Cambridge University’s women-only college is reportedly continuing to welcome trans women, despite the UK Supreme Court ruling on gender.
Newnham College, founded in 1871 and which counts broadcaster Clare Balding, novelist Iris Murdoch and actress Miriam Margolyes among its alumni, is believed to have created a new policy document that allows trans students to access single-sex spaces and facilities.
The decision, reported by MailOnline, comes little more than six months after a decision was handed down in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers, which deemed the definition of “sex” for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act meant biological sex only.
In the wake of the decision, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published interim guidance which recommended organisations, businesses and service providers ban trans men and women from single-sex services and spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, which aligned with their gender. It also added in “some circumstances” from trans people could be barred from spaces based on “biological sex” too.
The EHRC later clarified that the “circumstances” referred to situations where “reasonable objection” could be taken to a trans person’s presence, such as in female spaces, when “the gender reassignment process has given [a trans man] a masculine appearance or attributes”.
Newnham College is reportedly flying in the face of the Supreme Court ruling. (Canva)
Criticising the college’s decision, postgraduate Maeve Halligan, who founded gender-critical student group the Society of Women, told the Mail: “The category of woman is being totally usurped, hijacked and attacked. Sexism is written into the history of Cambridge University and now it’s come back in disguise.
“This historic college has some of the most famous alumni, such as Germaine Greer. I can only imagine what she would think if she saw [the] new admissions policy.”
In a letter to students, seen by MailOnline, college principal Alison Rose said the policy had been “cleared by lawyers” and meant Newnham would remain inclusive.
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“We are open to all female applicants”
“We are a women-only college, under the provisions of Schedule 12 of the Equality Act 2010 and our charter and statutes,” Rose wrote.
“We are open to all female applicants [and] will consider at the admissions stage those applicants who hold a form of formal identification as female, on a current passport, driving licence, birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.”
Gender-critical campaigner Maya Forstater said Newnham “should have been urgently reconsidering its policy to bring it back into line with the law”, following the Supreme Court’s decision. “Instead it has been looking around for loopholes. This is fruitless and foolish.”
Roz Keith found out her son was transgender on his terms.
The suburban mom was asking about haircuts, and Hunter, just shy of 14 at the time, texted her some photos. “He started texting me pictures of boys with short haircuts. And I said, ‘Oh, these are very masculine. And Hunter said, ‘Uh huh,’ and walked out of the room.”
It was typical teenage behavior, but the conversation that followed was life-changing, Keith said.
“I went upstairs, knocked on his door, and said, ‘What’s going on?’ And that’s when he told me. He said, ‘I’m a boy. I’m transgender.’ That was how he came out to me.”
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Keith was caught off guard on multiple fronts. “All the little things from the time he was super little then became the hammer over the head.” She thought about Hunter playing with boy dolls, preferring time with boys to girls, choosing Narnia’s Prince Caspian over all the Disney princess costumes.
“I saw this one male avatar in a game, this buff, masculine character that he had created, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s a guy.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ You know, no explanation. So, all along, I just kept saying ‘Okay,’ too.”
Keith wasn’t a helicopter parent. “We really encouraged our kids to be independent,” she said, “and we wanted them to be happy and successful and productive, whatever that meant for them.” But she also said a transgender child “just wasn’t in my consideration set.”
“In my world, I didn’t have a friend who had a trans child. We didn’t have any adult in our community who was trans or in the process of coming out or identified in any way remotely that way. So it was really a foreign concept from that perspective.”
While those conversations weren’t happening in Keith’s world, they certainly were in her precocious online teenager’s.
“He figured it out because he was watching YouTube, and he saw a trans person on this show talking about their coming out. And that was his light bulb moment. And he said, ‘Oh my God, that’s me.’”
Hunter spent a long time contemplating his revelation and researching what to do about it before he shared anything with his family.
“He’d been researching for two years,” Keith recalled. “He had a checklist of everything he wanted to do.”
With Hunter’s declaration, his state of mind came into focus for his mom.
“Based on things he shared when he was younger, he felt different, and he didn’t know why he felt different, and he didn’t have language to explain it,” Keith realized. “And it created a lot of struggle and conflict, and, I think, anger for him.”
“He said, you know, ‘I just felt like the weird kid.’”
Keith decided to close that gap – for her son and for others.
In 2015, she founded Stand with Trans, a support network devoted to trans kids and their parents and caregivers. The nonprofit provides transgender and nonbinary youth with life-saving programs like mental health services, peer support groups, educational resources, and, most importantly, Keith says, “validation and empowerment.”
Stand With Trans also provides critical support to parents or guardians of trans youth. Its Ally Parents program allows loved ones to text, call, or email other parents of trans youth for connection and advice.
Letting go
“Parents can have a hard time when their child comes out and wants to transition to a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth,” Keith said.
“They struggle to let go of the child they thought they had and the dreams that they had, right? If a child was assigned female at birth, a parent might say, ‘I just imagined her walking down the aisle in the white dress,’ you know? And they grieve this child as if the child has died.”
“I never took that approach,” Keith said, “because I knew that my child was very much alive and that it was my job to make sure that he stayed that way. You know, it was my job to make sure that he was mentally well and that he got what he needed so he could thrive.”
For Hunter and his family, checking off those steps to transition wouldn’t come easily.
“There were no pediatric gender clinics who were seeing trans youth covered by our insurance. There were no therapists who we could find who were trained to see trans adolescents. There were no support groups. There were no parent groups. There was nothing for youth. Like, literally every phone call was a brick wall,” Keith said.
But Hunter wasn’t waiting on the details. He decided to come out on Facebook.
