The Associated Press

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United Methodists remove anti-gay language from official teachings on societal issues

United Methodist delegates on Thursday removed a 52-year-old declaration from their official social teachings that deemed “the practice of homosexuality … incompatible with Christian teaching” — part of a wider series of historic reversals of the denomination’s long-standing disapproval of LGBTQ activity.

The historic vote came as delegates also approved a new definition of marriage as a covenant between “two people of faith” while recognizing the couple may or may not involve a man and a woman. That replaces an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage and followed a debate that exposed tensions between some U.S. and international delegates.

The 523-161 vote to approve a section of the church’s Revised Social Principles took place at the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in the penultimate day of their 11-day legislative gathering in Charlotte.

It came a day after the General Conference removed its long-standing ban on “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers. Step by step, delegates have been removing anti-LGBTQ language throughout their official documents.

But the marriage definition was approved only after debate and a compromise amendment — one of the few instances of open debate during this otherwise overwhelmingly progressive conference.

“God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman,” said Nimia Peralta from the Northwest Philippines. While the conference earlier approved a regionalization plan enabling different parts of the global church to adapt rules to their local contexts, “God’s word can never be regionalized,” she said.

The Rev. Jerry Kulah of Liberia held aloft a Bible as he said: “We do not have another Bible apart from this Bible. … The Bible is very emphatic that we have marriage between a man and a woman.”

But the Rev. James Howell of Western North Carolina applauded the new language as being able to “embrace everyone.”

“Cynics and young adults will not listen to us talk about Jesus if we say we do not condone people they love and care about,” Howell said. “Friends, it’s time.”

The Rev. Kalaba Chali, based in Kansas, said the principles are general enough without forcing people in different cultural contexts “to do things the same way.”

The approval came only after an amendment offered by lay delegate Molly Mwayera of East Zimbabwe, who noted that many African countries do not allow for same-sex marriage. After extended wordsmithing, the assembly settled on an amended item that affirmed marriage as a sacred covenant bringing “two people of faith (adult man and woman of consenting age or two adult persons of consenting age) into union.”

It’s the UMC’s first legislative gathering since 2019, one that features its most progressive slate of delegates in memory due to the departure of many conservatives from the denomination. More than 7,600 mostly conservative congregations in the United States — one quarter of the denomination’s American total — disaffiliated because the UMC essentially stopped enforcing its bans on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ordination.

Those churches left under a window that enabled American churches to leave with their properties, normally held by the denomination, under more favorable than normal terms. While the conference voted against extending that window to international churches, the liberalization measures approved by the conference could still prompt departures of some international churches through different means — particularly in Africa, where conservative sexual values prevail and where same-sex activity is criminalized in some countries.

The progressive momentum of the General Conference was evident from the vote Thursday. They voted on the last of a series of approvals of a wholesale rewrite of the denomination’s Social Principles — a non-binding but influential compendium of the denomination’s social stances on everything from war and peace to the environment and family relations.

The new version no longer includes this language from the previous one: “The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching,” while it also urged members not to condemn gays and lesbians.

The old version said sexual relations are “affirmed only with the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.”

The new version omits this phrase and describes “human sexuality as a sacred gift” and a “healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways.” It doesn’t say anything about restricting sexual activity to marriage. It does say people have the right to consent to sexual activity and condemns sexual harassment and exploitation and opposes pornography and its “destructive impact.”

The new version calls for human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity and other racial, ethnic and gender categories.

Thursday’s change is particularly significant because the statement of homosexuality being “incompatible with Christian teaching” dates back to the beginning of the 52-year-old debate on LGBTQ issues within one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations. The phrasing was adopted on the floor of the 1972 General Conference via an amendment proposed by a delegate, added to the original draft statement that had said “persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.”

The denomination had been revising and adding to the Social Principles for decades; this amounts to the first wholesale rewrite in many years. Other sections of the rewrite were approved earlier this week.

