The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, is demanding that The Wall Street Journal retract its reporting incorrectly linking the shooter in conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination with the transgender community.
Kirk, the 31-year-old co-founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon while speaking at a Utah college. In the clamor of information related to Kirk’s killing, The Wall Street Journal, citing “an early bulletin circulated widely among law enforcement officials,” reported Thursday that investigators had discovered ammunition with expressions of “transgender and anti-fascist ideology” inside the rifle believed to have been used in Kirk’s killing.
The New York Times reported later Thursday that the document had not been verified by analysts with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, did not match other summaries of the evidence and “might turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted.”
The story from The Wall Street Journal was later updated to reflect caution from some Justice Department officials about the veracity of the internal bulletin. On Friday, a lengthy editor’s note was appended to the outlet’s original report, after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R), during a news conference, “gave no indication that the ammunition included any transgender references.”
Cox on Friday said law enforcement had taken Tyler Robinson, 22, into custodyin connection with Kirk’s assassination following a multiday search. Engravings on both spent and unused bullet casings found at the scene read “Hey fascist!” and “Catch!” Cox said. Another read, “If you read this, you are gay, lmao.”
On Friday, the Human Rights Campaign said The Wall Street Journal’s reporting erroneously tying Kirk’s murder to the transgender community was “reckless and irresponsible” and led to a “wave of threats against the trans community from right-wing influencers.”
“News outlets like @wsj.com have a critical responsibility to report the truth,” the organization wrote in a post Friday afternoon on Bluesky. “Promoting false information that ties our LGBTQ+ community to the Utah shooting is reckless, irresponsible, and puts trans people especially in danger. Anyone with a platform must do better. Lives are on the line.”
“@wsj.com needs to hear from ALL of us,” HRC added in a second post, which includes a link to an open letter. “Take action now to demand a retraction and apology for its dangerous and misleading coverage.”
The letter, to be delivered to a Wall Street Journal inbox for general feedback, says rage “is what makes this country a tinder box,” echoing recent pleas from Cox and others to turn away from political violence.
“The rush to lob hot takes and publish click bait is not how we are going to get out of this deeply divided, dangerous era,” the open letter reads. “News outlets like the Wall Street Journal must do better.”
A spokesperson for The Wall Street Journal did not immediately return a request for comment.
The outlet’s reporting and the fallout come as the Justice Department reportedly considers banning transgender people from owning firearms in response to last month’s mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. The proposal, which the Justice Department has not publicly released or confirmed, has been condemned by Second Amendment rights groups, including the National Rifle Association.
President Trump, in an interview late last month with the Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet, said most mass shooters are not transgender.
As LGBTQ-inclusive books are being pulled from classrooms and libraries at an alarming rate, GLAAD is taking direct action by mailing hundreds of copies of a beloved (and banned) LGBTQ title straight to every member of Congress and the Supreme Court.
The campaign is built around Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a joyful children’s book co-published by GLAAD and Little Bee Books. The title was recently cited in a devastating U.S. Supreme Court ruling that opens the door to even more extreme book bans, despite its completely harmless content. The story follows Chloe, a young girl who learns that when her favorite uncle marries his boyfriend, she isn’t losing him—she’s gaining another loving family member. Somehow, even a message this heartwarming is under attack. And so, GLAAD is making sure all the legislators behind these harmful decisions can review the material themselves.
The removal of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding is just the beginning of a very real and very dangerous culture of censorship, where misinformation and discrimination runs rampant. Meanwhile, real American issues – access to healthcare, gun violence, and economic security – are ignored. In Escambia County, Florida, school board members ignored their own policies that safeguarded LGBTQ books—and even fired the superintendent who stood up for students’ right to read. And in Georgia, a beloved librarian was fired for including a children’s book about a transgender boy in a display created by young readers.
These are not isolated cases. Across the country, extremist groups are targeting queer stories and any book that affirms the existence of LGBTQ people, as well as stories featuring other marginalized communities, or championing Black and brown voices. It isn’t just about books. It’s about silencing voices, erasing identities, and controlling what kids are allowed to know about themselves and each other.
Through this campaign, GLAAD is reminding everyone—especially LGBTQ youth—that they deserve to see themselves in the books they read. Click HERE to join hundreds of others standing in support of queer youth and against censorship before it’s too late.
The US government has been ordered to restore dozens of webpages on gender identity and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as part of a court settlement.
District Court judge Lauren King ordered the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to restore hundreds of webpages removed from government sites under orders from president Donald Trump.
Nine medical organisations and public health nonprofits sued the US government after Trump issued an executive order in January directing the health department to remove pages containing vital information and data on gender identity, HIV prevention, and health advice for marginalised groups.
