Young trans people and their families living in Alabama have been warned to “run” after the state banned gender-affirming care for minors.
Marie Willa, who posted on TikTok as MissWilla, pleaded for parents living in Alabama to get their trans children out of the state and to “somewhere safe”.×ADVERTISING
In an emotional video on TikTok, Willa, a trans woman, said: “I come to you tonight on a very serious note with a dire warning and a plea for help.
“If you are the parent of a transgender child that is 19 or under and you live in the state of Alabama, your child lives in the state of Alabama, get out.
“Get your child out to somewhere safe.
“They have just made it a felony to provide any gender-affirming care to any transgender person age 19 or younger.”
She warned the ban would “drive the suicide rate up just astronomically high” and pleaded for parents to “get your children to safety”. Willa also called on the wider community to “help us”.
Alabama Senate votes to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth
On Tuesday (2 March), lawmakers in Alabama passed senate bill 10 (SB10), an anti-transgender bill that will prohibit medical professionals from providing critical healthcare and gender-affirming treatment to trans people under the age of 19.
The bill would bar medical professionals from administering hormones or puberty blockers to trans youth, in addition to prohibiting gender-affirming surgeries for trans minors.
If the bill passes into law, it would make it a Class C felony for medical professionals to provide gender-affirming care to trans minors. This class of felony would result in a 10-year prison sentence or a $15,000 fine in Alabama.
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The bill would also require teachers and staff at schools in Alabama to share with students’ parents if they learn that a “minor’s perception that his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex”. In effect, it would require teachers to “out” trans students to their parents.
The Montgomery Advertiser reported SB10, dubbed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, passed by a vote of 23-4.
If the Alabama House of Representatives approves its companion bill, HB1, and the proposal is signed by governor Kay Ivey, Alabama would be the first state in the US to pass a bill of this kind.
Republican senator Shay Shelnutt proposed the bill. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, he said he wanted to “protect children” by passing the bill. Shelnutt said: “I don’t think the same way I did at 14 when I was 25.
“You know the male brain – I don’t know when it fully matures, but you know, the human brain is not fully mature, and you know they are going to think differently.”
But the ACLU of Alabama said the bill would “criminalise medical professionals who choose to support transgender youth’s identity, forcing them to choose between the possibility of government prosecution and adhering to the evidence-based clinical guidelines of their field”.
LGBT+ activist and actor Elliot Page called on lawmakers to protect trans kids and vote no on these bills. Page wrote on Twitter: “Efforts to criminalize trans kids are deadly and we need to fight back against Alabama’s HB1/SB10.
“Trans kids’ lives depend on stopping this bill.”
‘Make some noise’
Willa’s initial video received over 310,000 views on TikTok with many people in the comments asking how they could help the trans children and their families affected in Alabama. She posted a follow-up video calling on people to speak up against the oppression of trans and LGBT+ youth in Alabama.
“Silence and inaction of good people has always been the greatest tool used by oppressors of marginalised communities,” Willa explained. “So the best answer I can give you: Make some noise.”
The American Psychological Association (APA) adopted a resolution rebuking conversion therapy on trans patients, correctly citing that being trans is not a “mental disorder”.
The APA is the leading scientific and professional organisation representing psychology in the US, with more than 122,000 researchers, clinicians, consultants and educators as its members. The prominent psychological association has decried the use of conversion therapy – the dangerous, discredited ‘treatment’ to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – for trans people.ADVERTISING
In a February resolution, the APA stated that “transgender and gender non-binary identities and expressions are healthy” and that “incongruence between one’s sex and gender is neither pathological nor a mental disorder”.
The American Psychological Association noted “many transgender and gender non-binary individuals lead satisfying lives and have healthy relationships”. It added conversion therapy only serves to promote “stigma and discrimination against transgender and gender diverse people”.
The resolution also emphasised that “individuals who have experienced pressure or coercion to conform to their sex assigned at birth or therapy that was biased toward conformity to one’s assigned sex at birth have reported harm resulting from these experiences, such as emotional distress, loss of relationships and low self-worth”.
Jennifer F Kelly, president of the APA, said there is a “growing body of research” that shows that transgender or non-binary gender identities are “normal variations in human expression of gender”.
“Attempts to force people to conform with rigid gender identities can be harmful to their mental health and wellbeing,” Kelly said.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) applauded the APA for denouncing trans conversion therapy. Alphonso David, president of the HRC, said there is “no question” that “denying a person’s gender identity is wrong”.
