Mack Allen, an 18-year-old high school senior from Kansas, braces for sideways glances, questioning looks and snide comments whenever he has to hand over his driver’s license, which still identifies him as female.
They’ve come from a police officer responding to a car accident. They’ve come from an urgent care employee loudly using the wrong name and pronouns. They’ve come from the people in the waiting room who overheard.
“It just feels gross because I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am now in my transition, and obviously I don’t look like a woman and I don’t sound like a woman,” said Allen, who has been on testosterone for two years.
Kansas enacted a law last year that ended legal recognition of transgender identities. The measure says there are only two sexes, male and female, that are based on a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth.
That law and others introduced around the nation this year — often labeled as “bills of rights” for women — are part of a push by conservatives who say states have a legitimate interest in restricting transgender people from competing on sports teams or using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Critics argue the proposals to legally define sex as binary are essentially erasing transgender and nonbinary people’s existences by making it as difficult as possible for them to update documents, use facilities and generally participate authentically in public life.
They’re also creating uncertainty for the many intersex people — those born with physical traits that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female — with the measures unclear on how people would prove they’re exempt.
Some of the measures would remove the word gender, which refers to social and self-identity, from state code and replace it with sex, which refers to biological traits, conflating the two terms. Others make gender a synonym for sex. Medical experts say the efforts rely on an outdated idea of gender by defining it as binary rather than a spectrum.
“You pass a law because there’s a problem. The medical community doesn’t see people having different gender identities or being born with an intersex condition as a problem for society,” said Dr. Jack Drescher, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who edited the section about gender dysphoria in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual. “The medical community can only stand back to say, what exactly are you passing this law to protect?”
Measures have been proposed this year in at least 13 states — Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming — and advocates expect that number to grow. The bills follow a historic push for restrictions on transgender people, especially youths, by Republican lawmakers last year. At least 23 states have banned gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and some states are now shifting their focus to trying to restrict that care for adults, as well. Others have moved on restroom and sports restrictions.
Many political observers say the Republican focus on transgender people is an attempt to rally a voting base with a “wedge issue” to replace abortion rights, which the public has largely favored, notably in Kansas. The efforts also worry transgender people and their allies that they’re further stigmatizing and threatening a community already at high risk of stress, depression and suicidal behavior.
With the latest round of bills defining man and woman, it’s clear “the intent is to make it as difficult as possible for transgender people to operate within a state,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, a large LGBTQ rights group.
“It’s an attempt to deny transgender people’s existence,” she said.
A similar proposal in Iowa put forward by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds led to protests at the state Capitol. The bill was introduced soon after the failure of a lawmaker’s effort to remove gender identity from the state’s civil right law. It would narrowly define male and female and require a transgender person’s assigned sex at birth to be listed alongside their gender identity on their birth certificate.
“Women and men are not identical; they possess unique biological differences,” Reynolds said after introducing the measure. “That’s not controversial, it’s common sense.”
The sponsor of a similar bill passed by the West Virginia House said the legislation is needed to allow restrictions on who can use single-sex restrooms, locker rooms and changing areas.
“At any given time, we’re unable to protect single-sex spaces,” said Del. Kathie Hess Crouse, the measure’s sponsor, said. “If we don’t have a definition, we can’t protect them.”
Jocelyn Krueger, of Grinnell, Iowa, joined protesters at the statehouse days after testifying to lawmakers that she opposed the failed effort to remove gender identity from the civil rights law.
Krueger said she’s concerned about potential repercussions of the bill, given that a person’s identifying documents “unlock basic participation” in everyday life.
She compared it to how she was temporarily unable to get money from her bank account when she was updating her documents. Krueger worries the Iowa bill could create similar challenges for trans residents, but longer term.
“Not having access to documentation, or things that out you in a way, or where your documentation doesn’t match, puts you at risk for all of those daily interactions where people are looking at your documentation,” Krueger said.
The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law, estimates there are 1.3 million transgender adults in the U.S. But it’s believed that intersex people represent 1.7% of humans, which would translate to over 5 million in the U.S. alone.
In Alabama, lawmakers added language to legislation defining male and female that sex can be designated as unknown on state records “when sex cannot be medically determined for developmental or other reasons.”
West Virginia’s proposal specifically states that someone who is intersex is “not considered a third sex.” But the measure says people with a “medically verifiable” diagnosis of it should be accommodated.
Before this year, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Tennessee had enacted laws defining man and woman in state code. Oklahoma — where advocates say a law restricting bathroom access helped create a climate that led to the bullying of nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict, who died after a fight in a girls bathroom at a school — already has a measure by executive order, as does Nebraska.
Before Tennessee’s law took effect, advocates held events to assist people on changing their names and gender identities on government documents.
“There’s a lot of potential for harm that seems ready to explode at any moment,” said Dahron Johnson, of the Tennessee Equality Project.
In South Carolina, amendments have been proposed to the state constitution to narrowly define male and female. But the measures face an uphill battle in clearing the Legislature by an April 10 deadline in order to make this fall’s ballot.
Opponents say efforts to codify sex are likely to face court challenges, just as other restrictions such as youth medical care have.
“We’ve already lost this case,” said Idaho Rep. Ilana Rubel, a Democrat who voted against a definition bill approved by the state’s Republican-led House, predicting the state would get sued. “This is really just an unfortunate gesture that makes people in our community feel unwanted and unloved by their government.”
