, seeing as how every other person can get their needs met but us,” says Mya Dye, a trans woman who was released from FCI Butner in January. “Because you can’t take care of yourself how you want to, and then when you’re going through [dysphoria], it’s worse because it’s a mental thing. [Getting] stressed out about wearing a beard and all that type of shit.”
The injunction also maintains a BOP rule which allows trans women to be issued cards that exempt them from pat searches by male guards. Still, plaintiffs’ counsel in Kingdom v. Trump identified three individuals who report prison staff taking their cards away.
Kendall Walker said in a declaration that the prison took her card away in September once she was transferred to USP Florence in Colorado. She says staff told her, “We do things our way here. We don’t give those out.” The BOP says they have no records of any of these women requesting exemption cards.
Pinson says when she pressed staff members at Butner on their noncompliance with the injunction, several said they were simply following the BOP’s policies, which govern the rules and regulations prison staff must follow. After Trump’s executive order, the BOP updated many of their policies to remove mentions of and protections for trans prisoners.
But none of these rules have been reverted following the injunction, meaning that all of the anti-trans policies blocked by the judge are still on the books.
“The judge ordered BOP to continue providing hormone therapy and social accommodations,” Noor says. “To the extent BOP staff are refusing to do so, that itself is a violation of the injunction.”
“When you go back and forth with these officers, they will say, ‘Well, until they change the policy back, I’m not gonna follow the portions that have been deleted,’” Pinson says.
Uncloseted Media obtained a copy of a new BOP policy dated Feb. 19, 2026, titled “Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria.” The policy introduces a process to “develop a tapering plan that includes … discontinuation of the hormone intervention” for individuals already receiving treatment, and reaffirms the denial of social accommodations and new HRT prescriptions. It also states, “The Bureau will comply with this Executive Order [14168] unless compliance … is prohibited by a court injunction or court order.”
Malicious Compliance
Even in cases where prison staff respect the injunction, they often do so in ways which still impede prisoners’ access. While BOP policy used to require prisons to stock gender-affirming items at their commissary, some are now only offering them via an SPO. Several people report waiting months for SPOs to arrive, with some not receiving all of the items they ordered.
Dye says that she attempted to put in an order for feminine deodorant and a sports bra about a month before she was released, but was denied because staff said “that bullshit won’t make it here before you leave.” And Autumn Harris, another trans woman at FCI Butner, told Uncloseted Media that she waited over a month for staff to process an SPO for gender-affirming items. By contrast, she says that when she put in an SPO for religious materials related to her Christian faith, the order was processed in three days. And Alyssa Gillette, a trans woman serving time at FCI Butner for charges of illegal firearm ownership, says she had to wait two months for a set of women’s undergarments.
“I’ve got a pair of titties, I wear bras and panties, and if I’ve gotta get changed out there, there’s a bunch of grown men who automatically don’t respect us or wanna stare at us,” Gillette says. “What woman wants to go through that every day?”
In another case, Simpkins, Dye and Nikki Goodall, another trans woman at FCI Butner, say they were given access to female undergarments but only in one size which did not fit any of the trans women at the facility. The BOP says that they were unable to find any record of Dye requesting or purchasing female undergarments.
Many trans women say that when they try to advocate for themselves or reach out to the media about these violations, they are met with retaliation.
Pinson, who has won multiple cases against the BOP and provided legal assistance to over 20 prisoners—including other trans women impacted by the executive order—says she has a target on her back.
She was assaulted by staff in October, where they broke her arm, cut the clothes off her body, walked her down the hallway naked, and left her in restraints around her torso, wrists and legs for 10 hours. Simpkins and Dye both say they witnessed this assault. The BOP confirmed that the altercation took place but claimed it was not in retaliation for Pinson’s advocacy and that she sustained “minor injuries.”
During this, she says she was told by a prison official: “Don’t play the victim, I know what you’ve been writing to that judge in D.C. You did the crime and put yourself here. You know you were born with a penis and would be put in a male prison. The judge doesn’t run this prison, I run this prison.” The official in question did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“As long as she’s in there, I’m worried that she’s not gonna come out alive,” Debra Pinson, Grace’s mother, told Uncloseted Media on a phone call from her car in Oklahoma.
Dye, who was Pinson’s cellmate, says prison staff threatened to delay both of their release dates. She says staff would try to dissuade her from filing grievances against the prison, saying things like, “You need to stop filing, don’t you want to go home?” Dye was scheduled to be released on Thanksgiving, and she was planning to spend the holiday with her mother. But seven days before her release, staff pushed it back to Jan. 7, causing her to miss the entire holiday season.