“It’s detrimental to their mental health, their physical health and their overall sense of self-worth—and this includes young people,” David said. “The consensus from the [APA] further reinforces that we must rely on transgender people and their healthcare providers to determine treatment for gender-affirming care in accordance with current medical best practices — this is not the place for politicians.”
He also warned it is “incredibly dangerous when strangers can legislate personal healthcare decisions”.
The Trevor Project’s 2020 national survey found that 10 per cent of the over 40,000 LGBT+ youth who responded to the survey had undergone conversion therapy. Seventy-eight per cent of LGBT+ youth who had gone through conversion therapy said it occurred when they were under the age of 18.
Sixty-one per cent said they were forced into conversion therapy to change their sexual orientation, eight per cent said it was to change their gender identity and 27 per cent said it was to forcibly change both their gender identity and sexual orientation.SPONSORED CONTENT
Sam Brinton, vice president of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project, said the organisation is “extremely grateful” to the American Psychological Association for using its platform and expertise to “advocate for better health outcomes for all LGBTQ youth”.
“When transgender and non-binary young people are pressured to conform to the sex they were assigned at birth and abide by society’s rigid gender norms, it can be incredibly harmful to their mental health and sense of self and contribute to increased risk for suicide,” Brinton said.
“That’s why we must come together to end the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy and to stop these proposed bans on gender-affirming medical care from becoming the law of the land.”
Across the pond, conversion therapy is still legal, even though the UK government vowed to ban it
On 28 March, it will have been 1,000 days since the Tories pledged in 2018 to “eradicate” the abhorrent practice as part of their LGBT+ Action Plan.
Prime minister Boris Johnson said conversion therapy “has no place in civilised society” last July, but he and equalities minister Liz Truss claimed the government would have to do more research before banning the practice, which has often been compared to torture.
Mental health professionals, faith communities and LGBT+ rights organisations have joined together in a coalition, organised by Stonewall, to urge the government deliver the ban, and end conversion therapy once and for all ahead of the 1,000 days mark of inaction by the government to stop conversion therapy.
“Being LGBT+ is beautiful, and there is no place in our society for any so-called ‘interventions’ which tell us otherwise,” said Stonewall chief executive Nancy Kelley.
“The UK government must stop dragging its feet and make good on its promise to bring in a full legal ban, and put a stop to conversion therapy in the UK for good.”
The coalition is encouraging people across the country to email their MPs and explain why the UK urgently needs a legislative ban on conversion therapy.
It is also campaigning for specialist support for LGBT+ conversion therapy survivors and victims.
One of the country’s largest adoption and foster care agencies, Bethany Christian Services, announced Monday that it will begin providing services to L.G.B.T.Q. parents nationwide effective immediately, a major inflection point in the fraught battle over many faith-based agencies’ longstanding opposition to working with same-sex couples.
The Michigan-based evangelical organization announced the change in an email to approximately 1,500 staff members signed by Chris Palusky, the organization’s president and chief executive.
“We will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today,” Mr. Palusky wrote. “We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., compared gender-affirming surgery to “genital mutilation” during confirmation hearings Thursday for Dr. Rachel Levine, President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health.
If approved, Levine will become the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Paul, a former ophthalmologist, was questioning Levine about transition-related care for transgender youth when he said that “genital mutilation is considered particularly egregious because … it is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.”
Erroneously claiming that Levine supports “surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia,” Paul asked Levine if she believed minors are capable of making “such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?”
Levine, a pediatrician, responded that transgender medicine is “a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed,” and promised to discuss specifics if she is confirmed.
Paul continued his line of questioning, asking if she supports permitting the government to override a parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and “amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia.” Levine provided a similar response, leading Paul to accuse her of evading the question.
He further questioned criticism of prescribing hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 by the same people who support hormones for transgender teenagers.
Rachel Levine, nominee for Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, testifies at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Feb. 25, 2021 on Capitol Hill.Tom Brenner / Pool via Getty Images
Dr. Colt Wasserman, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, who provides gender-affirming care to trans minors, told NBC News that Paul’s questions and concerns are “not based in medical fact whatsoever.”
Wasserman said gender-affirming care is understood and supported by major medical associations and physicians “to be a life-affirming practice that, through an informed consent process, patients, parents and their providers come together to support gender-diverse youth in the medical environment in a wide range of ways, which typically doesn’t involve any kind of procedural intervention.”