A federal appeals court on Tuesday allowed Indiana’s ban on gender-affirming care to go into effect, removing a temporary injunction a judge issued last year.
The ruling was handed down by a panel of justices on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. It marked the latest decision in a legal challenge the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed against the ban, enacted last spring amid a national push by GOP-led legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.
The law was slated to go into effect on July 1, 2023. But the month before, U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon issued an injunction preventing most of it from taking effect. Hanlon blocked the state from prohibiting minors’ access to hormone therapies and puberty blockers, but allowed the law’s prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries to take effect.
Hanlon’s order also blocked provisions that would prohibit Indiana doctors from communicating with out-of-state doctors about gender-affirming care for their patients younger than 18.
In a written statement Tuesday, the ACLU of Indiana called the appeals court’s ruling “heartbreaking” for transgender youth, their doctors and families.
“As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over,” the statement read. “We will continue to challenge this law until it is permanently defeated and Indiana is made a safer place to raise every family.”
The three-judge panel that issued Tuesday’s order comprises two justices appointed by Republican presidents and one by a Democrat. The late Republican President Ronald Reagan appointed Kenneth F. Ripple; former Republican President Donald Trump appointed Michael B. Brennan; and current Democratic President Joe Biden appointed Candace Jackson-Akiwumi.
The ACLU of Indiana brought the lawsuit on behalf of four youths undergoing gender-affirming treatments and an Indiana doctor who provides such care. The lawsuit argued the ban would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees and trampled upon the rights of parents to decide medical treatment for their children.
Every major medical group, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, has opposed the restrictions enacted by at least 23 states and has said that gender-affirming care for minors is safe if administered properly.
Representatives from Indiana University Health Riley Children’s Hospital, the state’s sole hospital-based gender health program, told legislators earlier last year that doctors don’t perform or provide referrals for genital surgeries for minors. IU Health was not involved in the ACLU’s lawsuit.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita called the state law “commonsense” in a post on X, formally known as Twitter, Tuesday evening.
Most of the bans on gender-affirming care for minors that have been enacted across the U.S. have been challenged with lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional. Judges’ orders are in place temporarily blocking enforcement of the bans in Idaho and Montana.
The states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
Experts say LGBTQ people experience religious trauma at disproportionate rates and in unique ways. Justin J. Wee and Evan Jenkins for NBC News
Kellen Swift-Godzisz, 35, said he doesn’t go on dates, struggles with erectile dysfunction and is hesitant to trust people. For more than 20 years, he’s experienced intense bouts of anxiety and depression that have had a “major hold on his life.”
“Imagine being told by everyone you trusted that you’re going to hell because you like men,” Swift-Godzisz, a marketing project manager living in Chicago, told NBC News.
At just 11 years old, Swift-Godzisz recalled, he would sit in his bedroom every night praying or writing letters that said, “Please God, remove my affliction of same-sex attraction,” and would then store each letter in an overflowing shoebox in his closet.
Kellen Swift-Godzisz said he struggles with severe ADHD and “PTSD-like feelings” due to the religious trauma he experienced in his youth. Evan Jenkins for NBC News
Swift-Godzisz, who grew up in an evangelical Baptist church in rural Michigan, believed Bible verses like Matthew 21:22 — “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” — would help him “pray the gay away.”
As he entered his teens and realized his feelings of same-sex attraction were only intensifying, Swift-Godzisz finally accepted that God would not be answering his prayers. Things went downhill from there, he said.
Swift-Godzisz is among the 1 in 3 adults in the United States who have suffered from religious trauma at some point in their life, according to a 2023 study published in the Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry Journal. That same study suggests up to 1 in 5 U.S. adults currently suffer from major religious trauma symptoms.
Religious trauma occurs when an individual’s religious upbringing has lasting adverse effects on their physical, mental or emotional well-being, according to the Religious Trauma Institute. Symptoms can include guilt, shame, loss of trust and loss of meaning in life. While religious trauma hasn’t officially been classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), there is debate among psychiatrists about whether that should change.
Experts say LGBTQ people — who represent more than 7% of the U.S. population, according to a 2023 Gallup poll — experience religious trauma at disproportionate rates and in unique ways. Very little research has been done in this field, but a 2022 study found that LGBTQ people who experience certain forms of religious trauma are at increased risk for suicidality, substance abuse, homelessness, anxiety and depression. And as political animus toward the LGBTQ community intensifies ahead of the 2024 presidential election, many queer people say their pain is resurfacing.
‘It’s basically a mind rape’
The concept of religious trauma has been around for centuries, and, according to experts, it can have serious consequences that can last a lifetime.
“In its worst manifestations, it’s basically a mind rape,” said Marlene Winell, a psychologist who coined the term “religious trauma syndrome” in 2011. “These doctrines that are taught to you over and over are so damaging and so hideous and so hard to weed out. In many cases, you have been violated, you have been abused or you have been shamed, and the impact is very deep and can be everlasting.”
Dr. Jack Drescher, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University who specializes in LGBTQ populations, agreed, noting that growing up gay or transgender in a nonaccepting religious environment could have serious mental health consequences.
Kellen Swift-Godzisz said his parents sent him for conversion therapy after he was unable to “pray the gay away.”Evan Jenkins for NBC News
“When you hide or morph your behavior in an effort to conceal your queer identity, you wind up hiding other things about yourself,” he said. “There may be strengths or aspirations you have that you never access because you’re afraid they’re associated with your gender identity. This can affect your self-esteem, it can affect your confidence, and even your capacity to be realistic about what you can do and achieve.”