The drafters of the revision chose more general language because the denomination spans countries and cultures around the world, said John Hill, interim general secretary at the Board of Church and Society, at a news conference earlier this week.

“We have a church whose local contexts are dramatically different,” he said. “And so our hope was that statements that could speak theologically to these matters, but not to any specific context, could then be applied across the context of the church.”

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Aetna agrees to settle lawsuit over fertility coverage for LGBTQ customers

Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ customers in need of fertility treatment.

Under the deal announced Friday, the insurer will make coverage of artificial insemination standard for all customers nationally and work to ensure that patients have equal access to more expensive in-vitro fertilization procedures, according to the National Women’s Law Center, which represented plaintiffs in the case.

Aetna, the health insurance arm of CVS Health Corp., covers nearly 19 million people with commercial coverage, including employer-sponsored health insurance.

The insurer will set aside a $2 million fund to reimburse people who had coverage from some of its commercial insurance plans in New York and were denied reimbursement for artificial insemination, a procedure in which sperm is placed directly in a woman’s uterus.

A CVS Health spokesman said the company was pleased to resolve the case and “committed to providing quality care to all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

A federal judge still must approve the deal.

The settlement stems from a 2021 lawsuit filed in a federal court in New York. Emma Goidel said she and her spouse, Ilana Caplan, spent more than $50,000 on fertility treatments to conceive their second child after Aetna rejected several requests for coverage.

The couple had insurance through a Columbia University student health plan.

Their plan required people who cannot conceive a child naturally to first pay thousands of dollars for cycles of artificial insemination before the insurer would start covering fertility treatments.

The lawsuit noted that heterosexual couples didn’t have the same costs. They just had to attest that no pregnancy had occurred after several months of unprotected sex before they got coverage.

“You never know when you start trying to conceive and you have to do it at the doctor, how long it’s going to take and how much it’s going to cost,” Goidel said. “It was unexpected, to say the least.”

Goidel became pregnant with the couple’s second child after six cycles of artificial insemination — which each cost a few thousand dollars — and one unsuccessful, $20,000 attempt at in vitro fertilization, where an embryo is created by mixing eggs and sperm in a lab dish.

Goidel said she’s “thrilled” that Aetna changed its policy as part of the settlement, and she expects to be reimbursed.

Fertility treatment coverage has grown more common in recent years, especially among employers eager to recruit and retain workers.

The benefits consultant Mercer says 45% of employers with 500 or more workers offered IVF coverage last year. That’s up from 36% in 2021. Many place limits on the number of treatment cycles or set a lifetime maximum for the benefit.

Many insurers also cover artificial insemination as a standard benefit for all policyholders, according to Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

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Transgender Louisianans say they’ve lost an ally in the governor’s seat

As transgender people in Louisiana watched surrounding states in the deeply conservative South implement a slew of laws targeting nearly every facet of their lives in recent years, they counted on their ally in the governor’s office to keep their home a relative oasis.

Former Gov. John Bel Edwards, the only statewide elected Democrat at the time, was indeed able to block most of the bills.

But this year, nothing stands in the way. Edwards has been replaced by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican backed by former President Donald Trump who has shown support for such legislation. And the GOP holds a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature. That means previously introduced legislation hostile to transgender people now has a clear path forward, as do new proposals.

“These bills are absolutely going to become law,” said SarahJane Guidry, executive director of the LGBTQ rights group Forum for Equality. “And that is such a tragedy, but it doesn’t end there. We are going to continue to fight.”

As the only Democratic governor in the Deep South at the time, Edwards used vetoes to block anti-transgender legislation, including one broadly barring teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in schools, a type of policy critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay”; and a measure requiring public school teachers to use the pronouns and names students were assigned at birth.

In a veto message, Edwards described the bills as discriminatory, extremist and harmful to a group “comprised of the most vulnerable, fragile children” in Louisiana.