“There’s a lot of concern about surgery or irreversible decisions,” when it comes to the health care that transgender youth receive, Wasserman added, but surgery is not a component of that care.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health states in its Standards of Care regarding transgender adolescents that surgery “should not be carried out until (i) patients reach the legal age of majority in a given country, and (ii) patients have lived continuously for at least 12 months in the gender role that is congruent with their gender identity.” The standards add, “The age threshold should be seen as a minimum criterion and not an indication in and of itself for active intervention.” The legal age of majority is at least 18 across the U.S.
Duke Health’s Center for Gender Care for Children and Adolescents, for example, will offer children under 16 therapies to delay puberty and provide hormone replacement therapy for those 16 and older.
“During this time, your child must meet with their local therapist weekly to manage the emotional changes that happen during hormone therapy,” according to the clinic’s website.
Access to gender-affirming care has also been found to have a positive impact on the mental health of trans young people. A studypublished in January 2020 found that transgender people who used puberty blockers had lower rates of suicidal thoughts as adults when compared to trans people who couldn’t access them.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said Paul’s language was hurtful to Levine and all the trans people watching her hearing.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there about health care for transgender young people, in particular, but what’s really important to know is that all of the leading medical institutions have researched this and really recognize that it’s primary care,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “It’s different for every trans young person, just because any kind of medical care is different for any kind of individual patient, so it’s personalized, but this is legitimate health care.”
LGBTQ rights advocates swiftly condemned Paul’s comments and praised Levine’s testimony.
“While Rand Paul is a doctor, his own history makes it clear that he has no respect for science or medicine,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims, a Democrat and longtime Levine ally, told NBC News.
Sims, who is gay and recently announced his bid for lieutenant governor, called Levine “a world-class public-health expert.”
“While I remain excited about what Dr. Levine’s selection by President Biden means for her and the LGBTQ+ communities, I’m even more excited about what it means for the country.”
Later in Thursday’s hearings, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate health committee, called Paul’s remarks “ideological and harmful misrepresentations.”
But the American Principles Project, a conservative lobbying group that opposes gay marriage, transgender rights and abortion, defended Paul’s “immense courage” in challenging Levine.
“It is important that the American people are aware of just how extreme Joe Biden’s nominees are and what they are likely to support as members of his administration,” the group’s executive director, Terry Schilling, said in a statement. “Dr. Levine’s radical ideology ought to be a disqualifier for any position at HHS, never mind one as important as assistant secretary for health, and we urge the Senate to reject this confirmation when it comes up for a vote.”
She is also no stranger to transphobic attacks from conservatives. For example, in a Jan. 19 article about her nomination, the far-right media outlet Breitbart misgendered and deadnamed Levine repeatedly. (Deadnaming refers to using a transgender person’s former name.)
Shortly after the nomination, Pennsylvania state Rep. Jeff Pyle posted a picture on Facebook mocking Levine’s appearance. After widespread criticism, Pyle, a Republican, deactivated his Facebook page and claimed that he had “no idea” the post “would be … received as poorly as it was,” The Associated Press reported.
Levine is the first trans person to be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position, and “whenever you’re the first trans person, a target gets put on your back,” Heng-Lehtinen said.
“My heart really goes out to her for having to endure those attacks, and I’m grateful that she is so skilled at navigating it as she is, but she shouldn’t have to do that,” he said. “For Senator Paul to kind of blurt out these myths and misconceptions about trans people and try to use that against her, I think really shows how much transphobia is still out there. So as historic as it is for a trans person to be able to be up in front of the Senate, and that’s an important first step, it also reveals just how far we have to go.”
Paul’s questions come at the end of a long week for LGBTQ advocates. The House debated and passed the Equality Act on Thursday, and multiple states, including South Carolina and Utah, held hearings on bills that would ban transgender athletes from competing in school sports.
Nat Mulkey, a transgender medical student at Boston University who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said they had the privilege of being able to step away from the news “when it feels personally attacking and harmful,” but that not every trans person does. Mulkey said Paul’s language would negatively affect trans young people.
“It’s not a hyperbole, or an overstatement to say that it is deadly,” Mulkey said of the senator’s language. They said allowing young trans people an “authentic and private experience with their doctor to discuss these issues and not have the invalidation at such a national level is so important to fostering their health and their lives in general.”
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions must vote on whether to recommend Levine’s nomination to the full Senate. It is not yet known when that vote will happen.
A gay campground in Michigan, has issued a ban on trans men to “build a like-minded atmosphere”.
Camp Boomerang RV Park and Campground has yet to open its site in Orleans, Michigan, but is already in hot water after co-owner Bryan Quinn announced a set of transphobic campground rules on its Facebook page.
Quinn wrote: “Camp Boomerang is a private, membership-only RV park/campground that allows only ‘guys’.
