Matt Lavietes

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Meta’s new hate speech guidelines permit users to say LGBTQ people are mentally ill

Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday.

The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender. 

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird,’” the revised company guidelines read.

The new guidelines around hate speech are part of Meta’s broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it will replace its fact-checking program, which has relied on trusted organizational partners, with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. X’s system allows users to submit suggested “notes” on other people’s content, and then certain users vote on whether or not the notes are publicly displayed. Zuckerberg cited “recent elections” and “a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.”

The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”

GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, denounced the changes.

“Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives,” President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.”

A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

CEOs and business leaders in tech and beyond are broadening their efforts to woo President-elect Donald Trump. Meta is among the several tech companies and executives — including Amazon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — that donated $1 million to Trump’s second inaugural fund within the last several weeks. Meta also announced Tuesday that UFC’s Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, would join its board.

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New Jersey governor signs law blocking book bans

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, signed a law Monday prohibiting public schools and libraries from banning books and protecting librarians who obey state law.

Murphy’s signing of the Freedom to Read Act comes amid an ongoing push by conservative lawmakers and activists across the country to challenge books they consider inappropriate for minors, particularly those about LGBTQ issues and race. Lawmakers in at least 13 states this year have introduced legislation to disrupt library services or limit their materials, according to an NBC News tally.

“Across the nation, we have seen attempts to suppress and censor the stories and experiences of others,” Murphy said in a statement. “I’m proud to amplify the voices of our past and present, as there is no better way for our children to prepare for the future than to read freely.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy during an interview in New York, on Nov. 22, 2024.
Murphy during an interview in New York on Nov. 22.Jeenah Moon / Bloomberg via Getty Images

In September, PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting free speech, reported that the number of books being removed from school shelves during the 2023-24 school year had tripled from the previous year, to more than 10,000. 

The PEN America report, along with one from the American Library Association released that same month, outlined how frequently challenged books are often about or written by people of color or those who identify as LGBTQ.

In 2023, the American Library Association’s list of the 10 most challenged books nationwide included Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” a novel about a young Black girl who grew up after the Great Depression; Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” a graphic memoir about the author’s exploration of gender identity from adolescence to young adulthood; and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a coming-of-age memoir about a queer Black man.

New Jersey is the third state to sign a law prohibiting the banning of books at public schools and libraries, following Illinois and Minnesota. 

The new law is set to take effect in a year from the governor’s signing. However, the state education commissioner and the New Jersey state librarian are permitted to start implementing it immediately “as may be necessary,” the law states. 

“Through this legislation, we are protecting the integrity of our libraries that are curated by dedicated professionals and making those resources available to help every student to grow as a critical thinker,” New Jersey acting Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer said in a statement.

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Britain bans puberty blockers for transgender minors

The United Kingdom on Wednesday indefinitely banned new prescriptions of puberty blockers to treat minors for gender dysphoria. The announcement comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving state bans on puberty-suppressing medication and other forms of transition-related care for minors.

Puberty blockers are commonly prescribed to transgender children in countries throughout the Western world to delay the onset of puberty or pause it as it is transpiring. The medication is prescribed with the goal of giving children who are experiencing gender dysphoria more time to decide if they want to take more permanent steps to transition genders. Puberty resumes when the medication is no longer taken. 

The indefinite ban on the medication in Britain comes several months after an independent study commissioned by England’s National Health Service concluded that the medical evidence around transition-related care for minors is “remarkably weak” and that more research is needed. 

“Children’s healthcare must always be evidence-led,” British Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said in a press release. “The independent expert Commission on Human Medicines found that the current prescribing and care pathway for gender dysphoria and incongruence presents an unacceptable safety risk for children and young people.”

Dr. Hilary Cass, the author of the independent study, known as the “Cass report,” said she supported the ban, according to the same release. 

“Puberty blockers are powerful drugs with unproven benefits and significant risks, and that is why I recommended that they should only be prescribed following a multi-disciplinary assessment and within a research protocol,” she said.

Transgender activists around the world condemned the ban.