At 14, when Swift-Godzisz accepted that he could not “pray the gay away,” he confided in his youth pastor, who in turn told his parents and the entire church leadership.
“My mom was hysterical and ashamed and wanted us to pack up and move to a new town,” he said. “My parents very much viewed it as a sin and a choice that I made that we were going to fix.”
For the next three years, Swift-Godzisz said, he was grounded indefinitely. He said his parents controlled the friends he was allowed to hang out with and enrolled him in so-called conversion therapy, a discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation. For this type of therapy, Swift-Godzisz said, his parents forced him to speak with various people from the fundamentalist Christian group Focus on the Family, which is widely known for its anti-LGBTQ advocacy.
“They weren’t trying to understand me,” he recalled of his sessions with the Focus on the Family leaders. “All of their advice was just, ‘Practice abstinence,’ or ‘Don’t do that; that’s against God’s wishes.”
Swift-Godzisz’s mother, who declined to address her son’s allegations, told NBC News that while she and her son “differ on some things,” she would give her life for him in a moment. “I’m proud of my son, I love him and I’m glad the Lord gave him to me,” she said.
Focus on the Family did not reply to a request for comment.
“The church has been the villain in my life story,” Swift-Godzisz said, adding that he’s been traumatized by his family and religious leaders. “Anything I’d do that’s ‘gay’ was considered a sin.”
Kellen Swift-Godzisz.Evan Jenkins for NBC News
Now, decades later, Swift-Godzisz said he struggles with severe ADHD and — though he’s never been officially diagnosed — what he described as post-traumatic stress disorder, or “PTSD-like feelings.” He also said growing up queer in an ultrareligious household has led to persistent issues in his romantic life, including erectile dysfunction.
“When you’ve spent decades of your life reinforcing not getting a boner around another guy, and now even though you are ready to do that sort of stuff, your brain still kind of goes like, ‘I don’t know, we’re not supposed to do that,’” he explained.
He also said he avoids romantic relationships altogether.
“Still, to this day, one of my biggest fears is that I’ll get married to a man, have children and get old with him, and on my deathbed I’ll denounce it all because I’m afraid that I might go to hell,” he said. “So I just don’t do it.”
Winell said many of her patients’ trauma response is so active from what they experienced as a child that their brain gets confused about what’s past and what’s present, which causes the fear response to fire up in situations where they are doing something related to their sexuality or gender identity.
“Sometimes there’s a real split between what you think in your head — your intellectual understanding of everything — and your gut-level emotional condition and response to situations,” she explained. “So someone like Swift-Godzisz might be comfortable with his identity but can still have this gut-level fight-or-flight response in the amygdala to all the trauma from the past, and if that happens constantly, that can really screw you up.”
She added that people experiencing this can also develop physical symptoms like digestive problems and headaches.
The effect of familial and community rejection
Religious trauma for LGBTQ people may be particularly intense, because it “goes to the very essence of who the person is,” according to Winell.
“There’s so much condemnation in conservative kinds of churches about being LGBTQ, that the trauma is felt as a direct attack on them,” she said.
LGBTQ people experiencing religious trauma may also be met with instant rejection when they come out or when their queer identity is discovered, she said, noting that they could lose connection with family, friends, church leadership and other forms of community overnight.
“In a biological way, we all want to belong, and we are attached to our parents — we’re dependent on them and need their approval. So if you have their love growing up and then one day, boom, they reject you for something you can’t control, that can create long-lasting anxiety and trauma,” Winell said. “The icing on the cake is that you might simultaneously be losing friends, mentors or entire communities.”
Jamie Long said she lost most of her support system because of her LGBTQ identity.Justin J. Wee for NBC News
Jamie Long, 40, is among those who quickly lost her support system due to a clash between her LGBTQ identity and her religion.
“Religion has obliterated my life,” she said.
Growing up in Greensboro, Alabama, where her father was the deacon and Sunday school teacher of her Pentecostal church, Long — who was assigned male at birth but now often uses she/her pronouns — remembers feeling different about her gender and sexuality as early as kindergarten. She spent her youth “in hiding,” doing everything to beg God to give her the power to change the feelings she had about her gender and her attraction to men.
“I would pray for hours nonstop,” said Long, who, decades later, is still trying to figure out her gender identity. “Nothing worked. It was terrifying.”
As time went on, it became harder for Long to hide her effeminate behavior. So she came out as a gay man and started hooking up with men on “the down-low,” which she said is omnipresent among men who have sex with men in the Black church.
“The pressure to subscribe to heterosexuality and masculinity is so intense, so there’s this culture in the Black religious community of guys keeping their hookups on ‘the low,’” she added.
As people close to Long started to find out she had come out as gay, the rejection ramped up. Her choir director — whom she described as a prominent figure she looked up to — pulled her aside after a Sunday service and said, “We can’t have a homosexual singing in the choir. I’m going to work with you to get that evil spirit out of you,” Long recalled. Her mom, who had been her “biggest supporter,” broke down in tears and said, “You will burn in hell,” and her brother berated her and called her anti-gay slurs for the duration of a 30-minute drive through Alabama, she recalled.