“A ‘guy’, in terms of this discussion, is defined as a person with a penis, [who] presents himself as male and has a state-issued ID that says ‘male’.
“We understand this statement, unfortunately, may not make everyone happy, but feel it needs to be clarified.”
Quinn said it is his hope that visitors to Camp Boomerang enjoy a “comfortable, safe, non-confrontational environment going forward”.
He added that being a membership-only campground “allows us the ability to build a like-minded atmosphere”.
“We don’t mean for this to come off as a ‘like it or leave it’ attitude, but we feel it’s necessary for everyone to know exactly what our vision is for Camp Boomerang,” he continued.
Camp Boomerang boycotted before it’s even opened over transphobic ban
A member of the campground’s page asked if “penis checks will be conducted prior to entry” to the park grounds.
Quinn responded: “We never said anything about ‘penis checks’, but let’s be real here.
“If we let women that act like men in, and they go naked at the pool, that’s when it’s obvious that there’s not a penis.
“Sorry to put it bluntly, but if you don’t like the rules, quietly leave.”
The backlash to the ban was swift. One person posted the campground’s anti-trans policy on Twitter, calling on “gays in the Michigan and Midwest area” to not visit Camp Boomerang.
Another person wrote on Twitter that any gay men in Michigan that support Camp Boomerang can “kindly f**k right off”.
One person shared Camp Boomerang’s policy update on Facebook, calling it “super transphobic“. They added that as a gay-owned business, Camp Boomerang should “know better than to exclude the people that fought for our rights to begin with”.
“Without the trans community, we wouldn’t have any of the rights that we have now,” they added. “Trans men are men. Trans women are women. No debate. No discussion.”
In the days since the announcement, Camp Boomerang – which hasn’t even opened yet – has received a slew of one-star reviews on Google. One person wrote in the reviews that they left the poor rating because of the campground’s “discrimination and transphobia”.
A federal judge has dismissed a discrimination lawsuit by a transgender fire chief who led a rural Georgia city’s fire department for more than a decade, then got fired 18 months after first coming to work as a woman.
U.S. District Court Judge Tilman E. Self III didn’t rule on the merits of Rachel Mosby’s discrimination claims. Instead, the judge decided Mosby had no legal standing to sue because of a technical flaw with the initial complaint she filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Mosby’s attorney, Kenneth Barton, said in a court filing Feb. 2 that he planned to appeal the judge’s dismissal.
City officials in Byron fired Mosby in June 2019, citing poor job performance. She filed suit last April, saying her termination was instead “based on her sex, gender identity, and notions of sex stereotyping.”
Mosby, who had led Byron’s fire department since 2008, said being fired not only cost her wages and financial benefits, but also tarnished her reputation.
Mayor Michael Chidester and other Byron city officials denied Mosby was fired because of her transition.
The judge dismissed the case without wading into that issue. Instead, he focused on problems with the 2019 complaint Mosby filed with the EEOC — a required step before someone can sue an employer for discrimination.
Tilman found Mosby’s initial complaint to the EEOC on June 28, 2019, failed to include a written sworn statement or notarized affirmation as the agency requires. Though Mosby’s attorney tried to amend the complaint to include the missing document last July, the judge ruled that was too late because the EEOC had already closed Mosby’s case and she had filed suit.
Tilman’s ruling Jan. 28 also threw out Mosby’s claims that Byron officials had denied her due process and defamed her character.
In a landmark decision last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits sex discrimination applies to bias against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Trans woman Chyna Carrillo has died following a brutal assault in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. She was just 24-years-old.
Police in Pennsylvania received reports of an attack at a residence on the morning of 18 February, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
When officers arrived, they found the suspect violently assaulting Carrillo in the yard of a home. They ordered him to stop his attack, but he ignored police commands.
Officers then shot the assailant and he died at the scene. Carrillo was rushed to St Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown, where she died shortly afterwards.
Carrillo’s death makes her at least the seventh known trans person killed so far in 2021 in the United States.
The nursing home worker was originally from Arkansas, but had reportedly moved to Pennsylvania to start a new life.
Chyna was very young and did not deserve to have her life cut short.
There has been an outpouring of grief from friends and family of Carrillo, who heaped praise on the young Latinx woman, with some describing her as confident and outspoken.
Her aunt Mayra Carrillo described Chyna as a “beautiful, magical mermaid”.
“I always called her that,” she said. “She’s my mermaid, and we miss her. We miss her terribly.”
Trans woman Chyna Carrillo had her life ‘cut short’.