He was unable to keep the Legislature from overriding his veto of a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. And he blocked a 2021 bill seeking to restrict transgender athletes’ access to sports, but allowed it become law the next year, knowing a veto would probably be overridden.

Now that Edwards is out of office because of term limits, the Republican-controlled Legislature is advancing the “Don’t Say Gay” and pronoun and name proposals; definitions of male and female that could effectively legally erase transgender people; and restrictions on the use of bathrooms and changing rooms in schools, domestic violence shelters and prisons. President Joe Biden’s administration has said a new federal rule could clash with such bathroom restrictions.

The situation in Louisiana mirrors a national flood of bills that have targeted transgender people, and especially youths, in recent years, a movement some observers say seeks more to motivate conservative voters than to solve real problems.

A report released Tuesday by the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA Law, estimates that about 93% of transgender youths ages 13-17, or about 280,000, live in states that have proposed or passed laws restricting their access to health care, sports, school bathrooms and facilities, or the use of gender-affirming pronouns.

The institute estimates that in Louisiana, about 4,000 people ages 13-17, or 1.3% of that age group, identify as transgender.

Landry’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment on this year’s legislation. But he has made no secret of his support for, among other things, restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. In 2023, when he was running for governor, he posted on X: “As attorney general for 8 years I have worked hard to protect our children. I urge the full Senate to take up and pass” the law. It eventually passed and was vetoed but overridden.

Advocates in the Bayou State are organizing their fight, looking to other states that have blocked similar measures in court, educating their communities on the imminent laws, seeking sanctuary city policies, and recruiting more residents to their cause.

“We’re not going to look to the apocalypse, we’re going to look to the revolution,” Guidry said.

Advocates want the city council in liberal New Orleans to create local protections for transgender people, such as refusing to enforce state laws targeting them. Other cities like Austin, Texas, and Kansas City, Missouri, have already taken similar actions, though it’s not clear how effective the protections have been.

Last month, hundreds marched in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Transgender residents continue to testify in the Capitol. Advocates try to work with conservative lawmakers to create amendments to soften legislation. Students took to the Capitol steps in Baton Rouge last month to perform a play they wrote, based on their own experiences about how the bills would affect them.

“It’s almost like the Twilight Zone,” said William Leighton, who drove four hours to the Capitol this month with his 13-year-old transgender daughter, Arielle, who was not in the play.

“It’s not fair. I really don’t like the fact that people like me are being discriminated (against) for being different,” said Arielle, who is in eighth grade.

William Leighton had already prepared a letter to send to Arielle’s teachers, granting permission to use her name and pronouns, but he decided that was not enough and needed to get more politically active.

He was recently elected to the state’s Democratic State Central Committee. Among his priorities are to get more Democrats to vote and find candidates who, if elected to the Legislature, would work to repeal legislation targeting transgender and other LGBTQ people.

Like their counterparts in the South and elsewhere, advocates in Louisiana will also look to courts for guidance and to keep legislation from taking effect.

Five transgender youths and their families filed a lawsuit this year against the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care, as reported by The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. The suit is pending in Orleans Parish Civil Court.

“Nothing is off the table,” Guidry said. “If we cannot protect our students, we will continue to work, and if that includes litigation, we will take those steps when we need to.”

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Biden’s new Title IX rules protect LGBTQ students, but trans sports rule still on hold

The rights of LGBTQ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration.

The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden. He had promised to dismantle rules created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who added new protections for students accused of sexual misconduct.

Notably absent from Biden’s policy, however, is any mention of transgender athletes.

The administration originally planned to include a new policy forbidding schools from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, but that provision was put on hold. The delay is widely seen as a political maneuver during an election year in which Republicans have rallied around bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Instead, Biden is officially undoing sexual assault rules put in place by his predecessor and current election-year opponent, former President Donald Trump. The final policy drew praise from victims’ advocates, while Republicans said it erodes the rights of accused students.