“My daughter came to me and said, ‘Did you see what Hunter posted?’ And I said, ‘No.’”
While Keith and her husband had talked to a few close friends about Hunter, the family hadn’t been sharing much “because it wasn’t our story to share — that was up to him.”
With Hunter’s announcement, “It was like the floodgates had opened,” Keith said.
The family agreed to tell their story.
They began speaking publicly about their experience. “And there was just like this swell of relief, I guess, and joy from families in the community who had been trying to manage this process with their kiddo and had no one to talk to. There was really nobody — medically, psychologically emotionally — just literally no one was there.”
“Families like mine, trans adults, multi-generational families, like, every member of the community were reaching out and saying, ‘Oh, my God, I could have uttered those words. Your son reminds me of my son.’”
Hunter’s story had inspired an outpouring of empathy and recognition, but the story he shared online didn’t address his lingering sense of isolation.
“Even my son said, ‘I don’t know anyone like me.’ And so as we started to meet families,” Keith said.
Stand With Trans founder Roz Keith | Stand With Trans
“I was literally arranging play dates for my 14-15-year-old. Like, I was inviting kids to come over and just hang out, and — fly on the wall — they talked about stupid stuff, like, ‘Oh, don’t you hate getting socks for Christmas presents?’ And it showed these kids that being trans didn’t mean that you weren’t like other kids. You know, you were just another teen.”
Those interactions became the heart of the mission that guides Stand with Trans today.
The rise of parents’ rights
The founding of Stand With Trans accompanied a rising awareness of gender diversity in the 2010s, but with that also came a conservative backlash wrought with anti-trans animus.
Before Hunter came out, “Nobody was talking about bathroom bills and trans girls in sports. Those conversations weren’t happening,” Keith said.
Since then, trans kids like Hunter have been buried under an avalanche of discriminatory legislation, from gender-affirming care bans to a trans-erasing, book-banning frenzy organized by groups like Moms for Liberty to an online hate campaign led by accounts like Libs of TikTok.
Adding fuel to the fire: the president’s obsession with “gender ideology” and his “us” vs “them” politics of division.
The right has hawked its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda under the same, one-sided banner: parents’ rights.
Keith said the phrase is self-serving.
“I don’t think that any government should be allowed to say what my child has or doesn’t have access to, because I’m the parent. They’re not in my home parenting my child, so they don’t know what they’re going through. How do you make that global statement?” she asked.
“It is up to me to make a decision about my child’s medical care,” Keith said. “And as far as my child goes, if he was denied the opportunity to go on testosterone and not medically transition, I think our conversation would be very different.”
Keith points to a perversion of theology as one basis of the far-right’s anti-trans animus.
“I’m not Christian. I was raised Jewish. But my understanding from my friends who are Christian and very affirming and very accepting, their response is, ‘The Jesus I know would open the door for everyone, and would welcome everyone to the table.’ There’s really a disconnect between saying you’re a Christian and then not being open to accepting people as they are, as they show up.”
“Far be it for me to tell anyone what they should believe,” Keith added, “but you don’t get to bring it into my home and tell me how to care for my child, because those aren’t my beliefs. That’s not what I understand, right? It’s a secular society.”
“Your belief system should not infringe on my rights.”
Seeing around the corner
Stand with Trans was born to help protect trans kids from the attacks by providing love, knowledge and support — and power over their own lives.
“Our mission is so simple,” Keith said. “It’s empowering and supporting trans youth and their loved ones. So that’s it. We know that if we educate and support the caregivers, the loved ones, the parents, that the young people are going to do better, and if we find ways to make life better and easier for them, they’re not only going to survive, but they’re going to thrive.
“I know with my own kid, they couldn’t see themselves having a future. I think it’s hard enough for young people who don’t see around the corners, right? It’s hard to even imagine, like, ‘What do I want to be when I grow up.’ But for trans kids, it’s even harder.
“So it’s really important for us to show these young people that they can do whatever they want to do,” Keith said.
“Being trans is one part of their identity. It doesn’t define who they are.”
Stories of anti-trans vitriol dominate the media, which makes it easy to forget just how many folks out there give endless love and support to the trans people in their lives.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of parents across the country fight with all their might to provide their trans kids with love, hope, and a community of support. They fight to shield their kids from pain and to make them feel proud of who they are.
The November Issue of LGBTQ Nation celebrates the incredible parents uplifting their trans children at one of the most challenging times in history for the community. It highlights the passionate, furious, and exhausting behind-the-scenes work these unsung heroes do to give their kids the lives they deserve.
LGBTQ Nation asked these parents a simple question: What do you wish the world knew or understood about your trans child? We received dozens of responses, and will publish some of our favorites every Friday this month (you can also still submit).
In every single message, one thing became clear: These parents want nothing more than for the world to see the humanity in their kids, to see past the pronouns and body parts and understand that they are so much more than their genders.
Here is what 10 of these parents, who we have allowed to remain anonymous, had to say.