Megan Godfrey, a state representative for Arkansas, said there is “a lot of heartbreak” in their community following her death.
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“We need a hate crimes law that protects all, including transgender Arkansans, from hate-motivated violence,” she tweeted.
“And we don’t need laws that permit and embolden discrimination against trans Arkansans,” she added, before sending love to Carrillo’s family.
Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the transgender justice initiative at the Human Rights Campaign, said the rate of violence against trans people so far this year is “devastating”.
“Chyna was very young and did not deserve to have her life cut short. Already in 2021, we’ve lost too many trans lives.
“If this alarming rate of fatal violence persists, we will either match or surpass last year’s total number of 44 deaths, which marked 2020 as the deadliest year on record for our community.
“We must speak up and speak out. Everyone must take action to end the violence against our community and we must do so together as one LGBTQ community.”
Bills in at least 20 states are targeting the transgender community in what LGBTQ advocates say is an organized assault by conservative groups.
On Thursday, the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban transgender student athletes from joining teams that match their gender identity. The measure, which passed 65 to 26, also calls for withholding state funds from sporting events that allow athletes to play as anything other than their sex assigned at birth. The bill now heads to the state Senate.
Supporters of the bill — including Republican state Rep. Ben Koppelman, its primary sponsor — say they want to protect opportunities for girls in sports, including access to athletic scholarships.
“Some have said this bill just doesn’t follow the science. We’ve got science going back well before the United States that backs this,” Koppelman said in a committee meeting, according to NBC affiliate KFYR-TV. “This isn’t new science. Men and women didn’t just cease to exist. They’ve existed for a long time and we’ve been able to recognize the differences.”
House Minority Leader Josh Boschee, a Democrat, countered that the bill would “codify discrimination.”
“North Dakota transgender youth, you are seen and you are loved by many,” Boschee later tweeted. “This vote is infuriating and we will continue to work to have it defeated in the Senate.”
The same day the North Dakota House passed its bill, the Mississippi state Senate passed its own athletic ban, which now goes to the state House for consideration. Georgia, Kansas, Utah and Tennessee advanced similar legislation last week, as well.
In 2020, legislators sponsored 20 bills to restrict transgender students’ participation in sports, according to the ACLU. At least as many have been introduced this year.
Bills driven by ‘centralized groups’
To date, the only trans sports bill to become law is Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt. Signed by Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, last March, it mandates that “biological sex” be the sole determining factor for inclusion on athletic teams at public schools and universities.
Ehardt worked with the Alliance Defending Freedom in crafting the measure, The Idaho Press reported. Founded in 1994 by Christian conservatives, the Arizona-based group has provided legal counsel for a variety of efforts to curtail LGBTQ rights, from defending gay-marriage bans to ensuring the right of businesses to refuse LGBTQ customers. Perhaps most notably, the ADF defended Jack Phillips, the owner of a Colorado bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, in his 2018 Supreme Court case over his refusal to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.
Kate Oakley, state legislative director and attorney for the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group, told NBC News that a bill under review in Montana restricting transgender sports participation was also written by the ADF. The Alliance Defending Freedom has been labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a designation the ADF dismisses as groundless and a smear tactic.
The language in the Idaho and Montana measures is strikingly similar — and interchangeable with wording in proposed sports bans in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas and elsewhere.
All, for example, include an excerpt from an April 2019 Washington Post opinion piece by tennis legend Martina Navratilova, Olympic track star and NBC Sports analyst Sanya Richards-Ross and Duke law professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman. In it, the three state that “there will always be significant numbers of boys and men who would beat the best girls and women in head-to-head competition.”
The ADF did not confirm that it wrote the Idaho bill or provided template wording for legislation to any state, but Matt Sharp, an attorney for the organization, told NBC News in an email, “As is typical practice for legal organizations, Alliance Defending Freedom is often asked by legislators to review possible legislation and offer advice.”
In February 2016, Sharp claimed “lawmakers in at least five states” had used the ADF’s model legislation to draft so-called bathroom bills, The Washington Post reported. Sharp also said the Alliance mailed template bills to “thousands” of school districts.
“These bills are intended to look constituent-led, but we know it’s driven from these centralized groups,”said Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union.
University of Montana cross country runner Juniper Eastwood, center, warming up with her teammates at Campbell Park in Missoula, Mont. on Aug. 15, 2019. Rachel Leathe / Bozeman Daily Chronicle via AP file
Lawyers for the ADF also filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuitagainst the Idaho bill on behalf of two female runners who lost to Juniper Eastwood, the first transgender runner to compete in NCAA Division 1 cross country. (While the case is being decided, the Idaho law is blocked from being enforced.)