“I wouldn’t wish medical negligence on my worst enemy. Labour activists just wished it on my entire community,” Iris Duane, a former candidate for Britain’s Parliament, wrote on X. “To friends, family and community, many of us will survive, and we will remind them that hell is calling.”

Trans minors in the U.K. who are already taking the medication can continue doing so, according to the government, and cisgender minors who experience puberty at an abnormally early age will still be able to receive new prescriptions for the medication. 

A temporary ban on new puberty-blocker prescriptions for British minors experiencing gender dysphoria was already put in place over the summer. Wednesday’s announcement extends the ban indefinitely as the government begins clinical trials on the medications starting next year. The ban will be revisited in 2027.

The U.K. ban comes as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Tennessee is one of more than two dozen states that restrict such care in the U.S.

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Gays vape at significantly higher rates, surgeon general’s report finds

As vaping’s popularity endures, a report issued by the surgeon general’s office Tuesday shows that LGBTQ Americans are among those helping to keep smoke shops in business.

The surgeon general’s 837-page report on tobacco use found that 37.8% of gay, lesbian and bisexual U.S. adults have tried electronic cigarettes, compared with just 16.5% of their straight counterparts. Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, include e-cigars, e-pipes, e-hookahs, vaping pens and hookah pens.

When broken down further, the data, collected from 2019 to 2021, found nearly half of bisexual adults have tried e-cigarettes, compared with 31.8% of gay men and 26.7% of lesbians. The authors noted that figures on transgender Americans’ tobacco use were not widely available for analysis in all areas of the report.

The report found similar disparities exist among the nation’s youths and young adults: Over 42% of young adults and 56% of high school students who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual reported trying e-cigarettes, compared with 30.3% and 49.8% of their straight counterparts.

“Tobacco use is a singular health threat to LGBTQAI+ communities,” said Kristy Marynak, a senior science adviser at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a co-editor of the report. “This report finds that nearly 1 in 5 of all deaths in the United States are caused by tobacco, and it shines a light on the disproportionate burden borne by certain communities, including LGBTQAI+ communities.”

Marynak noted that the study — and the federal government more broadly — considers products containing nicotine, including e-cigarettes, to be tobacco products. The exceptions, she said, are therapeutic products, like nicotine gum and patches. 

Long-term research on the health outcomes of e-cigarettes is not available because the products are relatively new. However, there is clear scientific consensus concerning the adverse effects of some of the chemicals commonly found in e-cigarettes. 

E-cigarettes produce a number of dangerous chemicals — including acetaldehyde, acrolein and formaldehyde — that can cause lung and heart disease, according to the American Lung Association. 

Nicotine is also commonly found in e-cigarettes. Not only is nicotine addictive and likely to fuel anxiety or depression, it also can harm brain development, which occurs until age 25, according to the CDC.

Dr. Scott Hadland, the chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Mass General for Children and Harvard Medical School, said he’s observed greater e-cigarette use among gay, lesbian and bisexual youths. He said that LGBTQ people use tobacco products at higher rates largely because of “long-standing stigma” within health care settings.

“LGBTQ+ people might be afraid to present for care to help support their quit attempts,” Hadland said. “They might be afraid to talk to their doctor about it because they’re afraid to go to the doctor in general.”

LGBTQ adults are twice as likely as their non-LGBTQ counterparts to report having had negative health care experiences over the last three years, according to a report published this year by KFF, a health care research nonprofit formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Hadland also attributed higher e-cigarette use among LGBTQ Americans to marketing tactics, as is noted in the report.

Tobacco companies marketed directly to the LGBTQ community in the mid-1990s, including through “Project Scum,” which advertised Camel and Red Kamel cigarettes to “consumer subcultures” in San Francisco, according to the study.

Today, tobacco companies advertise in queer magazines and donate to organizations focused on promoting LGBTQ rights and Pride events, the report noted.

In 1964, the surgeon general’s office released its first report on the hazards of smoking and has since then dedicated vast resources to combat cigarette use. The new report shows that those efforts have largely been successful, as only 11.5% of U.S. adults reported being cigarette smokers in 2021, compared with 42.4% in 1965.