Affected websites included the National Institute of Health’s HIV risk reduction tool, an FAQ page on Mpox treatment and hundreds of sites on health issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community.
As part of an agreed settlement finalised on Tuesday (2 September), the government must restore the data and cease the deletion of further resources.
The Washington State Medical Association (WSMA), Washington state’s largest medical association and lead plaintiff in the case, said it was “thrilled” at the settlement result.
It is expected to restore webpages on pregnancy risk, opioid-use disorder, HIV data, and much more.
Dr John Bramhall, WSMA president, said following the judgement that he was “extremely proud” of the healthcare community for “pushing back on this egregious example of government overreach.”
“This was not a partisan issue,” he continued. “Open data benefits everyone, and ensuring its availability should be a bipartisan priority.”
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Co-plaintiffs include Washington State Nurses Association, the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Paediatrics, AcademyHealth, the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
Vital health and DEI webpages vanished ‘in the blink of an eye’
The organisation, which represents more than 13,000 physicians, emphasised the importance of readily available health data and information for the general public on all topics.
Condemning the sudden removal of “trusted health information,” Dr Bramhall said many resources which physicians rely on to monitor a patient’s health “vanished in [the] blink of an eye.”
“Not only was our ability to provide care to our patients compromised, but our trust in our federal health institutions has also been badly shaken,” he continued. “The WSMA engaged in this legal effort to resist interference into the physician-patient relationship and to show patients and communities that, regardless of the whims of governments or politics, physicians are committed to providing accurate, evidence-based care.”
A spokesperson for HHS said to Fox News Digital it remains “committed to its mission of removing radical gender and DEI ideology from federal programs, subject to applicable law, to ensure taxpayer dollars deliver meaningful results for the American people.”
The settlement comes as health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was grilled in a Senate hearing over his vaccine policies and notorious views on public health.
The 71-year-old, who is infamous for his conspiratorial scepticism on vaccines, was accused of a “reckless disregard for science” during the Thursday (4 September) hearing after firing the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) head over his vaccine policies.
Democratic senator Ron Wyden, who sat on the committee, accused Kennedy of trying to “[take] vaccines away from Americans,” adding: “I hope at the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.”
Justifying the CDC firings, Kennedy said they were “absolutely necessary,” called the US the “sickest country in the world,” and claimed “that’s why we need to fire people at the CDC.”
Barrett calls the right to marry “fundamental” in her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, which comes out Tuesday. However, she has previously said the matter should be up to each state. And in her confirmation hearings in 2020, she was cagey about whether she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade,which guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide, butin 2022 she voted to overturn it.
Meanwhile, panelists at the National Conservatism Conference, held this week in Washington, D.C., discussed the possible reversal of Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that established marriage equality in every state.
In her book, Barrett writes, “The court has held that the rights to marry, engage in sexual intimacy, use birth control, and raise children are fundamental, but the rights to do business, commit suicide, and obtain abortion are not.”
Barrett recently told Norah O’Donnell of CBS News that she hopes to help readers “understand the law.” It’s not just an opinion poll,” she said.
“You know, what the court is trying to do is see what the American people have decided. And sometimes the American people have expressed themselves in the Constitution itself, which is our fundamental law. Sometimes in statutes,” she said. “But the court should not be imposing its own values on the American people. That’s for the democratic process.”
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton recently said she expects the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to overturn Obergefell.“It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade,” she told Jessica Tarlov of The Five in a podcast interview. “The Supreme Court will hear a case about gay marriage. My prediction is they will do to gay marriage what they did to abortion. They will send it back to the states.”
Last month, Kim Davis, the former clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, asked the Supreme Court to hear her case challenging Obergefell.Davis, a conservative Christian, quit issuing marriage licenses altogether after the ruling so she wouldn’t have to issue them to same-sex couples. The high court justices haven’t said if they’ll take the case.
Some political observers disagree with Clinton, saying the Supreme Court likely doesn’t want to revisit marriage equality, even though two ultraconservative members — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — have said they’d like to overturn it.
“As to whether other justices share her apparent view, I would further guess that at least Justice Thomas would not agree with her,” Rossi added. “In the end, my prediction is that a majority of the court will stand firm and preserve the right to same-sex marriage.”
O’Donnell’s interview on with Barrett will air on CBS Sunday Morning at 9 a.m. Sunday and at 11 a.m. on CBS News 24/7.
If the court did overturn Obergefell, there would be some protection from the Respect for Marriage Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It requires federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages, and requires states to recognize those performed in other states. However, no state would have to offer equal marriage rights.