And the ADF is representing three cisgender Connecticut women in a suit claiming they were forced to compete against “biological males” in high school track because the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference allows transgender students to join the teams that match their gender identity.
The complaint alleges that two transgender sprinters, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, won 15 women’s state championship titles previously held by nine different girls and, from 2017 to 2019, “have taken more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher level competitions from female track athletes.”
“There are real physiological differences between boys and girls that affect athletic performance, such as size, muscle mass and bone density,” Sharp told NBC News. “We’ve seen the harms of allowing biological males to compete against women.”
A December study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found transgender women were faster and could do more pushups and situps for two years after starting testosterone blockers. But the study’s lead author, pediatrician Timothy Roberts, told NBC News previously that, “at the recreational level, probably one year is sufficient for most people to be able to compete.”
Bloomfield High School transgender athlete Terry Miller, second from left, wins the final of the 55-meter dash over transgender athlete Andraya Yearwood, far left, and other runners in the Connecticut girls Class S indoor track meet at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn., on Feb. 7, 2019.Pat Eaton-Robb / AP file
Another voice leading the fight against transgender athletes in sports is Beth Stelzer, a Minnesota-based amateur powerlifter and founder of Save Women’s Sports. According to its website, the group is a diverse coalition looking “to preserve biology-based eligibility standards for participation in female sports.”
On Thursday, Stelzer testified before Utah’s House Education Committee in favor of a transgender sports ban in that state. She’s also given testimony in support of similar bills in Minnesota, Montana and elsewhere.
Stelzer told NBC News she works more on gathering supporters to testify than on drafting legislation. “However, I do offer advice about the language used,” she said, adding that she was sad the issue had become “partisan.”
“Males participating in female sports is not about religion or politics. It is common sense,” Stelzer said. “We have women from the left, right and center coming together to preserve female sports across the world.”
Jennifer Wagner-Assali, an orthopedic surgeon and semiprofessional track cyclist, is an ambassador for Save Women’s Sports. She claims she unfairly lost the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship to transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon, now known as Veronica Ivy. Ivy took gold in the 200-meter sprint and briefly set a world record for women in the 35-39 age bracket, according to Bicycling magazine. Wagner-Assali took bronze.
“All these rules were put into place, basically by stealth,” she told host Julian Vigo this month on the Substack podcast Savage Minds. “Women were not asked their opinion. These things were changed a few years ago, and they’ve just kind of become part of the rule structure. Now they’re starting to be exploited, obviously.”
‘Uncontrolled human medical experimentation’
While athletic bans are the most common forms of legislation targeting transgender individuals this session, a number of states are also considering prohibiting transition-related medical care for minors, some including criminal penalties.
Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act would institute felony charges for health care professionals who performed procedures or prescribed medication “intended to alter the appearance of [a minor’s] gender or delay puberty, with certain exceptions.”
The bill calls puberty blockers and other transition-related treatments “dangerous and uncontrolled human medical experimentation.” It also requires teachers, principals, nurses and other school officials to tell parents if a child believes their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth.
A similar bill in Texas would redefine providing transition-related care to minors as a form of child abuse.
One of the first such bills was introduced last year by South Dakota state Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Republican. Originally, the bill would have made it a Class 4 felony to provide transition-related care to patients 16 or younger, even if they’re emancipated, but the felony charge was eventually amended to a misdemeanor. If it had passed, it would have also allowed those unhappy with their gender-affirming care to sue up until the age of 38, according to South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
In October 2019, three months before sponsoring the bill, Deutsch attended the Summit on Protecting Children From Sexualization in Washington, D.C. Panelists included representatives from the ADF, the Heritage Foundation, the Family Policy Alliance and the Kelsey Coalition, a group of parents who claim their children have been harmed by transgender health care practices. Attendees were given a gender resource guide for parents detailing how to oppose trans-affirming policies in their schools and communities, according to The Washington Post.
“In the fall of 2019, you have ADF, Heritage Foundation and these other groups start getting together and working up templates to ship out to state lawmakers,” Strangio told NBC News. “It was at the end of 2019 when we started to hear about them.”
Deutsch has also said he sent drafts of his bill to legislators in other states considering similar bans, The New York Times reported. But while a similar bill passed the South Dakota House of Representatives by a wide margin, it died in the state Senate.
Some lawmakers are opposing medical treatment for transgender youth with “conscience” bills, like a Kentucky bill that would let medical professionals in the state refuse to perform procedures that violated their religious or moral convictions.