He is going to be a veterinarian
“I wish the world knew that my trans kid is just like everyone else. He’s funny, he’s kind, he loves his family and his family loves him. He is going to be a veterinarian when he finishes school and he’s a great student with life goals. He needs the world to see him as the generous young man he is because he is not a sin. He is the greatest gift and we are lucky to have him.“
She’s a loving big sister
“While people on the news are shouting about how trans girls are a threat to women everywhere, my willowy, soft-spoken daughter is here finishing up high school, making plans to study marine biology. She is kind, witty, wise beyond her years, passionate about the environment and human rights, and such a loving big sister. Our trans daughters are our hope for the future, not a threat to it.“
| Shutterstock
They still give the same smiles
“They are still my kids, the same smiles, the same giggles, the same dreams for their future. No one plans on having two trans children. It’s the same way one plans on having a child prodigy in piano or a math genius. A parent adapts to the needs challenges and individuality of their children. Full stop. If you don’t have a math genius, you may not understand the decisions the parents of a math genius would make. You don’t know. Don’t judge.“
He makes a mean candle
“I wish the world understood that his gender identity is the least interesting thing about him. He is intelligent, snarky, funny, loving, kind, generous, resilient, and so much more. He loves cooking, reading, fantasy sports, and, just like any other teen, hanging out with his friends. He speaks Mandarin, rolls sushi, and makes a mean candle.“
He is a community-builder
“He is funny, smart, brave, and caring. He is a community-builder, an activist, a listener, and a friend. He truly puts his whole heart into making the world a better place for everyone!“
| Shutterstock
It’s all for them
“The most important thing I learned was that it wasn’t about me.”
Loving them is easy
“I wish the world knew how hard it was for my child to tell me that they felt different inside and they were scared I wouldn’t love them anymore. I wish the world knew that in that moment, I had never loved them more.”
She can sing
“She is incredibly talented. She can sing and play guitar. She is kind, witty, a brilliant mind and has so much empathy for others. She is just like any teenage girl. That’s the part that’s most important. She’s just trying to get by and find her place in the world like everyone else. Being trans is only a small fraction of who she is.“
| Shutterstock
She loves harder than anyone
“I wish people knew that she is wildly brilliant. She loves Taylor Swift, unicorns, mac and cheese and flared leggings. She hates brushing her hair and when her socks don’t feel just right. Her favorite days are the days she’s building legos, watching Spidey and his Amazing Friends or playing on the trampoline with her friends. She loves harder than anyone I’ve ever met and is filled with so much silliness and joy. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I am so proud to be her mom.“
She leads & we follow
“That she is only ever been herself. She leads and we follow. She’s not a trans kid, she’s a dancer, a lego master, a reader, an archer, a harpest, a mentor for english readers, a keen gardener. She’s a big sister, a little niece, a best friend, a granddaughter, my eldest child. She’s sensitive, funny, messy, clever, acrobatic, curious. She’s not a trans kid. She’s a kid, who happens to be trans.“
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Molly Sprayregen is the Deputy Editor of LGBTQ Nation and has been reporting on queer stories for almost a decade. She has written for Them, Out, Forbes, Into, Huffington Post, and others. She has a BA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Northwestern University.
The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group, received the green light to teach medical professionals through Washington State University’s continuing medical education (CME) program — meaning medical providers may now use SEGM courses to fulfill requirements to maintain their licensure.
Critics argue the move by WSU gives the appearance of legitimacy to a group with opaque funding and a disturbing proximity to far-right, Christian fundamentalist forces. It also means well-meaning providers who want to enhance their practice with trans-competent care may be misdirected to SEGM propaganda instead of evidence-based best practices. Most damning, critics say, is that listing SEGM as a CME option lends undue legitimacy to a dangerous cell of what the Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed an anti-trans pseudoscience network.
“They’re an issue group that has a position on transgender health care,” said Evan Urquhart, a science journalist and founder of Assigned Media. “Whatever they do serves that particular agenda. It’s not about an openness to evidence in the spirit of scientific exploration; they advocate against gender-affirming care, using misinformation.”
The CME series, which is available for free viewing online, appears to be composed of lectures and panels from SEGM’s October 2023 conference. It is marketed to a wide range of medical providers, from psychologists and physicians to dietitians, dentists, and pharmacists.
To the untrained eye, the content may seem innocuous — one lecture claims to examine the role of psychotherapy in treating gender dysphoria. Another one reviews international literature on trans issues. But coming from SEGM, they take on a more sinister role. Conversion therapy tactics and restrictive, debunked screeds against trans people’s medical self-determination (such as the United Kingdom’s Cass Review) are being presented as sound science. And while scientific debate is always an important step in improving medicine, the program is full of red flags that betray a political, as opposed to academic, agenda.
In fact, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, who is regarded as the “godfather” of evidence-based medicine for his part in pioneering evidentiary metrics, spoke at that 2023 conference. Despite arguably being the most high-profile academic in the room, however, his presentation didn’t make it into the CME course.
Earlier this year, Guyatt co-published a letter lambasting SEGM for its anti-trans and anti-science views and practices, as outlined in a recent Mother Jones investigation into the group. Guyatt said he hadn’t known about SEGM’s sordid past when he accepted the invitation, and he has since rebuked it for its ideological and unacademic practices, calling SEGM “an unconscionable use of our work to deny people gender-affirming care.”
Meanwhile, the CME prominently features a panel moderated by Jamie Reed, a disgraced anti-trans activist who made unsubstantiated if not flat-out false accusations against her former employers at a Missouri gender clinic, where she was a caseworker. She has since spent her time traveling around the country touting “falsified” data and pushing conspiracy theories about how transitioning makes one more likely to commit acts of political terror and violence.
SEGM has publicly refuted its designation as a hate group and rejected the idea that it peddles misinformation. The group often uses its proximity to outliers in the trans community — like Dr. Erica Anderson, who also spoke at the conference — as a shield against accusations of transphobia or ideological motivations.
“SEGM as an organization has taken great care to avoid wading into political debates, seeking only to enable evidence-based decision-making about care for gender-dysphoric youth, without prescribing specific policy solutions,” a Sept. 25 press release from the group reads. “We reject the politicization of questioning how best to care for gender-dysphoric youth.”