Jamie Long.Justin J. Wee for NBC News
Long’s brother told NBC News that he “doesn’t remember” that car ride and — using male pronouns for his sibling — said that while he loves Long, he does not respect the path Long has chosen. “I don’t believe in gay; I believe it’s a spirit,” he said. Long’s choir director did not respond to a request for comment.
Now, years after losing most of her support systems because of her LGBTQ identity, Long has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.
“I blame 100% of my identity crisis, of who I am as a queer person, on my religious upbringing,” Long said. “I had to create a mask and suppress my feelings all because of how I was brought up in the church. I was conditioned to believe my life was wrong.”
When religion meets politics
In addition to feeling isolated or rejected by family and community, many LGBTQ Americans say the current political climate is exacerbating their experience with religious trauma.
In 2023, a record-shattering 510 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in state legislatures, with more than 80 of them passed into law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Transgender people’s access to health care was a key talking point in the Republican presidential primary debates, and, before he was in Congress, recently elected House Speaker Mike Johnson called same-sex marriage a “dark harbinger of chaos” and suggested it could lead to people wedding their pets.
“For me, the religious aspect is almost inextricable from the political aspect,” said Amberlyn Boiter, a business analyst for a software development company, who lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
She remembers attending a 1,500-person megachurch just months before she came out as trans where the entire audience applauded after the pastor went on a 10-minute “transphobic rant.”
“I had to go up and play the bass in the church band after that, and I remember hating every second,” Boiter, 36, said.
Amberlyn Boiter applies mascara, left, and walks down the stairs of the South Carolina State House after a day of lobbying and speaking with lawmakers about LGBTQ rights.McKenzie Lange / The Greenville News via Imagn
Shortly after that, she came out to her family and they rejected her, stating that she was “betraying God and in turn she had betrayed them.”
“I think the biggest hurt is seeing our family members choose mythology over a relationship with their own flesh and blood,” she said.
Boiter cited the 20 anti-LGBTQ bills that were introduced in South Carolina’s state legislature in 2023. Some bills would strip trans people of gender-affirming health care, while others would criminalize them if they use public bathroomsthat match their gender identity. Many of the bills were backed by Christian legal groups and think tanks like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council.
“Being able to tie the policy to religious sources, it makes me feel doomed,” Boiter said. “There have been some pretty dark days, some of which have gone into the territory of suicidal ideation, where I’m worrying about whether I am going to have to uproot my wife and my child and move them from a place that I was born and raised.”
Boiter said she has ancestral ties in Spartanburg that go back to the 1780s.
“I have more than once spiraled into a place of thinking, ‘I might not only need to move to a different state, I may need to consider moving to another country.’ When people like Mike Johnson — who I would call a religious fanatic — are elected to higher and higher positions and even federal office, what am I supposed to think? More than a couple of times, I’ve looked at Canada’s refugee policies. I legitimately and truthfully worry that a day may come where my family and I are refugees.”
Swift-Godzisz shares those sentiments.
“I’m keeping the lid on a pot that is ready to boil over,” he said, adding that Johnson’s anti-LGBTQ track record is “one of the scariest things that has happened in my perception of politics.”
Healing from religious trauma
Mental health experts say in order to heal, those suffering from religious trauma should work toward building a new, affirming chapter in their lives.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center, said building that next chapter may involve cutting off those who hurt you.
“You say, ‘I love you, I forgive you,’ and you take the initiative to move forward. That will help heal you,” he said.
Koenig added that LGBTQ people who have experienced trauma but don’t want to leave religion entirely should consider joining an affirming church where leaders may be able to help with the healing process.
“Christian acceptance of [the LGBTQ] community is growing,” he said. In fact, majorities of every major religious group favor laws that protect LGBTQ people against discrimination, according to the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2022American Values Survey.
To move forward, Drescher recommends rebuilding self-esteem by forming new relationships. “It’s important to find new communities, new friendships that are affirming and that can help you heal,” he explained.
Kellen Swift-Godzisz said the “church has been the villain” in his life story.Evan Jenkins for NBC News
For those who leave their religion — as Swift-Godzisz, Long and Boiter have all done —it’s “like the rug gets pulled out from under you,” according to Winell.
“Your life needs to be gradually reconstructed,” she said. “It’s a reconstruct of who you think you are and what you believe now. One of those new beliefs is that being LGBTQ is OK.”
In terms of treatment, Winell said she first helps her patients learn to take care of themselves.
“Instead of outsourcing all that care to God, I teach them how to be self-reflective and how to regulate their feelings from their own perspective, rather than from the Bible’s,” she said.
From there, she teaches skills that help with the trauma response, like writing down negative messages you grew up believing and changing them to something that can read as positive and hopeful.
“What used to be, ‘My life is a trial, and then I die and go to hell,’ can change to, ‘My life is an adventure and a journey,’” she said.
She also works with her patients on relaxation by teaching them breathing exercises and body scan meditations, among other techniques. In certain cases, she recommends combining these tools with medication.
A debate among mental health providers
As more LGBTQ people share their experiences with religious trauma, there is debate among mental health experts about how it should be characterized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association’s reference guide for coding, classifying and diagnosing mental disorders.
In the decades-old manual’s fifth and latest edition, the DSM-5-TR, religious trauma falls under the category “Religious or Spiritual Problem,” as a Z code, not an official mental disorder. Z codes are listed in the back of the DSM and are referred to as “other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention.” Other examples include various forms of “Child Psychological Abuse,” “Unsheltered Homelessness” and “Victim of Terrorism or Torture.”