The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Stephen Meredith, argues it will protect children from “misguided” parents who want to force them to change genders.
“You have a 12-year-old girl who’s a tomboy,” Meredith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, according to The Lexington Herald-Leader. “And her parents, who are misguided, think that she’s really a girl trapped in a boy’s body. And they don’t want to see her go through the rest of her life miserable. So they’re going to go and transition her.”
“Does the surgeon have the right to say, ‘No, I’m not going to do this surgery’?” he asked, according to the Herald-Leader. “So this protects everybody.”
Meredith said the language in Kentucky’s bill was based on model legislation sent to him by the conservative Kentucky Family Foundation. The foundation’s executive director, Kent Ostrander, confirmed to NBC News that the group worked with Meredith on the bill in the last legislative session.“The bill is purely designed to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals as they practice their healing arts,” Ostrander said in an email.
Separate conscience bills in South Carolina, South Dakota and Arkansas all contain identical language found in model legislationwritten by Kevin Theriot and Ken Connelly of the Alliance Defending Freedom.
An attempt to ‘sow fear and hate’
Oakley, of the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ rights advocates say the failure to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage or pass so-called transgender bathroom bills has led groups like ADF to turn their focus toward trans youth. In a statement, HRC called the current raft of transgender-focused bills “simply the latest iteration of their failing fight.”
“Opponents of equality failed to claw back marriage equality and failed in their push for bathroom bills,” the group said. “These bills are not addressing any real problem, and they’re not being requested by constituents. Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to sow fear and hate.”
Strangio said proponents of these measures are being disingenuous about protecting children and women.
“They claim children can’t consent to wanting to transition, but the bills all have the same carve-out for performing surgery on intersex infants,” he said. “It’s not about protecting, it’s about normative control.”
As for girls’ sports, Strangio said no state is anywhere near Title IX compliance, “but there’s crickets from supposed champions of women’s sports in the GOP.”
“No one is introducing legislation to increase funding to women’s sports or to ensure equal pay for female coaches,” he said. “Instead, they’re fighting hypothetical problems about 14-year-old trans girls.”
A study that could one day lead to a potential HIV vaccine has shown promising results, scientists have said.
Researchers from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research say that a phase-one trial has shown “proof in principle” for a new type of vaccine that could be used against the virus.
An effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection has proved elusive for nearly four decades, not least because the virus constantly evolves into different strains to evade the immune system.
However, the trial found success in “stimulating production of rare immune cells needed to start the process of generating antibodies” that could neutralise diverse strains of HIV.
The trial succeeded in generating cell production in 97 per cent of participants, though researchers stressed it is only a first step.
Professor William Schief, executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center, said in a release: “This study demonstrates proof of principle for a new vaccine concept for HIV, a concept that could be applied to other pathogens, as well.
“With our many collaborators on the study team, we showed that vaccines can be designed to stimulate rare immune cells with specific properties, and this targeted stimulation can be very efficient in humans.
“We believe this approach will be key to making an HIV vaccine and possibly important for making vaccines against other pathogens.”
The researchers are now partnering with biotechnology company Moderna to develop and test an mRNA-based vaccine – the same radical approach employed in the creation of coronavirus vaccines.
An Arizona state representative is facing an ethics complaint after he compared transgender people to farm animals at a Wednesday committee hearing.
The hearing was for House Bill 2725, which would require state identification documents to contain only a male or female gender marker. The bill pre-emptively bans nonbinary people, who are neither exclusively male nor female, from using gender-neutral X markers on their IDs, even though Arizona law doesn’t currently permit that.
State Rep. John Fillmore, the bill’s sponsor, said during the hearing that he “proposed this bill just to give clarity in government documents and was hoping to avoid the whole gender identity issue on the gender dysphoria,” according to a video of the hearing.
“What’s going to happen when someday someone wakes up and they want to go to a far extreme and identify as a chicken or something, for crying out loud,” he added. “Where do we draw the line?”
Megan Mogan, who is the mom of a 15-year-old nonbinary child and testified against the bill Wednesday, said Fillmore’s comment was dehumanizing.
“I don’t think you have to be the parent of a nonbinary person, you can just be the parent of anyone, and if someone dehumanizes your child, it’s like one of the worst possible feelings you can have,” Mogan told NBC News on Friday.
She tweeted after the hearing, “Still shaking after an elected GOP state rep just compared my non-binary child to a barnyard animal.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=NBCNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1359599151525203970&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Ffeature%2Fnbc-out%2Farizona-legislator-compares-transgender-people-farm-animals-n1257763&siteScreenName=NBCNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=889aa01%3A1612811843556&width=550px
Riley Behrens, a Harvard University graduate student who was previously a Democratic campaign staffer in Arizona, called Fillmore’s “chicken” comment “disgusting.”