However, the group’s leaders and its very foundation are steeped in anti-trans political advocacy. Before the incorporation papers were even finalized, co-founder Dr. Stephen Beck was using the SEGM moniker to advocate for Trumpian policies that effectively write trans Americans out of existence. In 2020, SEGM board member Dr. William Malone testified in support of an Idaho bill that would have made it a felony crime to prescribe hormone blockers to trans minors, while leaving cisgender youth access to that same care intact. The organization has also filed a 2021 amicus brief in Arizona arguing against state health insurance coverage for chest surgery for transgender boys, plus a 2024 anti-trans amicus brief during the Skrmettiproceedings. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
A spokesperson for WSU, Pam Scott, told Erin in the Morning that the inclusion of SEGM in their CME offerings does not represent an endorsement of the espoused views.
“For the situation in question, the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine acted as an accreditor, through its Continuing Medical Education (CME) program,” Scott said via email, noting WSU did not create the courses nor compensate SEGM or any of its “faculty” speakers for the program.
But when the university acts as an accreditor, it is expected to adhere to standards set by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).
“Accreditation indicates that the courses met ACCME’s requirements for scientific balance and educational integrity,” Scott said.
When Erin in the Morning asked about the use of content from a hate group in a CME course, ACCME president Dr. Graham McMahon said the matter may warrant further scrutiny.
“The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) is committed to ensuring that all accredited CME activities are valid, evidence-based, and free of commercial or other biases,” McMahon said via email. “While we are not in a position to comment publicly on an activity that we have not (yet) reviewed or audited for compliance, the description you provided raises questions that appear appropriate for an inquiry. We welcome a formal submission through our confidential complaint process.”
Meanwhile, Dr. M.A. Miller, an assistant professor of gender, race, and health at WSU who researches the intersections of gender, race, and health, told Erin in the Morning that SEGM’s affiliation with the medical school has alarmed some LGBTQ+ community members at the university.
Miller was cautious to reaffirm the importance of academic freedom in this political moment. “We’re in this pretty intense battleground space of embracing freedom of speech, even if it’s speech that we don’t like,” they said. State repression under the Trump regime has led to a flood of anti-trans academic attacks, such as the Texas professor fired for teaching college students about nonbinary people, the Florida teacher ousted for using a trans teen’s preferred name, the countless faculty members branded “groomers” or “pedophiles” for acknowledging the biological reality of sexual and gender diversity, or the student works being censored for featuring queer art.
But Miller felt lending WSU’s official accrediting capacity to platform proponents of debunked ideas — like “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” a quack theorypainting transness as a social contagion, or “exploratory therapy,” which has been called rebranded conversion therapy — goes beyond the spirit of diverse thought and debate.
“It’s another thing entirely to suggest that medical providers can be credentialed in something that has already been unanimously understood as not only pseudoscientific, but also deeply, deeply dangerous to already vulnerable populations,” Miller said.
In July 2022, when I was 18, I was forced to come out as transgender.
I remember the car ride through Oregon, back from the DMV, where my state ID had my deadname and the wrong gender marker on it. My mom started interrogating me when I mentioned offhandedly that I didn’t want to have kids.
“Are you gay? Bi?” she pressed me.
I shook my head no.
“No? Well, then what the hell are you?”
My mom kept questioning me until I told her I was trans. I didn’t want to come out to her. I knew her beliefs as an ex-Catholic, and I had already heard her misgendering her trans coworker and had even found a transphobic book, “Irreversible Damage,” on the kitchen counter.
She dismissed me. She told me it was a phase. When I started using my chosen name publicly, she told me she would never call me by it. Even now, after two years on hormones and my dual top surgery and hysterectomy in September, I’m still saved in her phone as my deadname and she doesn’t use my pronouns.
Since then, life has been hard. I moved out of my mom’s house to a suburb of Portland. I needed space to exist without constant tension.
On top of the familial estrangement, maintaining work has been tough. For a while, I had a seasonal job at a local grocery store, something stable enough to cover rent and bills but not a long-term contract. I worked hard, often taking extra shifts and covering for others, hoping to be kept on. But on Christmas Eve of last year, I got the call that my contract wouldn’t be renewed. It wasn’t about performance, they said, the store just “didn’t have room in the budget” to keep the seasonal hires. It felt like the ground had fallen out from under me.
I needed help, so I applied for SNAP in February and started receiving it the following month.
I am part of the 42 million Americans and the nearly 2.1 million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. who rely on SNAP, the federal safety net that helps low-income Americans like me afford the food they need to stay healthy and independent. I’m also one of the 10% of younger recipients with a physical or neurological disability, and one of the nearly 3 million 18‑24 year olds who need it to afford food.
When I was on it, SNAP helped me breathe a bit easier.
But all of that changed on Oct. 30, when I got the notification on my phone: “SNAP benefits are paused starting Nov. 1 because the federal government is closed.”
Screenshot of Barton’s phone notification. Courtesy of Barton.
With the holidays approaching and the weather getting colder, this feels like the worst time to lose my stability. Since the Oct. 30 notification, whether I am going to receive these benefits is still so unclear. Earlier this week, Trump said half of the benefits would be issued. Then, early on Friday, it was reported that we would get them after a federal judge ordered the administration to issue full payments immediately.
While I did get my benefits on Nov 7, I saw headlines later that evening saying that the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal by the Trump administration to temporarily block the court order for full SNAP funding during the shutdown. So does this mean I’ll lose the benefits next month?
The past few weeks have been so stressful, uncertain and confusing. It feels like the government is playing chess with my ability to afford food.
Before I got my benefits, I had $77 from picking up bottles from gas stations and recycling containers that weren’t too sticky to clean. I have a tally on the notes app on my phone of how many I collect, but it was not enough for the food I need.
