Jo Yurcaba

A Texas state bill could charge transgender people with “gender identity fraud,” making it illegal to identify as trans on official documents and potentially leading to jail time.  The bill, which was filed last week by Republican state Rep. Tom Oliverson, would make it a state jail felony if a person “knowingly makes a false or misleading verbal or written statement” by identifying their sex assigned at birth incorrectly to a governmental entity or to their employer. State jail felonies in Texas are punishable by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. Oliverson did […]

owa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill Friday that strikes gender identity from the state’s civil rights law, making Iowa the first state to remove civil rights from a previously protected class. The bill passed the Republican-majority state Senate, 33-15, along party lines Thursday. Less than an hour later, the House passed its version of the bill, 60-36, with five Republicans joining Democrats to vote against it.  Reynolds, a Republican, said in a statement Friday that the bill “safeguards the rights of women and girls.” She said the civil rights code’s protections against discrimination based on gender identity “blurred the biological lines […]

A New York City doctor said he will continue providing gender-affirming treatments to his patients younger than 19 despite President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to ban such care, because, the doctor said, these patients’ lives depend on it. “Until somebody calls me away, I’m just going to keep doing it,” said Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. He doesn’t think that will happen, he added, noting that New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a statement Monday telling doctors that state law requires them to continue providing such care. However, as a result of the order and the […]

When Alivia Stehlik, an Army major, came out as a transgender woman in the spring of 2017, she said she was nervous about how her colleagues and other soldiers would react, especially because she’s a physical therapist. “You have to physically touch most of your patients, and I had some nerves initially that folks would be uncomfortable,” she said. However, in the eight years since she came out, she said she’s been “overwhelmingly, pleasantly surprised at every single turn.”  “My bosses, the people that I’ve worked with, the people who’ve worked for me, my patients — nobody cares that I’m […]

Two transgender young adults and five families of trans minors filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging two executive orders President Donald Trump issued over the last two weeks that aim to prohibit federal funding of transition-related health care for anyone under 19, and define sex as biological, only male and female and unchangeable.  “The Executive Orders were issued for the openly discriminatory purpose of preventing transgender people from expressing a gender identity different from their sex designated at birth—and expressing governmental disapproval of transgender people who, by definition, have a gender identity that does not align with their sex designated at birth,” the lawsuit states. […]