Koenig is now working with a group of public health experts and psychiatrists at Harvard Universityto expand “Religious or Spiritual Problem” as a Z code in the DSM to include “Moral Problems,” such as moral injury.
Moral injury, which is not currently listed in the DSM, may occur when an individual believes they have acted in a way that deeply conflicts with their morals and values, which produces guilt, shame or profound feelings of broken trust. It has been applied to war veterans and, more recently, to health care professionals who did not feel like they were able to provide appropriate care to those suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“For centuries, people have been manipulating and weaponizing religion by condemning LGBTQ individuals,” Koenig said. “Moral injury — particularly for religious LGBTQ people — can create a whole life of shame and guilt. To live with it can result in mental health problems over time, like suicide, depression and anxiety, because that’s what moral injury does, and you can get stuck in it for years and decades.”
Koenig said it’s critical that the combination of “Religious or Spiritual Problem” and “Moral Problem” — which is currently under review by a DSM committee — finds a spot in the manual as a Z code. By adding moral injury, he explained, providers will be able to collect more specific data and prescribe more targeted treatments, such as whether it’s appropriate to recommend pastoral support for those suffering. They’ll also be able to more effectively document which part of the patient’s trauma came from their family’s or community’s religious beliefs and which part came from a separate worldview that being LGBTQ is immoral.
“For religious people who identify as LGBTQ, it’s not just Christianity at play,” he said. “It’s the whole moral fabric of the culture that’s been passed down through generations that has caused this condemnation.”
Getting a new disorder or code added to the DSM involves submitting an extensive proposal to the manual’s steering committee, which is then reviewed and forwarded along to the American Psychiatric Association’s board of trustees for approval.
“Having it as a Z code will validate and stimulate funding support, and then there’ll be more money for research, which will help us learn more about how we can treat folks experiencing moral injuries like religious trauma,” Koenig said.
A further step would be changing “Religious or Spiritual Problem” from a Z code to an official disorder in the DSM. While Koenig is unsure about his stance on this, as the process would be even more rigorous and could take years, Winell said she “definitely thinks it should be in there” as a disorder.
“Right now, most therapists don’t know much about it. They’ll do an intake with a new client and talk about family, schooling, substance abuse, but they won’t touch religion,” she said. “So if it was a real thing in the DSM, it would get covered and the millions of folks who are struggling with it across this country could get better help.”
Winell added that a disorder classification in the DSM would give religious trauma more credibility in the eyes of medical professionals and would give those experiencing this type of trauma the ability to name what they’re going through. She also predicted this would result in more research in the area and religious trauma becoming part of the curriculum in university psychology courses.
Drescher, who was part of the APA committee that in 2013 changed gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria in the DSM in an effort to remove stigma, disagrees with Winell on this matter.
“We don’t need diagnoses to understand what’s going on. … Medicalizing social issues is how homosexuality was originally labeled a mental disorder,” Drescher said, noting that homosexuality wasn’t officially removed from the DSM until 1973. “So the idea that now we’re going to turn anti-LGBTQ ideas into psychiatric diagnoses doesn’t sit well with me.”
This, he added, could enable a future generation to “just flip the switch” and pathologize homosexuality once again.
And while Drescher — who has been practicing psychiatry for over four decades — isn’t optimistic about changing the hearts and minds of today’s anti-LGBTQ church leaders who are “set in their ways,” he is still hopeful about the future.
“Younger religious people don’t think of LGBTQ people as their enemies. They know them as their friends, their neighbors and their fellow congregants,” he said.
“So as the new generation grows up, religious LGBTQ people will be met with greater acceptance rather than being stigmatized and having to hide who they are, and less hiding who you are means you can grow up feeling better about yourself and perhaps experience less anxiety, depression and other mental health struggles.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.
Spencer Macnaughton is an Emmy-nominated and Gracie Award-winning producer and an adjunct professor at New York University, where he teaches journalism with a focus on LGBTQ issues.
The first at-home cervical screening device is currently under clinical trial to become FDA-approved in the USA, and we think it’s about time for a change.
For women and those with uteruses, undergoing a regular pap smear to prevent cervical cancer can be an unpleasant experience thanks to the speculum used.
The outdated device used in pelvic appointments to separate the vaginal walls can be cold and uncomfortable. The clamp-like instrument was invented in the mid-19th century and hasn’t adapted much since its origins.
The new device called Teal Wand, designed by women-led company Teal Health, is an at-home cervical cancer screening device. The brand explained in an Instagram post that the at-home screening device “follows the American Cancer Society’s cervical cancer guidelines and runs the samples on approved primary HPV assays”.
Teal Health’s initial study of the device revealed that 97% of women said the at-home cervical cancer screening device was easy or very easy to use. Meanwhile, 92% of participants said they would choose self-collect over the current standard of care with a clinician collecting, while 87% said they would be more likely to get screened if the Teal Wand was an option.
In the US, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that around 4,000 women and people with uteruses die of cervical cancer a year. Self-collected cervical screening tests are already an option in other countries and actively reduce the barrier for women and LGBTQ+ people facing healthcare-based discrimination.
The Australian Government introduced such tests in July 2022. The home kit tests “allow privacy and help break down barriers for thousands of people who have never screened – including women who have experienced sexual violence, LGBTQIA+ people and culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations communities”, the Department of Health and Aged Care website reads.