The new rule makes “crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming and that respect their rights,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

“No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are, who they love,” Cardona told reporters. “Sadly, this happens all too often.”

Biden’s regulation is meant to clarify schools’ obligations under Title IX, the 1972 women’s rights law that outlaws discrimination based on sex in education. It applies to colleges and elementary and high schools that receive federal money. The update is to take effect in August.

Among the biggest changes is new recognition that Title IX protects LGBTQ students — a source of deep conflict with Republicans.

The 1972 law doesn’t directly address the issue, but the new rules clarify that Title IX also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ students who face discrimination will be entitled to a response from their school under Title IX, and those failed by their schools can seek recourse from the federal government.

Many Republicans say Congress never intended such protections under Title IX. A federal judge previously blocked Biden administration guidance to the same effect after 20 Republican-led states challenged the policy.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the new regulation threatens decades of advancement for women and girls.

“This final rule dumps kerosene on the already raging fire that is Democrats’ contemptuous culture war that aims to radically redefine sex and gender,” Foxx said in a statement.

The revision was proposed nearly two years ago but has been slowed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.

Many of the changes are meant to ensure that schools and colleges respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. In general, the rules widen the type of misconduct that institutions are required to address, and it grants more protections to students who bring accusations.

Chief among the changes is a wider definition of sexual harassment. Schools now must address any unwelcome sex-based conduct that is so “severe or pervasive” that it limits a student’s equal access to an education.

Under the DeVos rules, conduct had to be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive,” a higher bar that pushed some types of misconduct outside the purview of Title IX.

Colleges will no longer be required to hold live hearings to allow students to cross-examine one another through representatives — a signature provision from the DeVos rules.

Live hearings are allowed under the Biden rules, but they’re optional and carry new limits. Students must be able to participate from hearings remotely, for example, and schools must bar questions that are “unclear or harassing.”

As an alternative to live hearings, college officials can interview students separately, allowing each student to suggest questions and get a recording of the responses.

Those hearings were a major point of contention with victims’ advocates, who said it forced sexual assault survivors to face their attackers and discouraged people from reporting assaults. Supporters said it gave accused students a fair process to question their accusers, arguing that universities had become too quick to rule against accused students.

Victims’ advocates applauded the changes and urged colleges to implement them quickly.

“After years of pressure from students and survivors of sexual violence, the Biden Administration’s Title IX update will make schools safer and more accessible for young people, many of whom experienced irreparable harm while they fought for protection and support,” said Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at the group Know Your IX.

Despite the focus on safeguards for victims, the new rules preserve certain protections for accused students.

All students must have equal access to present evidence and witnesses under the new policy, and all students must have equal access to evidence. All students will be allowed to bring an advisor to campus hearings, and colleges must have an appeals process.

In general, accused students won’t be able to be disciplined until after they’re found responsible for misconduct, although the regulation allows for “emergency” removals if it’s deemed a matter of campus safety.

The latest overhaul continues a back-and-forth political battle as presidential administrations repeatedly rewrite the rules around campus sexual misconduct.

The DeVos rules were themselves an overhaul of an Obama-era policy that was intended to force colleges to take accusations of campus sexual assault more seriously. Now, after years of nearly constant changes, some colleges have been pushing for a political middle ground to end the whiplash.

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U.S. women’s soccer association says it supports LGBTQ rights after player’s social media posts

The U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association issued a statement Tuesday in support of LGBTQ rights in the wake of a controversy over midfielder Korbin Albert’s social media posts.

The 20-year-old Albert apologized last month for sharing anti-LGBTQ content on her TikTok account. The Paris Saint-Germain player wrote “liking and sharing posts that are offensive, insensitive and hurtful was immature and disrespectful which was never my intent.”

The USWNTPA’s statement came in the hours before Albert appeared as a substitute for the national team in the SheBelieves Cup final against Canada. It was Albert’s second match with the team since the posts came to light. The statement did not mention Albert by name.