Barton as a young adult. Photo courtesy of Barton.
As an autistic person living in a residency with rotating caregivers, I’m grateful that some of them help with bulk trips to Costco. But they can’t cover everything. My independence, my physical and mental health and my ability to live safely in my own body all suddenly felt more fragile than ever before.
Every month without those benefits means $187 less for me to spend on groceries. It means giving up my favorite protein bars and starting to buy in bulk to save money.
I thought about reaching out to my parents for help, but I suspected they will use their financial assistance to reopen the conversation about my trans identity, which they could use as a form of debt if I decide to sever ties with them.
For me, SNAP benefits are more than being able to afford food. They allow me to buy meals that keep me healthy and don’t trigger my eating disorder. I’ve struggled with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder from a very young age, which makes it hard to eat anything unfamiliar or unsafe.
Without receiving SNAP, I wouldn’t be able to buy the foods that help me live. Just $187 a month may not sound like much, but for LGBTQ young adults like myself—many of whom are estranged from family members and/or living with disabilities—it is a key element to our survival.
For the millions of people on benefits, the uncertainty the Trump Administration has brought us is the last thing we need. For the hungry children, for the parents struggling to put food on the table, and for those like me who are searching tirelessly for a job and working hard, we need clear and consistent support. Not a chaotic and confusing back and forth.
I’m not lazy, I’m not doing this for my own benefit, nor to cheat the system. Being an autistic, transgender and low-income young adult means navigating a triple whammy.
This week, I was terrified of what the uncertainty meant. Is the eating disorder that I’ve lived with since early childhood going to get worse again now that I have to go to food banks to get meals that I may not be comfortable eating? Will I have benefits over the holidays? What will Trump do next?
Photo of Asherah Barton 2025. Courtesy of Barton.
For those reading this who don’t have to think about where their next meal will come from and when, I would like you to know that these funding cuts are not merely abstract numbers. For myself, for other young LGBTQ adults, and for disabled people of any age, they are empty fridges. They are anxious thoughts before every meal. They are fears of what will come next. November is now here, and I feel more scared. I am worried not just for myself, but for the millions of LGBTQ and disabled people like me who rely on this lifeline to eat and survive in a world that often feels unsafe.
Uncloseted Media reached out to Asherah’s mom for comment but she did not respond.
Sam Donndelinger assisted with the writing and reporting in this story.
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Seventeen longtime transgender members of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the Department of the Air Force unlawfully revoked their approved retirement orders in violation of federal law.
Filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., the 19-page complaint, brought by attorneys from GLAD Law, the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, pro-bono counsel from Stapleton Segal Cochran LLC, and the Law Office of Jeremy Spiegel, argues that the administration’s actions stripped the plaintiffs of retirement benefits they had already earned after years of honorable service. Each of the plaintiffs has between 15 and 18 years of active-duty experience.
According to the complaint, the Air Force issued all 17 retirement orders in June 2025 “by order of the Secretary of the Air Force.” Those orders were based on the Temporary Early Retirement Authority, known as TERA, which allows members with at least 15 years of service to retire early under certain conditions. The lawsuit states that the orders were valid and binding, and that the Air Force’s own rules permit revocation only in narrow circumstances—such as fraud, mathematical error, or newly discovered evidence—none of which applied in this case.
The suit names as plaintiffs service members from both the Air Force and Space Force, including Master Sgt. Logan Ireland, Lt. Col. Ashley Davis, and Technical Sgt. Alyxandra Anguiano. All were granted retirement dates effective later this year, but in August, those orders were rescinded after the Trump administration’s transgender military ban went into effect.
The complaint cites a chain of executive and departmental directives that led to the reversal. In January, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14183, titled “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which instructed the Department of Defense to “take the steps necessary to exclude transgender people from the military.” The Pentagon then issued guidance in February implementing the order across all service branches.
In May, the Air Force’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Gwen DeFilippi, issued a memo stating that transgender Air and Space Force members with 15 to 18 years of service could apply for TERA as an “exception to policy.” The Air Force approved the plaintiffs’ retirements shortly afterward.
But in August, after DeFilippi was replaced by Brian L. Scarlett, the Air Force abruptly rescinded every one of those retirements. Scarlett issued a memo titled “Exception to Policy (ETP) for Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA) Decision,” disapproving all pending TERA requests for service members with fewer than 20 years of service. He stated that those members would instead be eligible for voluntary separation pay at “twice the amount of involuntary separation pay,” but not for retirement pay or benefits.
The complaint argues that this reversal violated the Air Force’s own instruction, which explicitly limits when retirement orders may be canceled. The plaintiffs contend that their rescinded orders remain valid and that they are entitled to full retirement benefits under federal law, which mandates pay for members retired under the appropriate sections of military law.
Ireland, who said he has deployed multiple times, including to Afghanistan, told The Advocate on Monday that he hopes the lawsuit compels the military to honor the sacrifices of transgender service members. “I’ve done what my service and my country asked of me,” he said. “My gender should have no bearing on what retirement benefits I’m afforded. Full stop.”
In his interview, Ireland described the human toll of that decision. Since the Air Force rescinded his orders, he said, he’s been “in this sort of purgatory limbo.” Without a set retirement date, he cannot finalize employment or relocation plans. “We don’t know where we’re going to live. Employment is very hard to land because I don’t have a retirement date anymore,” he said
He added that after years of honorable service, he still believes in the institution that has now turned against him. “The military has made me who I am. It has made me a better person,” he told The Advocate. “All that I wish is for the military to see that and to honor that same sacrifice that I’ve given.”
