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Democrats reintroduce Trans Bill of Rights as “a moral commitment” to trans people

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Democrats in both the House and Senate have reintroduced the Transgender Bill of Rights, calling on the federal government to “codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security.” The effort is being led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who is the parent of a transgender child. The pair also introduced the Trans Bill of Rights in 2023. “We are laying out a comprehensive vision to provide protections for transgender and nonbinary people — a vision that ensures that every single person has a chance […]

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This trans street medic was among 67 protesters arrested at Minneapolis hotel hosting ICE agents

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Police at the University of Minnesota arrested 67 protestors two weeks ago during a demonstration outside a hotel where ICE agents were staying, among them a street medic, a volunteer who is trained to assist protesters related to medical matters, who was there to “make sure that nobody got hurt.” Eli Purdy, 22, was one of the several dozen people charged with unlawful assembly for the rally at the Graduate Hotel in Minneapolis on January 29. He says that the protestors were making noise outside the hotel around midnight when “a cruiser came up, and I could not understand what he was saying through […]

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Kansas Gov Vetoes Anti-Trans Bathroom Bounty Bill

First, the backstory about the bill: Just last week, the Kansas legislature passed some of the most far-reaching measures to push trans and gender-nonconforming people out of public life to date. Bathroom bans that bar trans people from restrooms aligned with their gender identity have become grimly common; over 20 states have such a law on the books. But Kansas’s new anti-trans bathroom bill adds a dangerous twist: a bounty hunter provision. The law would permit private citizens to sue and seek monetary reward based on claiming to encounter a trans person in the bathroom. That’s on top of some of […]

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Black Americans are disproportionately criminalized for living with HIV. Here’s how

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Black people in the U.S. aren’t just more likely to have HIV — they’re more likely to be criminalized for it.  Black Americans accounted for about 38 percent of new HIV diagnoses and 39 percent of people living with HIV in 2023, according to a report from the Williams Institute, despite making up around 12 percent of the population. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Black women had the highest HIV diagnosis rate at 19.6 per 100,000, which is about 11 times the rate for white women at […]

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New York jury finds psychologist and surgeon didn’t follow best practices in gender-affirming care case

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For the first time, a jury has ruled that a medical professionals who approved and performed gender-affirming surgery on a minor committed medical malpractice. The verdict came in a suit filed by Fox Varian, now 22, of Yorktown Heights, New York. At age 16, while identifying as a transgender male, Varian underwent a double mastectomy. Varian now regrets the surgery and identifies as female. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. She filed suit in 2023, saying her health care providers, psychologist Kenneth Einhorn and surgeon Simon […]

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These 4 promising breakthroughs are bringing HIV researchers closer to a cure

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Nearly 45 years after the first HIV diagnosis, science is closer than ever to a cure for the virus that causes AIDS — but we’re not there yet, researchers say. While perhaps a dozen people worldwide have been declared free of the virus, those results haven’t been replicated widely, and treatments for some involve continuing therapies or procedures, like stem cell and bone marrow transplants, that aren’t feasible for widespread use. So far, there is no “magic bullet” to cure HIV for good. But scientists are making rapid progress on several fronts and say a cure is within reach. Here’s a […]

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Florida restores funding for 16,000 people’s HIV medication — for now

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The Florida Department of Health is reversing its funding cuts to a program that provides HIV medication for low-income individuals, but only until they can do it legally.  The department published a notice Tuesday backtracking its decision to gut the AIDS Drug Assistance Program after supposedly failing to find $120 million in the state budget to cover it. Instead, the state will attempt to go through the formal rule-making process in order to make the cuts after a lawsuit from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation accused officials of violating the law.  Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The […]

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The president wants to turn back the clock on HIV. We refuse to idly stand by.

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I’ve never taken comfort in the phrase, “HIV isn’t a death sentence anymore.” Yes, the phrase is meant to honor the hard-won victories achieved by HIV activists so that current generations of newly HIV-positive people could live long and fulfilling lives without fear, but the slogan is only as true if we have access to medication and social services. The truth is that 4,496 U.S. residents died of HIV-related illnesses in 2023. Of them, 24% were women, 30% were over 55 years old, 43% were Black, and 56% lived in the South, where homophobia, lack of sex education, and poverty run rampant. […]

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Health insurance costs are up. Women and LGBTQ+ people are paying the price

Their health care premiums have skyrocketed. And now, women and LGBTQ+ people across the country are scrambling.  Some are pushing off paying for retirement, or dipping into their savings. Some are looking for extra work to afford plans that they aren’t sure will actually cover their health care bills. And some are planning to go without insurance, hoping they won’t get too sick to manage medical expenses on their own. The chaos and uncertainty are the result of a monthslong impasse, after Congress let subsidies lapse that would keep down the price of health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s […]

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Half of U.S. trans teens live in a state that restricts their rights: study

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More than half of U.S. transgender youth aged 13-17 live in a state with at least one law restricting their rights, according to a new study from the Williams Institute, a research organization at the University of California, Los Angeles,School of Law. The study, titled “The Impact of 2025 Anti-Transgender Legislation on Youth,” looks at laws enacted in 2025 and previously. An estimated 724,000 Americans in this age group identify as transgender, the institute notes. Of these, 382,800, 53 percent, live in one of the 29 states that has enacted one or more laws banning access to gender-affirming care, participation in sports, use of bathrooms and other sex-separated facilities, or gender […]

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