Still, 36 million U.S. adults and 760,000 middle and high school students smoke tobacco products, according to the report. Since 2014, the most commonly used tobacco product among U.S. youths and young adults is e-cigarettes. 

“These and other noncombustible tobacco products such as nicotine pouches have the potential to undermine overall progress in preventing and reducing young people’s use of tobacco products,” the authors stated.

In June, the Justice Department and Food and Drug Administration announcedthey will create a federal multiagency task force to combat the illegal distribution and sale of e-cigarettes.

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Texts threatening deportation and ‘re-education’ for gays stoke both fear and defiance

Latino teenagers in Georgia getting texts saying they are “set to be deported” by immigration authorities. A lesbian business owner receiving messages telling her she’s been assigned to an “LGB re-education camp” in Las Vegas. Immigrant families afraid to report the text messages to authorities.

Members of the Hispanic and LGBTQ communities are being targeted with these kinds of disturbing text messages by people hiding behind anonymous phone numbers.

Soon after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, the FBI and the Department of Justice started receiving numerous reports of racist text messages being sent to Black Americans, telling them they had been selected to pick cotton “at the nearest plantation.” Now, authorities are investigating cases in which other groups of people are reportedly getting text messages saying they have been “selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp.”

Santiago Marquez, of the Latin American Association, a Latino advocacy group in Georgia, said he received phone calls on Monday morning from three concerned parents in his community who had heard about the threatening texts in the news and said their children had received the same messages. Santiago said the students who got the texts are in middle school and high school.

“It’s very easy to panic when you get a message like that,” Santiago said. 

The language of the text messages sent to these students were not identical, but they all referenced deportations and actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

According to a screenshot of one of the texts shared with NBC News, one of the messages reads, “You have been one of the selected immigrants that is set to be deported.” The text continued, “Our Executive ICE team will come and get you in a Brown Van.”

An ICE spokesperson told NBC News that these text messages are not from the agency. ICE does not send “random text messages to people,” the spokesperson said in a phone interview. “Sending text messages in the blind is not how us Immigration Customs Enforcement operates. We do targeted enforcements.”

Diana Brier, a 41-year-old lesbian, received a text message on Nov. 10 telling her to check in to Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada on Inauguration Day for an eight-week “LGB re-education camp,” according to a screenshot of the message the former Las Vegas resident shared with NBC News.

“Your new President, Donald J. Trump, looks forward to assisting you in becoming a mentally and emotionally stable member of society by eliminating lifestyles that have been detrimental to our American way of life through re-education,” the text reads. “Following the initial eight week period, those interned in the eight week LGB camp will be eligible for release dependent upon your swearing of allegiance to your president, Donald J Trump, and your oath to live a lifestyle befitting of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

The message adds that lesbian, gay and bisexual people must “reproduce birthing healthy white Christian children” or be sent to transgender “work camps” for two years to life. Transgender people, the text states, will be sent to work camps indefinitely.

A spokesperson from Trump’s transition team told NBC News in an email, “We have absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

The Air Force did not respond to requests for comment.

Brier, who is a wine and cheese entrepreneur, said she was initially spooked by the texts. But she said she’s determined to not let them weigh her down.

“When I open my business in Colorado, it will have Pride flags in the window. And if those get smashed out because I’m gay, I will replace the windows, and then I will replace the Pride flags,” she said. “Because wherever I go, I’m just going to create a safe space for my community because it’s what I’ve always done, and it’s what I always will do.”

Brier said she spoke with a Las Vegas FBI agent on Wednesday after her friend reported the text to the bureau.

The agent did not know where the text came from, if other LGBTQ people in the Las Vegas-area were being targeted, or if the text originated from the same person or group targeting Blacks and Latinos, according to Brier. She said the FBI advised her to spread the word about her story to others in the LGBTQ community and encourage others to speak out.

Brier said this is the first time in her life she has been harassed because of her sexuality, and, she added, she’s worried it won’t be the last because of Trump’s return to the White House.