“The women’s soccer community is one of joy, excitement, kindness and love. We have worked to ensure our community is safe, inclusive and welcoming to everyone. As allies and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those efforts will not stop,” the statement said.

“Across the country, human rights are being stripped away. LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights,” the statement continued. “Today and every day the USWNT Players will stand up for those rights.”

Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan addressed the issue last week during camp. Morgan said it was handled internally.

“We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us, something that we never take for granted. We’ll keep using this platform to give attention to causes,” Morgan said.

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New York can take legal action against county’s ban on female trans athletes, judge says

 New York state officials may continue to take legal action against a county outside New York City that has banned transgender players from women’s and girls teams, a judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury denied Nassau County’s request for a temporary restraining order against state Attorney General Letitia James, saying the Long Island county “falls far short of meeting the high bar for securing the extraordinary relief.”

Among other things, Choudhury said the county failed to “demonstrate irreparable harm,” which she said was a “critical prerequisite” for such an order.

The ruling, however, doesn’t address the legality of the county’s ban or James’ request that the lawsuit be dismissed. Those issues will be decided at a later date.

Last month, James, a Democrat, issued a “cease and desist” letter to the county demanding it rescind the ban because she said it violates New York’s anti-discrimination laws. The ban also faces a legal challenge from a local women’s roller derby league, which has asked a state court to invalidate it.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, responded to James’ action with a federal lawsuit asking a judge to affirm that the ban was legal and to prevent James from taking action against it.

Blakeman’s February order, which affects more than 100 public facilities in the county just east of the New York City borough of Queens, states that any female sports organization that accepts transgender women or girls will be denied permits to use county-owned parks and fields.

Echoing the arguments of officials who have taken similar actions in other Republican-led cities and states, the county says women and girls will be discriminated against and their constitutional rights to equal protection will be violated if transgender athletes are allowed to compete alongside them.

James and Blakeman’s offices did not respond to emails seeking comment Thursday.

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After a county restricted trans women in sports, a roller derby league said, ‘No way’

They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. They push, bump and occasionally crash out as they jostle for position on the hardwood floor.

But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, their biggest battle is taking place outside the suburban strip-mall roller rink where they’re girding for the upcoming roller derby season.

The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. The league’s legal effort, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the national discussion over the rights of transgender athletes.

Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, said there was never any question the group would take a stand.

“The whole point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island native, who competes as “Curly Fry” and identifies as queer, at a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come play with us, and we’ll do our very best to keep fighting and making sure that this is a safe space for you to play.”

Amanda "Curly Fry" Urena, at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y.
Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023. Jeenah Moon / AP

The February edict from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman affects more than 100 public facilities in the county of nearly 1.4 million just east of Queens.

Sports leagues and teams seeking permits to play or practice in county-run parks must disclose whether they have or allow transgender women or girls. Any organization that allows them to play will be denied a permit, though men’s leagues and teams aren’t affected.

Bills restricting trans youths’ ability to participate in sports have already passed in some 24 states as part of an explosion of anti-trans legislation on many subjects in recent years. The largest school district in Manhattan is among localities also weighing a ban, following a school board vote last week.

The Roller Rebels sought a county permit this month in hopes of hosting practices and games in county-owned rinks in the upcoming season, as they have in prior years. But they expect to be denied, since the organization is open to anyone who identifies as a woman and has one transgender player already on the roster.

The ban will also make it hard for the league, which has two teams and about 25 players, to recruit and will hurt its ability to host competitions with other leagues, Urena said.

State Attorney General Letitia James has demanded the county rescind the ban, saying it violates state anti-discrimination laws, while Blakeman has asked a federal judge to uphold it.

That a roller derby league has become the face of opposition isn’t surprising: the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women, said Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and wrote “Derby Life,” a book about roller derby.