“We were gonna, when I came home, go out and stay at a hotel and do something. … She had booked rooms, but then she had to cancel,” Dye says. “It just sucked. Them having that much control over you is something that you can’t get used to.”
According to BOP documents obtained by The Remedy Project, Pinson was scheduled to be moved to a halfway house in November 2025. But according to her legal declaration, prison staff postponed her release due to her advocacy. Now, the BOP says she won’t be getting out until January 2027. The documents also state that prison staff confiscated over $2,000 worth of her personal property following the injunction, “including authorized items such as stamps, pens, and paper.”
“These people are treating me like I’m the mastermind of some kind of fucking criminal organization simply because other inmates are backing up the things I’ve been saying, and it’s the most ridiculous bunch of bullshit I’ve ever seen,” Pinson says.
In a court hearing Feb. 19, an attorney for the BOP claimed that there was “no evidence” of retaliation of this kind. The judge and plaintiffs alike challenged this statement by pointing to Pinson’s declaration.
“They didn’t bring anything to controvert that,” Noor says.
In other cases, prison staff have impeded trans people from talking with the media about their mistreatment. On July 18, 2025, Uncloseted Media submitted a formal news media interview request to the prison for Hernandez. After following up five times over a month, USP Tucson’s warden denied the request, writing in an email that “the interview would probably cause serious unrest or disturb the good order of the institution.” Hernandez told Uncloseted Media that an associate warden (AW) told her that if she provided an interview to us or any other media outlet, she would be sent to a more restrictive unit. She says the AW said that “if you do it, every other transgender’s gonna want to do it.”
“I am afraid to call you, and just talk,” Hernandez wrote in an email the day after being threatened by the AW.
Uncloseted Media also attempted to contact Gladney—who is unable to access the BOP’s messaging system due to having been prosecuted for internet-related sex crimes—by passing our phone number via her sister, Katrina Griffin.
Gladney’s cellmate says that after she received a letter with Uncloseted Media’s contact information, Gladney was suddenly unable to add anyone to her call list.
“She’s dying to speak with you, and they’re gonna try to do everything in their power to stop it. They do it every single time,” Griffin told Uncloseted Media.
Gillette and Gladney also say that prison staff have failed to provide them with Administrative Remedy forms, which are the paperwork required to file formal grievances with the BOP.
Despite this retaliation, Gillette, along with several other trans inmates, say they plan to continue fighting to get their stories to the outside world in order to hold the BOP accountable.
“These people need to be exposed for the things they’re doing, because not everybody’s standing up, but I’m standing up to them,” Gillette says. “I should be like everybody else. … I shouldn’t have to deal with constant harassment.”
Response from the Federal Bureau of Prisons:
“We do not address allegations, and for privacy, safety, and security reasons, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) does not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual in its custody. Additionally, the BOP does not comment on matters related to pending litigation or ongoing legal proceedings.
The mission of the BOP is to operate facilities that are safe, secure, and humane. We take seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted to our care and to maintain the safety of our employees and the community. Humane treatment of the men and women in our custody is a top priority.”
— Scott Taylor, Office of Public Affairs for the BOP
Uncloseted Media received responses with identical wording from FCI Butner and USP Florence. All other facilities mentioned in this story did not respond to requests for comment.
In the early 1980s, Jamison Green needed to bind his chest so that he would be less likely to be perceived as female when he walked down the street or went into the men’s restroom at work.
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He first tried ACE bandages, but those didn’t work. The clips would sometimes come off in the middle of meetings, and the fabric was just too loose. Ultimately, he made do with girdles he bought through the Sears catalog. Each one was 10 inches wide, with a long Velcro closure. He would buy one and cut it in half to create two chest binders while also avoiding adding pressure on his waist.
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Binders have come a long way since then, especially in the last 15 years. Modern binders, typically made of nylon and spandex, are easier on the body for long-term wear and frequent use. Safe binding is key, since it’s common for some people to bind every day of the week, or all day at work.
But now, the federal government is going after companies that sell chest binders to transgender people. By targeting manufacturers of the best binders on the market, the government could put Americans’ health at risk by limiting safe options and forcing them to turn to DIY binding.
When announcing that the Food and Drug Administration is taking action against manufacturers and retailers selling binders, Commissioner Marty Makary listed negative side effects from long-term binding — like pain and breathing problems. These issues have been found in multiplestudies, which note that although binding supports mental health, it can cause musculoskeletal pain, skin irritation and shortness of breath.
For trans people, these findings aren’t revelatory. Binding is uncomfortable. How to do it safely is a frequent topic of conversation: books and online resourcessuggest taking breaks throughout the day, never sleeping with a binder on, and avoiding the gym.
