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GLAAD demands Mark Zuckerberg public statement on Facebook’s anti-trans content moderation failure

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GLAAD is urging Meta to take immediate action following the company’s independent Oversight Board’s decision to overturn Facebook’s original stance on a post that targeted transgender people with violent language. The case has highlighted the insidious methods used to attack LGBTQ+ individuals on social media, such as coded language and indirect messaging. The Oversight Board’s ruling overruled Meta’s original decision to leave up a contentious post that targeted transgender individuals with violent and harmful language. The post, originating from a user in Poland, displayed a curtain in the transgender Pride flag’s colors, coupled with text in Polish implying that transgender people should die by suicide — a clear […]

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Lawmakers in South Carolina approve ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors

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Lawmakers in South Carolina, USA, have approved a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.  On 18 January, the Republican-dominated House debated and voted “overwhelmingly” in favour of the bill, as per AP News. The bill prevents health professionals from performing gender-affirming surgery, prescribing puberty blockers and overseeing hormone therapy for patients under 18 years old. The bill also prevents those under the age of 26 – eight years past the age of majority in the Southern US state – from using Medicaid, the nation’s public health insurance program for those from a low-income background, to cover the cost of gender-affirming […]

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Queer people of colour don’t think they will live as long as their white peers, study finds

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Large numbers of queer young people of colour in the US believe they have a low life expectancy compared with their white peers, a new study has found. The research for LGBTQ+ youth mental-health charity The Trevor Projectshowed that, overall, 58 per cent of young queer people believe there is a high chance they will live to at least the age of 35, while 34 per cent view their chances as low. The remaining respondents were unsure. The report, which surveyed 28,524 LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 13 and 24, found that 59 per cent of young LGBTQ+ people of colour […]

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Two of the country’s largest transgender rights organizations will merge

Two of the country’s largest transgender rights organizations are merging, telling NBC News that joining forces will allow them to better combat years of conservative efforts to roll back trans rights. The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, a group that focuses primarily on federal policy reform, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, or TLDEF, which works to advance trans rights through litigation, will merge by this summer to become Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE.  “We’ll be able to operate with double the influence, double the power,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of NCTE, who […]

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West Virginia Republicans want to ban transgender people from public spaces, call them ‘obscene’

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Republicans in West Virginia have upped the hostility among those on the right toward transgender people. There, the LGBTQ+ community is currently grappling with significant legislative challenges that have the potential to impact the rights and lives of transgender individuals drastically.  Multiple draconian bills were introduced in the state’s legislature this week, with advocates drawing attention to their severe implications. One forces mental health professionals to “cure” transgender people from their gender identity, and another categorizes transgender people as “obscene material,” essentially making transgender individuals’ existence in many public spaces illegal, independent journalist Erin Reed, who specializes in transgender-related legal coverage, reports. Yet another criminalizes their presence near schools. […]

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Supreme Court stays out of fight over transgender student bathroom access

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined for now to weigh in on the contentious issue of bathroom access for transgender students by rejecting an Indiana school district’s appeal. The court left in place an appeals court ruling that required a middle school in Martinsville, Indiana, to allow a transgender boy to use the bathroom that corresponds with his gender identity. The student, identified in court papers as A.C., who has since graduated from John R. Wooden Middle School, is now in high school, where he is able to use his preferred bathroom. The Metropolitan School District of Martinsville had wanted the justices […]

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Gender dysphoria diagnoses are steadily increasing. Here’s what that means

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Gender dysphoria diagnoses in the United States increased in all but one state in recent years, suggesting that a growing number of transgender people are seeking health care. Gender dysphoria “refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity,” according to the American Psychiatric Association.  Not all transgender people experience dysphoria. Treatment can include social shifts, such as wearing different clothing or going by a different name, or medical affirmation, which can involve puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and surgery. Medical treatment — gender-affirming care — typically requires a diagnosis from a health care professional […]

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Family sues school district over law that bans trans volleyball player from girls’ sports

The family of a transgender volleyball player has added a South Florida school district as a defendant in a federal lawsuit that challenges a 2021 state law banning transgender girls from playing on female sports teams, claiming school officials have placed the family in danger. Attorneys for the family filed an amended complaint Thursday that adds the Broward School Board, the school district’s superintendent and the Florida High School Athletic Association. The school officials had been named as defendants when the lawsuit was initially filed in 2021 but were dropped the next year, leaving just the Florida Department of Education […]

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Maryland to cover unprecedented number of gender-affirming procedures in “groundbreaking” win

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A new law in Maryland requires Medicaid to cover “medically necessary” gender-affirming care for residents — including care well beyond hormones or surgery. The law went into effect on January 1. It requires coverage for “gender-affirming treatment in a nondiscriminatory manner.” Voice therapy and lessons, scar and hair removal, hormone therapy, puberty blockers, fertility preservation, and “alterations” to the abdomen, genitals, chest, buttocks, neck, and face are all included. Patients cannot be denied unless a healthcare professional decides the treatment would be detrimental to their health. “In the state of Maryland, nobody should have to justify their own humanity,” Gov. Wed Moore […]

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Alabama can enforce ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors, appeals court rules

Alabama can begin immediately enforcing a ban outlawing the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender people under 19, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, granting the state’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that had blocked enforcement of the 2022 law. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that the injunction should be vacated, but the decision had been effectively on hold while families with transgender children asked the full appellate court to reconsider the decision. The Thursday order will allow the ban to take effect while the full court decides whether it will revisit the […]

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