The sport, which dates at least to the 1930s and enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s, involves two teams racing around a track as their designated “jammer” attempts to score points by lapping the other skaters, who are allowed to use their hips, chests and shoulders to slow them down.

The latest revival started in the early 2000s and has been sustained by LGBTQ+ people, with leagues frequently taking part in Pride parades and holding fundraising matches, Atwell said.

“You come in here and you say, ‘I’m a trans woman. I’m a nonbinary person. I’m genderqueer.’ OK? We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger.” “The world is scary enough. You should have a safe place to be.”

Blakeman has said he wants to ensure female athletes can compete safely and fairly. He held a news conference last week with Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic gold in the men’s decathlon in 1976 and later underwent a gender transition. Jenner, a Republican who’s frequently at political odds with the greater transgender community, has endorsed the ban.

Blakeman, a Republican who was elected in 2021, has said constituents asked his office to act. But many critics dismiss the ban as political posturing, noting he has acknowledged there have been no local complaints involving transgender players on women’s teams.

“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Emily Santosus, a 48-year old transgender woman on Long Island who hopes to join a women’s softball team. “We’re not bullies. We’re the ones that get bullied.”

The ones who will suffer most aren’t elite athletes, but children still trying to navigate their gender identities, added Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s team.

Members of the Long Island Roller Rebels during practice at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y.
Members of the Long Island Roller Rebels during practice at United Skates of America in Seaford, N.Y., on March 19, 2023.Jeenah Moon / AP

“Cruel is the only word that I can use to describe it,” the 30-year-old Brooklyn resident said. “Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already.”

In the larger discussion about trans women in sports, each side points to limited research to support their opinion. And bans often do not distinguish between girls and women who took puberty blockers as part of their transition — stunting the development of a male-typical physique — and those who didn’t, something one New York advocate pointed out.

The order in Nassau County puts some younger trans girls at greater risk by potentially pitting them against boys instead, said Juli Grey-Owens, leader of Gender Equality New York.

“They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs,” Grey-Owens said.

The ban could even lead to cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere, said Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City.

“It creates a system where any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical idea of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed,” Diamond said.

A 2022 Washington Post-University of Maryland Poll found that 55% of Americans were opposed to allowing trans women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports, and 58% opposed it for college and pro sports.

Two cisgender female athletes said after listening to Jenner that men are stronger than women, so it will never be fair if transgender women and girls are allowed to compete.

“There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations,” said Trinity Reed, 21, who plays lacrosse at Nassau County’s Hofstra University.

Mia Babino, 18, plays field hockey at the State University of New York at Cortland and plans to transfer to Nassau County’s Molloy University.

“We’ve worked very hard to get to where we are and to play at a college level,” she said.

But that attitude runs against everything athletic competition stands for, and it sells women and their potential short, countered Urena, of the Roller Rebels.

“If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we wouldn’t have a sports industry,” they said. “I love playing against people that are faster and stronger because that’s how I get better.”

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Wyoming governor vetoes abortion restrictions and signs trans medical care ban for minors

Wyoming’s governor on Friday vetoed a bill that would have erected significant barriers to abortion, should it remain legal in the state, and signed legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors.

The abortion bill rejected by Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, would have required facilities providing surgical abortions to be licensed as outpatient surgical centers, adding to their cost and the burdens they face to operate.

Women would have had to get ultrasounds no less than 48 hours before either a surgical or pill abortion to determine the fetus’s gestational age and location and viability of the pregnancy.

Abortion is legal in Wyoming pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging new laws to ban the procedure. The bill was aimed at the state’s only full-service abortion clinic, Wellspring Health Access. The Casper facility opened in 2023 — almost a year later than planned after being badly burned in an arson attack by a woman who opposed abortion.

Gordon said in announcing the veto that the measure would have “properly regulated” clinics. But he said amendments added by lawmakers made it vulnerable to legal challenge.