But although it’s uncomfortable, it is a necessity that allows trans people to go out into the world and function, said Green, who is now 77.
“Having a flat chest was really important, because if people couldn’t see who I was, it was devastating,” Green said.
Green, a trans health expert and writer, is known as a historian of gender-affirming care. Binders are not medical devices, as the FDA argues, he said — they’re tools. And trans people have been binding by any means necessary for a long time.
“You just endure it because you need to,” he said. “Without it, you’re constantly aware of how miserable you are, how other people are judging you. Then you get this sort of stopgap, this appliance, and it’s just a huge relief.”
Sean Ebony Coleman, who turns 58 next month, remembers when trans people had no way to access gender-affirming care other than black market and DIY solutions. That includes binding, which helps trans men and nonbinary people deal with gender dysphoria by flattening the chest and concealing breasts.
“Back in my day, we didn’t have binders. We used electrical tape. We would wrap with an ACE bandage, and then go around it with electrical tape. So just imagine wearing that for eight to ten hours a day, the harm that it caused,” Coleman said. He still has back problems and issues with his posture.
For Coleman, the FDA’s new stance on binders reflects how the administration is not listening to the actual experiences of trans people.
“They may believe that a binder is not safe, because they don’t know what the alternative was,” he said.
Coleman worries that the Trump administration’s policies will pushtrans health care back underground. Gender-affirming care rollbacks are reinforcing distrust of medical providers, he said. As founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, a nonprofit providing housing and other services to LGBTQ+ people, he sees many people in the community who aren’t sure what medical providers are safe for them to visit.
“Some of the clients are dealing with isolation, anxiety, because of the climate that we’re currently in,” he said.
Makary said in December that the FDA would send 12 warning letters to manufacturers and retailers for illegally marketing breast binders to children for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria. According to him, the agency will take enforcement action like import alerts, seizures and injunctions if “illegal marketing of these products for children” continues. But none of the warning letters mention selling binders to minors, or list any health risks associated with wearing them. Instead, they declare that binders are medical devices that must be registered with the FDA, since they are treating gender dysphoria.
It is rare for the FDA to send these kinds of letters regarding low-risk devices, according to attorneys and specialists at Hyman, Phelps & McNamara, a food and drug law firm. It’s even rarer for the agency to issue this kind of warning over a procedural issue as small as failing to register a product. These letters are inconsistent with the FDA’s own policies, Hyman, Phelps & McNamara noted in the FDA Law Blog, their firm’s two-decade-old resource for industry experts.
“FDA may be called to explain why it is publicly targeting safe, low‑risk products that support those seeking treatment for gender dysphoria, and why the warning letters cite a technical, easily-corrected violation while the rhetoric in its press release alleges different concerns,” the attorneys said.
In response to a request for comment, the Department of Health and Human Services referred to the definition of “device” in the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which gives the FDA its regulatory authority. That act defines medical devices as items that mitigate or treat diseases, or affect the structure of the human body.
“There is objective evidence that these articles are intended for medical purposes, including the medical condition of gender dysphoria,” the agency said in a statement. The FDA’s letters quote directly from binder manufacturers to find that evidence.
Per your firm’s website: “Chest binding is the practice of compressing breast mass into a more masculine shape, often done in the LGBTQ community for gender euphoria … but also practiced by cis men with gynecomastia.” Per your firm’s website: “Our compression wraps are perfect for wearing after top surgery to keep swelling down without needing to lift your arms.” Per your firm’s website: “our product is aimed at helping to relieve dysphoria for trans folks”
Binders are more easily attainable these days, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has access. The nonprofit Point of Pride has given away thousands of binders to trans people who can’t afford them or safely get one themselves. They get 40 requests a day on average, said co-founder Aydian Dowling.
“The need is still very much there,” he said. “You can’t just go to your local shop and purchase a binder.”
Point of Pride only gives binders to trans people who are 18 and up. Still, young people are in greater need: the average age of someone requesting a free binder is 22, and many who ask are much younger. Many are low-income or living in poverty. To them, a binder represents a first step in exploring gender identity, Dowling said.
“They’re a part of gender-affirming care. They’re not medical devices. They’re really just clothing that anyone can wear,” he said.
Point of Pride plans to continue to support the binder manufacturers that they work with, which includes two of the companies that the FDA has sent warning letters to.
“We’re going to continue to give out garments,” Dowling said. If there is an influx of more trans people needing free binders through their program, Point of Pride is prepared for that, he said.
Dowling, who’s 38, bought his first binder in 2009 from Underworks, which sells shapewear for men, women, and pregnant people. That was the only game in town. There was nowhere else to buy one online. He remembers trying it on vividly. Looking in the mirror, it was like he recognized himself for the first time. He could picture what his future might look like. He started leaving the house more.