“Australia has always punched above its weight when it comes to cervical cancer, and now Australia is on track to be the first country in the world to eliminate this deadly disease,” said the assistant minister for the department The Hon Ged Kearney.
Unsurprisingly, the original device has bleak origins. In 1945, Dr James Marion Sims performed surgeries on enslaved women without anaesthesia or pain relief, in a bid to understand the reproductive system. He invented the instrument to allow himself – and largely Cis male doctors – the ability to better look at the vagina and cervix, GE HealthCare explains.
A county board in Ohio has refused to reconsider the disqualification of a transgender state House candidate who omitted her former name from circulating petitions, even as other transgender candidates have been cleared for the ballot.
The Stark County Board of Elections said in a statement Friday that it stands by its decision to disqualify Vanessa Joy, a real estate photographer from Massillon, Ohio, because she did not put a name that no longer aligns with her gender identity — also referred to as a deadname — on the petitions used to gather signatures to get on the ballot. State law mandates that candidates disclose any name changes from the past five years on their petitions, with exemptions for changes resulting from marriage.
The law, meant to weed out bad actors, is unknown even to many elections officials, and it isn’t listed in the 33-page candidate requirement guide. Additionally, there is no space on the petitions to list former names.
Vanessa Joy.Vanessa Joy via AP
Joy said she’s frustrated by the county board’s decision and that, for now, her campaign is over. However, she said she is working with an attorney to try to change the law to be more inclusive of transgender candidates who don’t want to disclose their previous names for personal safety reasons, among others.
“I’m out of the race, but I’m not out of the fight,” Joy told The Associated Press on Monday.
The county board said in its statement that it was “sympathetic to” Joy’s argument that she shouldn’t be disqualified since the campaign guide did not contain the requirement, but said its decision “must be based on the law.”
All four transgender candidates for the Legislature this year have run into issues with the name-change law, which has been in place in some form for decades but is used rarely, usually by candidates wishing to use a nickname.
Fellow Democratic transgender House candidates Bobbie Arnold of Preble County and Arienne Childrey of Auglaize County were cleared to run by their respective boards of elections just last week. But if Joy does not succeed in changing the law before November and Childrey or Arnold win, they could technically still be kicked out of office.
Ari Faber, a Democrat from Athens running for the Ohio state Senate, has not legally changed his name and so has not had his candidacy challenged. Faber is running with his deadname on the ballot.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine previously said that the law should be amended and transgender candidates shouldn’t be disqualified on these grounds.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said his team will work to put the law on the candidate guide. But he said his office is not open to tweaking the law because public officeholders must be transparent with voters and are not entitled to such privacy.
A gay rights activist has criticised Grindr for its trans and nonbinary-inclusive filter.
Currently, the dating app prevents users from searching solely for Cisgender men and women, the site explains. “It was important to us to not further perpetuate discrimination and harm for the trans and nonbinary community.”
Instead, users can filter who they’d like to speak to on the app. The trans-inclusive filter details “three umbrella gender groups”: men, women and non-binary people.
Fred Sargeant took to X (formerly Twitter) on 5 February to question the app’s filter. The app detailed its trans-inclusive filter in a frequently asked questions section of the website.
However, Sergeant criticised the app – which was the most popular among users aged 54+ last year. “So, filtering for gay men is bad but filtering for trans and nonbinary is okay @Grindr? You recognise trans/nonbinary needs to discriminate while invalidating precisely the same need for gay men.
“Delete your service @Grindr. You’re no longer needed.”
Fred Sargeant questioned the app’s filter. (X/@FredSargeant)
Others took to the comments section, with one social media user branding the app “homophobic” for its trans-inclusive filter. “Gay men, @Grindr is no longer for us,” a different person wrote.
A representative of Grindr told PinkNews: “Trans men, trans women, and non-binary people have been a part of the Grindr community from the very beginning, and we have always been committed to creating a safe space for trans users.
“This has included working with the National Center for Transgender Equality on profile fields for gender identity and pronouns, and building a Gender Identity Resource Center so that cis Grindr users can increase their understanding of trans people and issues.
“As part of our commitment to our trans users, we are pursuing a gender filtering system to allow all users, trans and cis, to find who they’re looking for on the app. Users who are only interested in men, for example, can select not to see women and explore a Grindr cascade of men. Of course, trans men are men, so users filtering to see men will see both cis and trans men.”
What is Grindr’s trans-inclusive filter?
The FAQ on the website regarding the trans-inclusive filter reads: “Why can’t I filter for Cis Men or Cis Women?”
“We allow filtering based on gender – you can specify that you want to see men or women – but this will include all men or all women, because trans men are men and trans women are women.
“You can also filter for trans and nonbinary people, as we know it’s critical for this community to be able to find each other easily.”
Grindr explains its trans-inclusive filter on its website. (Grindr)
The FAQs also explain that the “Cis Man/Woman” gender identities have changed to “Man/Woman” as part of their “ongoing commitment to inclusivity and an effort to reduce discrimination toward trans and nonbinary folks”.
Users can edit their gender and pronouns in the app’s settings “to search (and be found) by gender identity”.
“We have a list of 50+ gender identities to choose from – and even provide non-gendered pronoun options for languages that don’t have gendered pronouns. To ensure that culturally specific gender identity terms were included in that list, we partnered with experts across 20 languages.
“We’re still learning every day – and always open to expanding that list. If you have a gender identity or pronoun suggestion for us, please submit it using the Suggest a Gender link on the gender selection screen.”