“The state is closer than ever to a decision on the constitutionality of abortion in Wyoming,” Gordon said in a statement, adding that the bill “had the potential to further delay the resolution of this critical issue for the unborn.”

Most abortions at Wellspring are administered through pills but the clinic has been able to perform surgical abortions as well, according to clinic officials who opposed the bill.

The measure would have required abortions at any clinic to be provided only by a licensed physician who has admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 10 miles away.

The result would have been major new costs to renovate Wellspring to meet ambulatory surgical facility standards while getting “medically unnecessary” admitting privileges for its doctors, clinic founder Julie Burkhart said in an emailed statement. Women also faced added travel and time-off-work costs to meet the ultrasound requirement, Burkhart added.

She said the bill was meant to close down the clinic, which would hurt people who are in need of abortion services.

“Outlawing abortion will never serve as a vehicle for making this health care obsolete,” she said.

Last year, the Wyoming Legislature passed — and Gordon signed into law — measures that restrict abortion in the state, including the first-in-the-U.S. explicit ban on abortion pills. Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens in Jackson has put the laws on hold while considering lawsuits against them filed by Wellspring and others.

At a hearing in December, Owens said she planned to issue a ruling rather than let the lawsuit go to trial. On Monday, however, she sent all major questions in the case to the state Supreme Court to consider instead.

Owens has shown sympathy for Wyoming’s abortion-rights supporters. She has said they are likely to prevail, for example, with their argument that abortion is allowed under a 2012 state constitutional amendment, which states that competent adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.

Attorneys for Wyoming counter that the amendment — approved in response to the federal Affordable Care Act — was never intended to apply to abortion.

Wyoming’s latest abortion bill faced a higher bar just to be debated in this year’s legislative session, which ended March 8. Bills in the four-week session not related to the budget needed a two-thirds vote to be introduced.

“Those of us who stand for legislation like this, we know deep down that life has meaning beyond this floor,” Sen. Dan Dockstader, a Republican from Afton, said in a debate before the bill passed the Senate on a 24-6 vote March 1.

The bill earlier cleared the state House with a 53-9 vote.

While rejecting the abortion bill, Gordon signed into law a measure that makes Wyoming the latest state to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, saying he supports the bill’s protections for minors. He added, however, that he also thinks such legislation amounts to the government “straying into the personal affairs of families.”

At least 24 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, and most of those states have been sued. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional. In Idaho and Montana, judges’ orders are in place temporarily blocking enforcement of the bans.

Wyoming lawmakers also passed bills this session enforcing parental rights in education. Gordon said the Legislature needs to “sort out its intentions” on parental rights.

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Alabama lawmakers advance expansion of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law

Teacher-led discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity would be banned in public schools and displaying Pride flags in classrooms would be prohibited under legislation lawmakers advanced in Alabama on Wednesday.

The measure is part of a wave of laws across the country that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.” It would expand current Alabama law, which prohibits the teaching in just elementary school, to all grades.

The House Education Policy Committee approved the bill after a discussion in which the bill sponsor claimed it is needed to prevent students from being “indoctrinated,” while an opposed lawmaker said the state is essentially “bullying” some of its citizens. The bill now moves to the full Alabama House of Representatives.

Alabama currently prohibits instruction and teacher-led discussions on gender identity or sexual orientation in a manner that is “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” in kindergarten through fifth grades. The legislation would expand the prohibition to all K-12 grades and drop the “developmentally appropriate” reference to make the prohibition absolute.

Lawmakers also added an amendment that would prohibit school employees from displaying flags and insignias that represent a sexual or gender identity on public school property.

“Hopefully, this will send the message that it’s inappropriate for the instructors, the teachers, to teach sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Republican Rep. Mack Butler, the bill’s sponsor.

Rep. Barbara Drummond, a Democrat from Mobile, said the legislation is going “to run people away rather than bring people to Alabama.”

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels said the measure is “almost like bullying to be honest with you.”