“We were all just in shock,” Behrens, who said he was texting some of the Democratic House members during the hearing, said. “It’s heartbreaking to be in a room and hear people talk about our community that way. … It’s not what we expect from an elected official and shouldn’t be tolerated.”
Behrens said he left the Capitol around 1 p.m. on Wednesday and returned with a notarized ethics complaint against Fillmore at 4:45 p.m.
“I wanted to make a statement,” Behrens said. “You’re not going to say this without some sort of repercussion or public statement back at you.”
Andrew Wilder, director of communications for the Arizona House’s Republican Majority Caucus, shared a statement Friday with NBC News on Fillmore’s behalf.
“The complaint is entirely without merit, and it’s rather unfortunate that some opponents of the bill have unfairly and grossly mischaracterized my comments at Wednesday’s hearing,” the statement read. “I invite people to listen to my actual remarks, which do not remotely match the distorted version critics have alleged.”
On Saturday morning, however, Fillmore emailed NBC News directly, calling the situation “silly and dangerous” and saying words “have consequences.”
“I believe this whole darn conversation is just childish silly,” he wrote. “When a person wants to change the meanings of words because of their ‘feelings’ how can a society have a reasonable discussion about anything if for instance they feel the word ‘blue’ is in fact ‘red’ to them, and then add the word ‘green’ to the color ‘yellow,’ now try to go have an intelligent conversation with an oil artistic painter.”
Behrens also filed a second complaint against Republican state Rep. Kevin Payne in which Behrens alleges Payne “continuously disrupted public testimony.” During Mogan’s testimony about her child, Behrens alleges Payne said, “So it doesn’t know who it is?”
“Referencing any person as ‘it,’ particularly a child, is discriminatory and cannot be tolerated,” Behrens’ complaint, which was shared with NBC News, stated. “By his actions, Representative Payne has engaged in conduct that compromises the character of himself, the integrity of the Arizona State House of Representatives, and shows a lack of respect for members of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Wilder told NBC News in an email, “Representative Payne has stated that he does not recall saying anything like what is alleged in the complaint, nor are such words by him heard in the committee hearing video – an important fact the complainant conceded Thursday to the Arizona Mirror.”
Behrens said Payne’s comment can’t be heard in the hearing video because they were made while Mogan was testifying, but Behrens said he heard them firsthand, as he was sitting about 10 feet away from Payne at the hearing.
Bridget Sharpe, the Arizona state director for the Human Rights Campaign, said she doesn’t think Fillmore “understands the gravity of what he said” or the effects the bill would have on nonbinary people.
“I truly don’t think he understands what this means for nonbinary Arizonans, because he doesn’t believe that, you know, nonbinary is a choice,” Sharpe said. “That’s very difficult to take in. I think that was very offensive. I was upset, mostly for the mothers that were in the Zoom room, and [Mogan] took the time to be vulnerable and testify, only to be met with that comment.”
Sharpe said she and some other advocates reached out to Fillmore’s office to offer him education on the impacts of his statement and the bill but that she hasn’t received a response.
HB 2725 is unnecessary, Sharpe said, because Arizona state law currently only permits people to use a male or female gender marker on their IDs. The bill “takes it a step further and writes it into statute, which is much harder to change down the line,” Sharpe said. “We believe this is cruel, because nonbinary folks should be given a chance at some point to be able to have that X gender marker on state documents including things like their driver’s licenses.”
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently offer nonbinary residents the option to use a gender-neutral “X” on IDs, in lieu of an “M” or “F,” according to Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.
Sharpe said Democratic state Sen. Rosanna Gabaldón has introduced a bill for the last few sessions that would allow nonbinary Arizonans to use an X marker on their IDs, but “so many times, bills like that do not even get hearings, essentially because Republicans feel it’s controversial,” Sharpe said.
Gabaldón introduced the measure, Senate Bill 1162, again in January, but it has not yet been given a hearing.
Mogan said a gender-neutral ID option would relieve her kid and others of “this constant threat of being outed, of being misgendered” in public settings, including those where they might be bullied or discriminated against.
“When you’re free from that constant level of anxiety, you can do other things like be a kid, or be happy,” she said.
Sharpe said she’s not sure whether HB 2725 will pass. It will go to the House Rules Committee next, and then it would move to the floor for discussion, which Sharpe said could happen as early as next week.