The theater lights are about to dim at Prayer for the French Republic, a new Broadway play that tracks the journey of a Jewish family in Paris from World War II through the 2017 French presidential election and the country’s rise in antisemitism. My companion leans over and asks earnestly, “Why do the Jews get a country and no other religion?”
Playwright Joshua Harmon’s cast of characters debates the question for nearly three hours, as do we over post-show cocktails. I suggest, perhaps with a bit of earnest strain in my voice, that it might have something to do with millennia of persecution, from the biblical story of Exodus and the pogroms of the Russian Empire to a CNN poll indicating that a third of Europeans believe Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. But does that give the Jewish people a right to land also claimed sacred by Palestinians?
I was born and raised Jewish — jumping through the Bar Mitzvah and confirmation hoops and celebrating the High Holy Days with requisite challah and subsequent fasting. I visited Israel in 2015 for Tel Aviv Pride, thinking I’d feel an immediate kinship with my fellow Jews.
I didn’t.
While I fell in love with the city, pulsating with the youthful sun-kissed glow of tech millennials, I didn’t feel any more “Jewish.” Upon my return home, I resided myself to the fact that my Russian and Polish ancestral roots — pale skin, receding hairline, perpetually nervous stomach — was my lot in life, and my desire for a larger sense of community needed to be cultivated from within.
Tel Aviv Pride. Photo by Matthew Wexler
Though rarely asked before the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and subsequent retaliation by Israeli forces that has left upward of 22,000 Palestinians dead, I would describe myself as Jewish but not Zionist. But it’s not that simple.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Anti-Defamation League chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said, “Zionism is fundamental to Judaism,” comparing it to the civil rights movement by suggesting that to be anti-Zionist but not antisemitic is the equivalent of saying, “I’m against the civil rights movement, but I’m also against racism.”
The article’s author, Charles M. Blow, further dismantles the argument, questioning, “There are several forms of Zionism, and people in these debates rarely seem to be explicit about which form they are for or against. Political Zionism? Cultural Zionism? Religious Zionism? Some combination of them? Does it matter?”
I ask myself the same questions regarding my gay identity. Am I politically queer? Culturally queer?
In a recent interview with LGBTQ Nation, out actor Danny Kornfeld told me, “One of the things I love about the Jewish religion is the encouragement to ask questions, to say, ‘Why is this?’”
Barry Manilow’s “Harmony” unearths the story of a musical group impacted by Hitler’s Germany. Marginalized communities see the terrifying connection.
So I’m asking why.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I’m asking how this near extermination came to be. And January 29, the anniversary of the Bear River Massacre that left hundreds of Native Americans. And June 12, when Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured more than 50 at Pulse Nightclub. And on September 11, when I watched the plumes of smoke and disintegrated souls hover above lower Manhattan from my apartment window.
Depending on the algorithms of one’s digital search history, the day’s social media feed may be flooded with Holocaust-related content, or scrolling might look like any other, filled with reels and TikToks and stitches and tweets and posts. Made-up words and content that often pretends to be rooted in reality.
As nearly eight decades drive a wedge between World War II’s end and modern-day atrocities, it becomes increasingly harder for me to put on a happy face. Jews weren’t the only ones sent to the gas chambers. Under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, upwards of 15,000 gay men were deported to concentration camps, where many were subjected to medical experiments or castration and ultimately died.
Photos of arrested gay men under Paragraph 175 of Germany’s Penal Code circa World War II. Schwules Museum, Berlin. Photo by Matthew Wexler.
My identity on this particular day leaves me feeling vulnerable as I question what may become of us outliers in the years to come. But then I recall pot-stirring intellectual Susan Sontag, who wrote in 1964’s Notes on ‘Camp’: “Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.”
I could do worse than a modern sensibility and homosexual aesthetic. Yet a growing number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws threaten my very existence in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Happy? With a side of caution, yes, aware that we’re one small step away from history repeating itself.
It can be hard to follow what states are doing to attack (and sometimes protect) transgender people’s rights. Here are some stories from us and from around the web.
Ohio’s governor backs off his attempt to restrict gender-affirming care access for transgender adults and minors. (LGBTQ Nation)
West Virginia Republicans want to pass a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that contains no actual rights for women. Instead, the bill says that “equal” does not mean “same” or “identical” and bans trans people from using the correct bathroom. (AP)
A similar “Women’s Bill of Rights” bill made it out of committee in the Iowa legislature. (LGBTQ Nation)
Georgia Republicans introduced a “Women’s Bill of Rights” that would also end hate crimes protections for LGBTQ+ people in the state. (LGBTQ Nation)
Arizona Republicans have a bill to legally erase transgender people and ban trans women and girls from participating in school sports as their gender. (AZ Mirror)
Florida Democrats want the Biden administration to block the state’s new ban on transgender people correcting the gender markers on their ID. (LGBTQ Nation)
Virginia lawmakers voted to table all anti-transgender bills in their state, which included another “Women’s Bill of Rights,” a sports ban, and a bill to forcibly out transgender students to their parents. (Los Angeles Blade)
A transgender sports ban in Maryland was killed in committee. (Metro Weekly)
Tennessee Republican introduces a “detransitioner bill of rights.” (News Channel 9)
Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine warned of “medical refugees” being forced to travel from their home states to other states to get access to gender-affirming and reproductive health care. (Politico)
Kansas’s attorney general is telling public schools to out transgender students to their parents. (LGBTQ Nation)
A Colorado Democrat proposed a law that would require teachers to use their students’ correct names and pronouns. (LGBTQ Nation)
A bill to ban the Pride flag from Oklahoma state premises passed a committee vote. (KJHR)
Indiana launched an anti-LGBTQ+ tip line to combat “political ideology” in schools. Online activists flooded it with memes. (LGBTQ Nation)
Since he moved from Atlanta in 2012, Detroit native Kevin Heard has been devoted to one ambitious goal: creating opportunity for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs to succeed in the challenging business environment of Motor City.