“We’re bullying a certain class or group of people because they don’t have the representation to fight back,” Daniels said.

Florida this month reached a settlement with civil rights attorneys who had challenged a similar law in that state. The settlement clarifies that the Florida law doesn’t prohibit discussing LGBTQ people or prohibit Gay-Straight Alliance groups, and doesn’t apply to library books that aren’t being used for instruction in the classroom.

The Florida law became the template for other states. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina have passed similar measures.

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Idaho considers a ban on using public funds or facilities for transgender care

 Idaho lawmakers are expected to vote this week on a bill that would ban the use of any public funds for gender-affirming care, including for state employees using work health insurance and for adults covered by Medicaid.

The legislation already passed the House and only needs to clear the majority Republican Senate before it is sent to Gov. Brad Little’s desk, where it would likely be signed into law. The Republican governor has said repeatedly he does not believe public funds should be used for gender-affirming care.

If the legislation is enacted, Idaho would become at least the 10th state to ban Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care for people of all ages, according to the advocacy and information organization Movement Advancement Project. The laws are part of an ongoing national battle over the rights of LGBTQ Americans.

Opponents to the Idaho bill say it almost certainly will lead to a lawsuit in federal court. The state has already been sued multiple times over attempts to deny gender-affirming care to transgender residents and so far has not had much success defending the lawsuits.

The Idaho Senate gathers in the Statehouse in Boise, Idaho, Jan. 15, 2021.
The Idaho Senate gathers in the Statehouse in Boise on Jan. 15, 2021. Keith Ridler / AP Photo file

In one case, the state was ordered to provide a transgender inmate with gender-transition surgery, and the inmate was later awarded roughly $2.5 million in legal fees.

Last year a federal judge barred Idaho from enforcing its newly enacted ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors until a lawsuit brought by transgender youth and their families is resolved. A different federal judge denied the state’s motion to dismiss a separate lawsuit filed by adults in 2022 who said Medicaid officials wrongly denied coverage for their medically necessary gender-affirming treatment.

“This bill violates the 14th Amendment equal protections clause” and the federal Medicaid Act, Boise attorney Howard Belodoff told lawmakers during a hearing on Thursday.

Belodoff represents the transgender adults who sued the state over what they said were discriminatory Medicaid policies excluding coverage for genital reconstruction surgery.

“You cannot distinguish between providing care on the basis of diagnosis, type of illness or condition,” Belodoff said. “That’s exactly what this bill does: it violates the Medicaid Act.”

One of the bill’s sponsors, Republican Rep. Bruce Skaug, said those lawsuits prompted creation of the bill.

“This is a taxpayer protection bill in my view,” Skaug said, suggesting that without it the state could end up paying millions for gender-affirming care. Roughly 70% of Idaho’s Medicaid program is federally funded.

Some who testified against the bill suggested it could have a far larger reach than intended by eliminating gender-affirming care for even privately insured residents living in rural areas with only state-funded medical centers.

Isaac Craghtten, an Idaho Department of Correction employee, noted that many correctional employees work 12- to 16-hour shifts, which can require taking some prescribed medications like hormone therapy while on the job.

But the legislation bars the use of any state property, facility or building for providing surgical operations or medical interventions, which could mean employees would be subject to criminal penalties for taking their own legally prescribed medication while in a break room, Craghtten said.

The punishment for violating the law would include fines ranging from $300 to $10,000 and imprisonment between one and 14 years.

At least 23 states including Idaho have passed laws banning gender-affirming care for minors. Some states also have considered policies that experts say would make it more difficult for transgender adults to receive care, such as eliminating telehealth options or requiring repeated psychological examinations for continued gender-affirming treatment.

Major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose gender-affirming care bans and have endorsed such care, saying it is safe when administered properly.

While courts have blocked the enforcement of gender-affirming care bans for minors in Idaho, Montana and Arkansas, they have allowed enforcement in Alabama and Georgia.

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