The lawsuit seeks reinstatement of the original retirement orders, restoration of retirement status and associated benefits, and compensation for lost pay. It also asks the court to order corrections to the plaintiffs’ military records to reflect their rightful retirement status.
“If we’re disposable like this, everybody is,” Anguiano told The Advocate in August. “This isn’t just a fight for us. It’s a threat to every person who has served or is currently serving.”
The case—Ireland et al. v. United States—comes amid ongoing litigation over the administration’s broader transgender military ban, including Talbott v. United States in Washington, D.C., and Shilling v. United States in Washington state, in which many of the same legal organizations represent plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the policy.
“I wish that I could meet the Secretary of Defense,” Ireland said. “I wish I could meet someone from the administration, so they could see me as I truly am, as a service member. Gender aside, I’m a service member and I’ve sacrificed for this uniform.”
As Christian nationalism seeks to fuse church and state, we’re here to celebrate queer clergy who are proving that faith and freedom don’t have to be opposites. They embody a radically inclusive Christianity, one that loves beyond borders, votes beyond pulpits, and worships without fear.
Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush
When a gay Baptist minister becomes one of the nation’s loudest voices against Christian nationalism, it’s worth listening. In one penned essay, Brandeis Raushenbush opined that the current administration is weaponizing religion and urged people not to “allow Trump and his Christian nationalist backers to claim the mantle of ‘religious liberty’ or define the role of belief in public life.” He’s living proof that the faithful can be fierce defenders of democracy.
Rev. Brandan Robertson
Part theologian, part influencer, Robertson uses social media to spread a radical message: God’s love isn’t a limited-edition export of the American right. The 2025 Out100 honoree dismantles Christian nationalism one post at a time, all while reminding his followers that queerness and holiness coexist beautifully.
Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward
In her book, The Seven Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism, this pioneering lesbian Episcopal priest doesn’t mince words. She calls it what it is and calls on Christians to embrace love rather than hate. Heyward has spent decades teaching that loving one’s neighbor doesn’t stop at the nation’s border or the church door.
Bishop Yvette A. Flunder
From the Black church to the Bay Area, Bishop Flunder preaches liberation. As founder of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, she joined several other faith leaders in 2024 to issue a call to reject Christian nationalism. Her gospel centers the margins and reclaims the church as a house of radical love.
Bishop Deon K. Johnson
When the Episcopal bishop of Missouri says faith belongs to everyone, it echoes like scripture. A gay, Black immigrant, Johnson has spoken openly against symbols of Christian nationalism in his diocese, calling it “a distortion of the Gospel that fosters division, exclusion, and systemic oppression.” Preach it!
Bishop Bonnie A. Perry
Serving Michigan’s Episcopal Diocese, Perry issued guidance warning clergy about Christian nationalism’s creeping presence in sanctuaries. Her message is clear: Jesus was not and will never be a Christian nationalist.
Bishop Gene Robinson
Nearly two decades after making history as the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Robinson is still challenging the faithful to confront bigotry. “God has a dream for us, I believe, as a people,” he said during a 2022 sermon. “And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include white Christian nationalism.”
Rev. Winnie Varghese
Recently appointed Dean of New York City’s Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the Episcopal cleric is an out-and-proud queer woman of Indian descent. She doesn’t shy away from calling out Christian nationalism as “weaponizing of the name of a religion.”
Rev. Broderick Greer
This gay Episcopal theologian calls out “white Christian identity” as the idol it is. His writings and sermons expose how faith turned imperial serves neither God nor justice, and does it with the eloquence of a modern prophet. In one piece, he began it quite simply by saying white communities and groups must “conjure the courage to show up and dismantle their various scaffoldings of dominance” to make “a more just world to begin to be realized.” Can we get an amen?!
Rev. Alba Onofrio
Earlier this year, Rev. Onofrio joined trans and queer faith leaders & activists in a bid to empower LGBTQ+ Christians to use faith for social justice, including in the ongoing fight for trans rights. Onofrio calls out “white Christian supremacy” in sermons that sound like exorcisms for empire. Their mission: sabotage systems of spiritual abuse before they sabotage democracy.
Rev. Benjamin Perry
Rev. Benjamin Perry fuses activism with liturgy, calling for compassion amid rising Christian nationalism.
Rev. Jes Kast
A queer United Church of Christ pastor, Kast warns that white Christian nationalism endangers both faith and freedom. After a recent trip to Germany where she met with pastors on how to counteract the threat of the growing movement, she reflected on how “Jesus loves all of us very much” on Instagram, with a famed photo of Marsha P. Johnson captioned with “Explaining to people I love Jesus in a Marsha P. Johnson way and not a MAGA Christian Nationalist Way.”
Rev. Joseph W. Tolton
As a gay bishop in The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, Tolton connects the dots between conservative Christians and attacks on the marginalized. His sermons and writings link liberation in America to liberation abroad, reminding us that empire has never been God’s plan.
Rev. Micah Bucey
At Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Rev. Bucey’s sermons blend scripture, satire, and social justice. A queer minister in a legendary activist congregation, they’ve turned art and protest vigils into liturgy against Christian nationalism’s joyless gospel.
Honorable Mention: Bishop Mariann Budde
Many of the above queer clerics denounced Christian nationalism through sermons, words, or speaking at protests. For queer ally Rev. Budde, she did something even greater: talked with compassion against Christian nationalism in front of the conservative movement’s presumed champion, President Donald Trump. In a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral’s inauguration worship service, Budde reminded Trump to show compassion to the marginalized, regardless of political affiliation.