“Every marginalized population just seems like they’re going to be very embattled for quite some time,” she said. “I really just want the community to know that it’s OK to report these.” 

‘Really difficult’

Still, many members of Latino immigrant families who have received these kinds of messages may be hesitant to report it to authorities, said Gilda Pedraza, executive director of the Latino Community Fund Georgia.

“I don’t know that we will ever see significant reporting of these hate messages and texts because people are going to be afraid to report it,” worried that police may assume they’re undocumented, Pedraza said.

Pedraza said she spoke with two families that have relatives with various types of immigration status that received the messages. For them the uncertainty feels real, considering that Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations.

“The overwhelming feeling is uncertainty and fear of what could be true, what could happen and how to recognize what’s the difference between a threat and like a real thing,” Pedraza said. “It’s really difficult.”

Marquez, from the advocacy group in Georgia, encouraged families who may feel afraid to say anything to start by talking to school officials or reporting what they have experienced to community leaders they trust.

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Texas AG sues doctor accused of providing transgender care to 21 minors

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Dallas doctor Thursday accusing her of providing transition-related care to nearly two dozen minors in violation of state law.

Paxton alleged that Dr. May Chi Lau, who specializes in adolescent medicine, provided hormone replacement therapy to 21 minors from October 2023 to August for the purpose of transitioning genders. Texas enacted a law, Senate Bill 14, last year banning hormone replacement therapy and other forms of gender-affirming care for minors.

“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The statement alleged that Lau used “false diagnoses and billing codes” to mask “unlawful prescriptions.”

Neither Lau nor her employer, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, immediately replied to requests for comment. 

If Lau is found to be in violation of the law, her medical license could be revoked and she could face a financial penalty of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Paxton’s suit is the first in the country by an attorney general against an individual doctor alleging violation of a restriction on transition-related care for minors. 

Texas’ law includes a provision that allows physicians to continue to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to patients who began treatment before June 1, 2023, in order to wean them off the medications “over a period of time and in a manner that is safe and medically appropriate and that minimizes the risk of complications,” according to Paxton’s suit. Minors are required to have attended at least 12 mental health counseling or psychotherapy sessions for at least six months before they started treatment. It’s unclear whether Lau’s treatment of the minors could fall under that provision.

So far, a few attorneys general, including Paxton, have subpoenaed hospitals and practices that provide such care to minors for those patients’ records. Twenty-six states ban at least some forms of gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ restriction in June 2023, and a court blocked itafter families and doctors sued. In September 2023, the Texas Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect pending an appeal from the state, and this June, it vacated and reversed the previous injunction, allowing the law to stand. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected in its current session to hear oral arguments and rule on whether to strike down a similar law in Tennessee. How the court rules on the Tennessee law is expected to affect similar laws in other states.

The statement from Paxton’s office described gender-affirming care as “experimental, and no scientific evidence supports their supposed benefits.” 

Major medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, disagree, arguing that transition-related care is an effective and medically necessary way to treat gender dysphoria, which is distress felt by people whose gender identities differ from their genders assigned at birth.

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Pennsylvania middle school installs surveillance window in gender-inclusive bathroom

A Pennsylvania middle school installed a window in its gender-inclusive restroom, making its interior visible from the school hallway.

The window was constructed at Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which is roughly 5 miles north of the Maryland border. Gender-inclusive bathrooms are commonly used by transgender and nonbinary people for privacy and safety reasons.

Matthew Gelazela, the board president of the South Western School District, said the district decided to add the window as it “engages in renovating multiuser restroom facilities.”

“It has an interest in opening a view into the non-private area of those facilities in similar fashion to what has existed for years in our elementary schools,” Gelazela said in a statement to NBC affiliate WGAL in Lancaster. “In making the area outside of stalls more viewable, we are better able to monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.”

Parents in the South Western School District in Hanover, Pa., are taking to social media to call out their school board after pictures surfaced of construction on gender-inclusive bathrooms.
Parents in the South Western School District in Hanover, Pa., are taking to social media to call out their school board after pictures surfaced showing construction of gender-inclusive bathrooms.WGAL

Gelazela added that the window does not provide a “view into those private stall spaces from outside of the restrooms.”