“That felt like, ‘wow, maybe I could live this life and be okay,’” he said.
That intense feeling of relief is why so many trans people bind, despite the annoyance of wearing a restrictive piece of clothing all day. And that’s why trans people will keep binding regardless of any potential federal restrictions, Green said.
“They better take away duct tape if they really want to stop us,” he said.
As Kansas began abruptly voiding certain transgender residents’ driver’s licenses under a new Republican-backed law, rideshare company Lyft is drawing praise from national LGBTQ+ advocates for offering people affected a discounted ride.
On Saturday evening, the rideshare company posted on Threads, “If you live in Kansas and need a new way to get around, use code TRANSJOY for 50% off a ride this week,” with a pink heart and trans Pride flag emoji. In a follow-up post, Lyft added: “valid through 3/9/26, up to $10 total discount. Supplies are limited.” The promotion marks one of the first visible corporate responses to the law’s immediate practical impact.
The offer came just two days after Senate Bill 244 took effect. Under the statute, any Kansas driver’s license that lists a gender marker inconsistent with a person’s sex assigned at birth is automatically invalid. The law does not provide for a grace period. Instead, it declares that previously issued licenses that do not match the state’s statutory definition of sex, defined in Kansas law as biological sex at birth, “shall be invalid” upon publication.
The Division of Vehicles was required to notify affected individuals in writing that their credentials are no longer valid and instruct them to surrender those licenses. A new license reflecting sex assigned at birth must then be issued. Some of those letters, dated Monday, went out. As of Thursday, that meant transgender Kansans whose licenses reflected their gender identity were legally considered to be driving without a valid credential unless and until they complied with the new requirement.
A Lyft spokesperson said the promotion aligns with the company’s broader mission.
“At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect, which means that we want to help everyone get to the people and places they love — no matter who they are or where they come from,” the spokesperson said in a statement to The Advocate. They did not address what, if anything, the company would do for any transgender drivers in Kansas who are affected by the law.
Lyft is coming off a strong year financially. In an earnings release in early February, the company reported record fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results and announced a new $1 billion share repurchase program, with CEO David Risher describing the company as entering a “transformational phase” in 2026.
A Lyft spokesperson said that the company’s mission is to serve and connect all people regardless of their background.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Through its Lyft Up program, the company says it provides discounted or donated rides for job seekers, food access, and emergency response. In 2024, the company reported providing more than 100,000 free or discounted rides during emergencies, including wildfires and severe storms.
Lyft has supported diverse causes for years.
Since 2017, Lyft says riders have contributed more than $42 million to nonprofits through its Round Up & Donate program, which includes partners such as the Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union. The company has also received a perfect score on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.
Lyft has also partnered with Advocates for Trans Equality on initiatives to help transgender riders and drivers update identity documents, including supporting efforts to make name and gender marker changes on state IDs and other records, as part of what the company describes as efforts to reduce barriers within its platform.
Eric Bloem, vice president of corporate citizenship at the Human Rights Campaign, applauded Lyft’s support while sharply criticizing the Kansas statute. “It’s great to see Lyft, [which] has for years been steadfast in its support of equality for LGBTQ+ workers and customers, showing up for trans people in Kansas,” Bloem said in a statement to The Advocate. “More business leaders should be asking how they can use their resources to defend the dignity of their customers and employees.”
SB 244 also bars transgender residents and people born in Kansas from updating gender markers on state-issued driver’s licenses and birth certificates in the future. It further restricts restroom access in government buildings based on sex assigned at birth and authorizes private lawsuits against individuals accused of violating those provisions.
The immediate consequences are practical. A driver’s license is often essential for employment, school, medical appointments, and basic errands. Civil rights advocates argue the deeper harm is compelled disclosure, forcing transgender people to present identification that contradicts how they live and move through the world.
“This legislation is a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans,” Monica Bennett, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said in announcing a lawsuit on behalf of two transgender men in the state who are challenging the law. Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, described SB 244 as “a cruel and craven threat to public safety,” adding that invalidating state-issued IDs “threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police.”
Corporate responses to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation have grown more politically fraught since President Donald Trump took office again in 2025. Since then, his administration has shown disfavor toward diversity and inclusion measures across American society. The federal government, at Trump’s direction, has adopted the point of view that biological sex is a rigid definition at birth and that gender nonconformity is not recognized under federal policy.
“Trans Kansans should never have had their lives turned upside down by this abject cruelty from the legislature,” Bloem said. “This law is disrupting lives and doing real damage.”
He added, “We will not stop fighting for a future where trans people’s freedom to live with dignity is not dictated by the whims of a political agenda.”