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger,” Budde expressed, “for we all once were strangers in this land.” Trump and other conservative pundits disparaged her in the hours, days, and weeks following. But Budde remained calm and resolute, continuing to shepherd her flock in teaching tolerance and respect.
Christian nationalism preaches fear disguised as faith. These clergy preach the opposite: that the gospel is an open door, not a border wall. If the movement to save democracy needs a choir, these 20 queer clerics are already singing in the key of liberation.
A more severe strain of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has quietly appeared in California, and for the first time, the infections weren’t brought here by travelers. For the nation’s LGBTQ+ communities, the news is unsettling not only because of what it says about the virus, but also because of what it reveals about a public health system in crisis. The strain began to spread in the spring of 2024 in people who had traveled outside the United States.
In an interview with The Advocate, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and the Bidenadministration’s White House deputy coordinator for the national mpox response and now principal at Dr. Demetre Consulting, said the development marks an inflection point.
He explained that this is the first time in the U.S. that Clade I has been identified in three people without a travel nexus. “That means somewhere there’s been local transmission of a virus that we know can transmit and has a pretty good profile for being contagious,” Daskalakis said.
All three patients, two in Los Angeles and one in Long Beach, were hospitalized. None were vaccinated. The cases appear unrelated, though their viral samples are genetically linked. “It’s a signal that somewhere, this virus is moving among us,” Daskalakis said.
What is the new mpox strain?
Clade I, the version of mpox now circulating in Southern California, is not new to science. It’s been responsible for severe outbreaks in Central and Eastern Africa and has a higher rate of complications than the Clade II strain that spread globally in 2022.
“It’s not necessarily more infectious,” Daskalakis explained, “but it’s more severe. That’s what worries people. The same communities who were most at risk in 2022, men who have sex with men, trans and nonbinary people, people living with HIV, are the ones who need to pay attention again.”
Despite the heightened concern, he emphasized that the Jynneos vaccine still works. “There’s nothing about this virus that’s going to make the Jynneos vaccine not work,” he said. “Two doses are enough. You don’t need a booster right now.”
For those who received only one dose during the 2022 outbreak, “it’s never too late,” he added. “You don’t start over, you just catch up.”
‘Watchful waiting,’ not panic
Daskalakis described the current phase as “watchful waiting” with “aggressive investigation,” not cause for panic. “We’re globalized,” he said. “Things move. The key is staying ready: that means public health must still be strong enough to respond.”
But that last part, he said, is no longer a given.
Since President Donald Trump’s return to power, the CDC has been gutted by political interference, mass resignations, and data manipulation. Daskalakis himself resigned in August, stating that he could no longer serve amid what he termed the “weaponization of public health.” Under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Daskalakis said that scientists were not consulted about vaccines, and instead, political ideology and conspiracy theories prevailed.
He told The Advocate after stepping down that “the CDC we knew is over. Unless someone takes radical action, there’s nothing there that can be salvaged.”
In Thursday’s interview, he was blunt about the damage. “I scoured the CDC website,” he said. “Their information on mpox is still up to date, but people should cross-check it. Talk to your doctor, or if you don’t have one, your local health department.”
That distrust, he said, isn’t paranoia. “It’s healthy to be skeptical about what the CDC is saying about LGBTQ+ health right now, because they’ve clearly stated their ideology, and that makes me very concerned.” Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the federal government has erased references to transgender and nonbinary people and excluded significant populations from its research and reporting.
Communities filling the vacuum
With trust in federal institutions fractured, community groups have stepped in. Matthew Rose, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of public policy and health equity, said HRC is now tracking changes to CDC guidance and providing alternatives when necessary.
“You see the CDC remove orientation and gender identity, then it comes back, but not all the pages come back — they’re still deleting pages,” Rose said. “Our community has a long history of taking care of itself. We find trusted messengers like Demetre and make sure we can throw them everywhere they’re willing to go.”
HRC has relaunched its mpox resource page to help people access clear, science-based information on the virus and vaccination. The page emphasizes that mpox is not a “gay disease,” but a viral infection that can spread through close, often skin-to-skin contact, regardless of gender or sexuality. “What we are seeing reflects tight-knit sexual and social networks, not identity,” the organization notes. “Addressing mpox requires centering science, not stigma.”
The HRC Foundation urges equitable public health responses that prioritize those most impacted, including gay, bisexual, and transgender people, people living with HIV, and LGBTQ+ communities of color. Its guidance stresses that the Jynneos vaccine remains protective against Clade I, does not currently require a booster, and should be accessible to anyone at risk.
California’s response to the mpox strain
The California Department of Public Health confirmed the three Clade I cases in Southern California in a statement on October 17, saying the cases were not travel-related and that “this is the first time clade I cases without a history of international travel have been reported in California or the United States. All previous clade I mpox cases in California and the United States reported international travel to countries where clade I mpox was known to be spreading.”
The department stated that the risk to the general public remains low, but urged individuals at higher risk to complete both doses of the Jynneos vaccine. The CDPH is also monitoring wastewater for signs of viral spread and stated that enhanced surveillance and contact tracing are underway.
Daskalakis told The Advocate that wastewater surveillance is among the most effective methods for detecting pathogens like mpox because, although many people are not being tested, all individuals use the restroom and take showers, which allows scientists to estimate the amount of virus present in the population of any given region.
What comes next?
Daskalakis said his focus is on three data points: wastewater, case severity, and vaccine uptake. Mpox is detectable in wastewater — and so far, there’s little evidence of widespread viral presence. “That’s reassuring,” he said. But the fact that all three California patients were hospitalized “makes my antennae go up.”
If more severe cases appear or wastewater signals rise, he said, that would demand an immediate, coordinated response. “The question,” he added, “is whether that coordination still exists.”