The district did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for additional comment.

The window installation raised concerns among some of the students’ parents, who said windows were not added to the school’s single-sex multiuser restrooms.

Jennifer Holahan, whose son attends school in the district , said the new window is a “deterrent” to keep students from using the restrooms and a way to single out LGBTQ students who may be more likely to use a gender-inclusive facility.

“I can understand needing to have supervision over middle and high school students, especially in the bathrooms. I was a teenager once; I know it’s a tough spot,” Holahan told WGAL. “But I also think windows aren’t a solution. I think if it was a real issue, it wouldn’t just be gender-inclusive restrooms.”

Emory Markle Middle School in the South Western School District in Hanover, Pa.
Emory H. Markle Middle School in Hanover, Pa.WGAL

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania condemned the installation of the window, calling it “discriminatory.”

“Schools should be a welcoming and safe environment that nurture students’ curiosity and well-being,” a spokesperson for the group said in an email. “Discriminatory policies like this one not only undermine those goals, they also make students less safe.”

The issue over whether trans people should be able to use the restroom that aligns with their lived gender has played out in the U.S. for roughly a decade. A transgender “bathroom ban” in North Carolina — which barred trans people from using restrooms and changing facilities that matched their gender identity in most public spaces — caused a national uproar in 2016. (The North Carolina law, HB 2, was partially repealed in 2017.) However, similar laws have rebounded in recent years with legislative success and more muted opposition.

Thirteen states across the country have laws that prohibit transgender people from using bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity in K-12 schools, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. Some of those state laws — also known as “bathroom bans” — also bar trans people from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identities in some or all government buildings.

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Kentucky governor signs executive order banning conversion therapy

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order Wednesday banning the scientifically discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy on minors in the state.

The state now joins 23 others where the debunked mental health treatment, which aims to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people, is banned for minors, according to the LGBTQ think tank Movement Advancement Project. The executive order went into effect immediately.

“Kentucky cannot possibly reach its full potential unless it is free from discrimination by or against any citizen — unless all our people feel welcome in our spaces, free from unjust barriers and supported to be themselves,” Beshear, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Conversion therapy has no basis in medicine or science, and it can cause significant long-term harm to our kids, including increased rates of suicide and depression. This is about protecting our youth from an inhumane practice that hurts them.”

LGBTQ advocates have denounced the disputed treatment for years, citing research that shows conversion therapy can increase risks of mental health issues.

As many as 15% of LGBTQ youths have been subjected to or threatened with conversion therapy, according to a 2023 survey of more than 28,000 queer Americans ages 13 to 24 by The Trevor Project, an advocacy group that aims to prevent suicide among LGBTQ youths. The same survey — which the governor’s office cited in its statement — found that 54% of the LGBTQ youths who attempted suicide in the year prior were threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy. 

Advocates from The Trevor Project praised the governor’s signing of the measure.

“As a proud queer person who grew up in Kentucky, I am thrilled to see the governor take action to protect LGBTQ+ young people from conversion therapy — an abusive practice that has harmed too many of us, for too long across the Commonwealth,” Tanner Mobley, the manager of state advocacy and conversion therapy campaigns at The Trevor Project, said in a statement. 

Beshear’s executive order comes amid the introduction of a historic number of anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures across the country this year. State lawmakers have weighed 530 anti-LGBTQ measures this year, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

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Black LGBTQ Pride event vandalized at Atlanta hotel, police say

Atlanta police are investigating an act of vandalism that damaged property belonging to organizers of an LGBTQ Pride event dedicated to celebrating Black queer communities globally.

The Atlanta Police Department said in a statement Wednesday that the incident  happened at a hotel in midtown Atlanta, where an event for Global Black Pridewas taking place.

Authorities added that a preliminary investigation indicated that an intoxicated guest of the hotel caused the damage late Tuesday evening, and that they are still “following up on leads regarding the identity of the suspect and are working to determine why the suspect caused the damage.”

