Jo Yurcaba

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton faces a lawsuit after he demanded an LGBTQ group turn over all records related to its support of Texas families seeking transition-related medical care for their transgender youths.  PFLAG, a national group that supports the families of LGBTQ people, sued Paxton on Wednesday night, calling his demand “a clear and unmistakable overreach” in retaliation for two other lawsuits PFLAG is involved in regarding minors’ access to gender-affirming care in the state.  Paxton’s demand for the records, the group said, is part of the state’s “relentless campaign to persecute Texas trans youth and their loving parents.”  The PFLAG […]

The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that bans transition-related medical care for transgender minors and restricts trans athletes’ participation on school sports teams.  After the Senate’s 23-9 vote, the bill will become law in 90 days. The Ohio House already voted 65-28, along party lines, to override DeWine’s veto earlier this month. Ohio is now the 22nd state with a law that restricts minors’ access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy and the 24th with a law that bars trans girls and women from playing on women’s school sports teams.  Health care providers who violate the law could […]

An advocacy group for transgender veterans is suing the government over its exclusion of gender-confirmation surgery in veterans’ health benefits.  The Department of Veterans Affairs covers almost all transition-related care for veterans, including hormone therapy, voice training, fertility preservation and hair removal. However, if trans veterans want to receive surgery — such as genital and breast procedures — they are required to either use private health insurance or pay out of pocket. Such operations are covered for active-duty service members. The Transgender American Veterans Association, or TAVA, formed in 2003, filed a petition in May 2016 asking the VA to start a rulemaking […]

Two of the country’s largest transgender rights organizations are merging, telling NBC News that joining forces will allow them to better combat years of conservative efforts to roll back trans rights. The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, a group that focuses primarily on federal policy reform, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, or TLDEF, which works to advance trans rights through litigation, will merge by this summer to become Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE.  “We’ll be able to operate with double the influence, double the power,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of NCTE, who […]

Ohio’s governor vetoed a bill Friday that would have restricted both transition-related care for minors and transgender girls’ participation on school sports teams. Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto makes him one of only two Republican governors to veto a restriction on gender-affirming care, alongside then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in 2021, and one of only three Republican governors to veto a trans athlete bill after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb last year. In a news conference on Friday after his veto, DeWine said the “gut-wrenching” decision about whether a minor should have access to gender-affirming care “should not be made by the government, should […]