In response to The Advocate’s inquiry, HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard did not respond to questions but said in a written statement that the Trump administration “is committed to reopening the government for the American people.” She said that while “mission-critical activities at CDC will continue” during the ongoing government shutdown, responses to media questions “may be delayed.”
Hilliard added that the department is working to provide information “as soon as we are able” and referred the public to their local health departments and the CDC’s mpox information website for updates. Daskalakis told The Advocate that it was noteworthy that the CDC has updated its mpox page throughout the government shutdown.
Both Daskalakis and Rose framed vaccination not only as a scientific matter but also as a matter of survival. Rose said, “Be up to date on your vaccines. Lifetime immunity is lifetime immunity.”
Daskalakis ended the interview with a reminder drawn from poet Audre Lorde: “caring for oneself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and in times like these, that is an act of political warfare.”
Elon Musk, CEO of the social media platform X, ex-Trump confidant, and founder of xAI, announced the launch of “Grokipedia” version 0.1 this week. The supposed competitor to the long-standing nonprofit website Wikipedia is AI-generated, and users have already flagged multiple pages that push far-right myths, including anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation.
“Wikipedia’s knowledge is – and always will be – human,” a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, told The Verge. “Through open collaboration and consensus, people from all backgrounds build a neutral, living record of human understanding – one that reflects our diversity and collective curiosity. This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”
Originally announced in September, Musk touted Grokipedia as a “massive improvement over Wikipedia” and “a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.” However, the claim that it is an improvement over Wikipedia has been called into question because many of Grokipedia’s pages appear to be copied and pasted from Wikipedia itself.
The Grokipedia page for “cake” is identical to Wikipedia’s own page, except for formatting. At the end of Grokipedia’s page, there is a disclaimer stating that “The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.”
The pages where that Wikipedia disclaimer appears to be missing and where the most new content can be found are those related to Elon Musk, his businesses, and the political issues currently discussed. That might explain a post from last week in which Musk said they were delaying the Grokipedia v0.1 launch so they could “purge out the propaganda.”
Grokipedia’s page on “Transgender” includes a section titled “Human Sexual Dimorphism and Immutability,” which defines gender entirely through a body’s ability to create either sperm or eggs and by using oversimplified biology around XX and XY chromosomes. It also claims that these identities are immutable, leaving no room for the many forms of gender and sex diversity, including intersex people. Much of this is directly in line with the president’s executive order on gender, which claimed there were only two sexes.
Grokipedia’s “Transgender Health Care” page (which you are directed to if you search for “gender-affirming care”) includes a proliferation of debunked “rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)” theories, as well as inaccurate claims that trans identities often emerge “following social contagion,” which is “preceded by mental health deterioration in 57% of instances.” Pages on trans issues, including one pushing false claims around “detransition,” regularly cite statistics that are not supported by the studies they link to, or cite studies that use reasonable sample groups.
The page for the Stonewall Riots plays down the significance of the events at the Stonewall Inn that were pivotal to the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. Meanwhile, it highlights the mafia’s ownership of the establishment in a way clearly intended to draw false connections: “The mafia’s exploitative role underscores that the venue was no bastion of community purity but a profit-driven enterprise amid broader criminal control of gay nightlife.”
Grokipedia also spreads disinformation about HIV, including a page entitled “HIV/AIDS skepticism” that says that there’s a “scientific critique” of the idea that HIV causes AIDS. Wikipedia’s equivalent page is entitled “HIV/AIDS denialism,” and it correctly states that it is a “belief, despite evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).”
In other instances, Grokipedia’s coverage of a topic tends to present issues in a light clearly intended to provide political bias. A page on the White House’s East Wing is keen to highlight support for the destruction and suggest that there has been no disruption caused by it.
Intersex Awareness Week is marked annually to recall a small group of protesters who picketed the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1996 for ignoring the rights of children born with sex variations. While the academy has not budged, medical institutions and governments around the world are increasingly recognizing that people born with intersex variations deserve bodily autonomy.
Intersex children are born with chromosomes, gonads, hormone function or internal or external sex organs that don’t match typical social expectations. For over half a century, doctors around the world have routinely performed surgery on newborns to standardize bodies so that they align with social gender norms. These nonconsensual surgeries are medically unnecessary to perform at such a young age. They also carry significant risk of trauma and other forms of lifelong harm, including a loss of sexual pleasure and/or function, incontinence, chronic pain, scarring, and early-onset osteoporosis.
Over 50 evaluations by United Nations human rights treaty bodies on the conduct of various countries have concluded that nonconsensual surgeries to alter the sex characteristics of children born with intersex traits are human rights violations. Countries including Malta, Greece, and Spain, as well as parts of Australia and India, have banned nonconsensual surgeries, while the UN Human Rights Council passed its first resolution on the issue last year and issued a comprehensive report this year.
In January, the US Department of Health and Human Services published a landmark report on intersex health equity that called for ending nonconsensual surgeries. In August, delegates of the Australian Medical Association unanimously supported a resolution to recognize the harm that medical professionals had inflicted on intersex people. “Recognising this harm is the first step,” a physician said in support of the resolution. “Next we must call for legislated protections, guidelines founded in lived experience and evidence.”
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in October urged that “Member States should enact legislation that explicitly and specifically prohibits any medical intervention on a person’s sex characteristics…without their prior, free, informed, express and documented consent.”
Intersex Awareness Week is a good reminder of how far things have come and how much further they need to go. The evidence of harm inflicted on intersex people is plentiful. Undoing it requires respecting the principle of bodily autonomy and integrity, a core human rights obligation.