Tables, pamphlets and other memorabilia were scattered on the floor at the hotel, according to photos the organizers of the festival shared with NBC News.

Global Black Pride condemned the incident in a post on Instagram on Wednesday, calling it an “act of hatred.”

“Healing and joy are our priorities in a world that often harbors hate,” the group wrote. “We will not be deterred, and we will not allow hate stop us from celebrating our pride and resilience.”

“When we fight, we win,” it added.

The Global Black Pride festival, which started Tuesday and will end Monday in Atlanta, includes workshops, art exhibits, a health conference and several marches. It began during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and is celebrated every two years. The 2022 event, the first held in-person, was in Toronto.

This year’s celebration headliners include Tony-winning actor Billy Porter and Nigerian singers Yemi Alade and Omawumi.

More than half of Black LGBTQ U.S. adults live in the South, according to a January 2021 report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. Of the Atlanta metropolitan area’s population of about 6 million people, roughly 194,000 identify as LGBTQ, according to March 2021 data from the institute, though that data was not broken down by race.

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Mormon church issues new restrictions on transgender members

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, issued a slew of new policies this week expanding its restrictions on transgender members. 

The policies, released Monday, include rules barring trans people from working with children, becoming priests and serving as teachers. The church also expanded on an existing rule that barred trans people from being baptized.

Trans members will also face possible annotation on their membership records, grouping them with churchgoers who have committed incest, sexual predatory behavior, sexual violence against children and embezzlement of church funds.

“Church leaders counsel against pursuing surgical, medical, or social transition away from one’s biological sex at birth,” the church’s General Handbook states. “Leaders advise that taking these actions will result in some Church membership restrictions.”

Those who do “transition away from their biological sex at birth,” the handbook notes, will be completely turned away.

“These individuals and their families are encouraged to counsel with their local leaders regarding Church participation,” it states.

The new rules — which were part of a broader update to the church’s General Handbook — come roughly four years since the Salt Lake City, Utah-based church first released extensive guidelines on transgender people. 

The church did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new and expanded restrictions on trans members.

Taylor Petrey, chair of the religion department at Kalamazoo College in Michigan and author of a forthcoming book about the intersection of sexuality and the faith, “Queering Kinship in the Mormon Cosmos,” said that the new changes make the church “much more restrictive and much less accommodating than there used to be space for.”

Petrey pointed to the 2020 rule that restricted trans people from being baptized. That rule only banned baptism for trans people if they had begun transition-related medical treatment. However, that rule was expanded this week to also bar trans people from being baptized if they have socially transitioned — changed their name or appearance — without undergoing gender affirming health care.

“What you see in this 2024 change is a rolling back of some of those things or some concern that some local church leaders had taken things further than they expected back in 2020 when they put these new policies in,” he said.

The church will allow for exceptions to the limitations only if granted permission from its leadership, according to the handbook. It also states that restrictions on trans people can be reversed if they detransition. 

The new policies conflict with the church’s more welcoming position to the LGBTQ community in recent years, which followed backlash in the early 2000s for its support for California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

While it still opposes same-sex marriage and consensual gay sex, the Mormon church came out in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which enshrined protections for same-sex and interracial marriages into federal law. At the time, the church said it would support the legislation because it “includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.”

In 2019, the church also issued a policy to allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized, rolling back an earlier decision from 2015 to prevent the baptisms.

In a broader section titled “individuals who identify as transgender,” the church handbook states that it “does not take a position” on people who “feel their inner sense of gender does not align with their biological sex at birth.”

“These individuals often face complex challenges,” the handbook reads. “They—and their family and friends—should be treated with sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and Christlike love. All are children of God and have divine worth.”

Petrey said the contradiction is a result of how the Mormon church and other religious groups “are adjusting to the changed landscape around LGBTQ issues over the last 20 to 25 years.”

“The church has also struggled with how to thread the needle on these issues, holding fast to what they see as unchangeable elements of their teachings while still trying to reach out to and be inclusive of LGBTQ members,” Petrey said. “And we’re finding that those two groups are still not quite able to meet in the middle here.”

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