“I didn’t see or was aware of a professional LGBTQ community. I wanted to cultivate that,” Heard told The Detroit News. “I saw a need for organizations that have a fiscal responsibility, voice for and advocate for LGBT-owned businesses. I also felt as though it’s really important to possibly and intentionally curate an LGBT business district within the city of Detroit, like all major metropolitan areas across the nation have.”
She faces off against Trump’s hand-picked election-denier, MAGA Republican Matthew DePerno.
So Heard founded the Detroit LGBT Regional Chamber of Commerce, which has distributed thousands of dollars to up-and-coming small businesses and entrepreneurs to pay for leases, buy equipment, and scale their dreams. Recent contracts for members include a Ford Motor Co. agreement and a pending contract with the NFL Draft when it comes to Detroit in April.
One chamber member is coffee house Eastside Roasterz, a passion project from Tiffany and Riss Dezort, who moved from Washington, D.C., where the LGBTQ+ population is three times higher than in Detroit.
It was a culture shock.
“When it comes to building a business with all of that in mind, that’s really what we went to Kevin for. ‘Hey, would you have a better understanding of queerness and business crossover and how to navigate that here in Michigan?” Riss Dezort said.
The Dezorts have earned over $35,000 in business grants from Michigan organizations, but the biggest boost came from the LGBT Chamber, which provided a 12-week accelerator program and mentorship in navigating the business environment in Detroit.
Members of the LGBT Chamber include Corktown Health, La Feria + Cata Vino, Welcome Home Yoga and Wellness, and the Dezort’s Eastside Roasterz, which supplies coffee for BasBlue, Sister Pie, and Next Chapter Books. The coffee spot also offers wholesale coffee purchases online and operates pop-up shops.
Heard offered, “I’m looking at this as an opportunity to bring more great, innovative young people who would like to stay and live in the state of Michigan. To be inclusive of that, to know that this is a space that people can start their families regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity expression.”
“Discrimination is bad for business… we know this to be true,” out Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said recently at a town hall for the LGBT Chamber. “This is not wishful thinking… the more inclusive we are, the more we do to reach out to all communities, the better it is for business in our state.”
People want to live in a place “that will treat them equally and fairly, where they know that they won’t be discriminated against in all different areas of their life,” Nessel said.
But obstacles remain, Heard says.
“The barriers in which LGBT people get when it comes to businesses are the gatekeepers at traditional banks that are maybe homophobic, may have their unconscious biases in when looking at or actually meeting the candidate. They look great on paper, but they don’t like their lifestyle, and that has been honestly one of the biggest barriers.”
Part of the Chamber’s mission, Heard said, is showing LGBTQ+ people in spaces “other than just the typical bar-hopping, Pride parades.”
“We are in every industry, every level of an organization,” Heard said, “and we own more than bakery shops and bars.”
A pizza restaurant in upstate New York has agreed to pay a transgender former employee $25,000 and take other steps to settle a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that alleged the worker was subjected to invasive personal questions and told he wasn’t “a real man.”
Quinn Gambino, a trans man, was a cook at T.C. Wheelers Bar & Pizzeria in Tonawanda, which is near Buffalo. Beginning in January 2021, according to the suit, the owners repeatedly asked questions about his genitalia and transition procedures, such as “Does she have female parts?” They “also intentionally misgendered Gambino by using female pronouns (such as ‘she’ or ‘her’) and stood by as employees and customers did the same,” says an EEOC press release.
Managers and coworkers further told Gambino he wasn’t “a real man” or “a real guy” and even likened being trans to pedophilia, according to the EEOC. Gambino reported the harassment to management, but it continued, so he resigned after four months. The EEOC, a federal agency, filed the suit last March in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York after an initial attempt to reach a settlement failed.
Under the settlement reached last week, T.C. Wheelers, which has denied any wrongdoing, will pay Gambino $25,000 in back wages and compensatory damages. The restaurant also agreed to take steps to prevent discrimination and harassment, such as requiring all owners, managers, and employees to undergo training on federal antidiscrimination laws, and it has hired an independent human resources monitor to investigate all employee complaints. The monitor will provide annual reports to the EEOC, which will look at the company’s business records when needed to ensure compliance.
“We appreciate T.C. Wheelers’ agreement to settle this lawsuit and make proactive changes, and we are proud to have obtained an effective resolution that compensates Gambino for what he endured and helps ensure that other transgender employees will be treated fairly in the future,” Jeffrey Burstein, regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District Office, said in the press release.
“The EEOC considers protecting members of the LGBTQIA+ community to be an important enforcement priority,” added EEOC New York District Director Yaw Gyebi Jr. “We will continue to assure that transgender employees receive the full benefit of federal antidiscrimination laws in all industries.”
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans sex discrimination in employment. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