In addition to Davis, there are other right-wing forces who would like to see the ruling reversed. At the National Conservatism Conference’s “Overturn Obergefell” panel Thursday, participants portrayed marriage equality as the source of many societal ills, including harm to children — something debunked by many studies.
“The last 10 years have made one thing unmistakably clear: We can either recognize gay marriage, or we can recognize a child’s right to the mother and father. We can’t do both,” anti-LGBTQ+ activist Katy Faust said at the event, according to The Washington Times.“If we are to retake legal marriage, we highlight the real victims, the children starved of maternal or paternal love, acquired by predators, mass produced, trafficked across borders, struggling with identity confusion, subjected to risky households.”
“If an adult can assemble sperm, egg, and womb — and ‘intend’ to parent the child —they get the baby,” she said. “Biologically related or not. Pedophile or not. Retiree or not. Foreign national or not. Intent-based parentage is child trafficking disguised as constitutional rights. Gay marriage did that.”
“The moment the state has the power to assign parenthood to strangers, it can unassign it from you,” she added. “Your legal relationship to the children you’ve begotten is weaker than it was a decade ago. Make no mistake. Gay marriage did that.”
Jeff Shafer, director of the Hale Institute, a conservative think tank, said that “Obergefell requires the gender neutralization of indelibly sexed legal standards. The whole point of Obergefell’s audacity was to knock over a cultural pillar that defines and orients a whole legal framework.”
Orthodox Rabbi Ilan Feldman put in, “Marriage is not for us to redefine. It’s God’s plan for the world,” ignoring that the U.S. is not a theocracy and that different faiths have different ideas about marriage.
Another on the panel was longtime anti-LGBTQ+ activist John Eastman, a close ally of Donald Trump. He was forced to resign as a law professor at Chapman University because of his role in the rally that preceded the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection, and he has been disbarred. But he’s still out there trying to end marriage equality.
He said he’s encouraged by the fact that after Davis filed her request with the Supreme Court, the court asked for a response from the gay couple who sued her over her denial of their marriage license. She wants to avoid paying damages to them as well as having the court overturn Obergefell.
The request for a response indicates the high court is interested in the case, he said at the conference, according to The Washington Times, although he thinks the court may limit itself to religious freedom concerns. “We should be very clear in the Kim Davis case, this wasn’t about the couple being able to get a marriage certificate under the auspices of Obergefell — they got one,” he added. “It was getting it from her despite her religious objection. It was an Orwellian bend-the-knee move.”
The battle over LGBTQ inclusion in Florida has expanded outside of the state’s classrooms to its crosswalks.
Last month, the Florida Department of Transportation began removing rainbow crosswalks, Black history road murals and other street art after it updated its guidelines earlier this year to prohibit “non-uniform traffic control devices, such as pavement markings on state and local roads.”
A rainbow crosswalk created in Orlando as part of a memorial for the 49 people fatally shot at the Pulse LGBTQ nightclub in 2016 was among the first that the Transportation Department painted over last month.
The next day, protesters gathered at the crosswalk to “re-paint” it with multicolored sidewalk chalk, and they continued to turn up to re-chalk the crosswalk after rain washed it away almost every day. Transportation officials repainted the crosswalk again last week, and Orlando police are now patrolling it 24/7.
Last weekend, four people were arrestedfor defacing a traffic device with chalk, though none have faced formal charges yet, so it’s unclear what kind of penalties they could face, according to Blake Simons, an Orlando-based lawyer who is representing them. A judge released all of them on their own recognizance, he said.
But the battle has spread beyond Orlando. City officials in Key West and Miami Beach planned to meet Wednesday to discuss resolutions regarding their cities’ rainbow crosswalks, which the state has ordered them to cover by this week. In St. Petersburg, transportation officials painted over a “Black History Matters” street mural that covered a stretch of road in front of the Woodson African American Museum of Florida. Two pastors were arrested Friday night for trying to stop officials from painting over the mural.
On Monday, St. Petersburg residents gathered at the city’s one remaining rainbow street mural. Tamara Leigh, 40, the founder of local group Tampa Bay Black Lesbians, said that about 100 people gathered at the event to create art and write messages of hope and love with chalk donated from across the country. She said that what struck her the most after the Black history mural was removed was how gray the street suddenly was.
“This is what happens when you remove diversity,” she said. “This is what happens when you don’t encourage inclusion. This is what happens when you shut people out. What’s left over is gray, and that was incredibly impactful for me. It’s just a visual representation of the things that are happening in this state, in this country.”
New state and federal guidance on ‘political messages’
Florida’s Transportation Department has said it is “ensuring roadways are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests” and that the state is prepared to withhold funds from local governments that don’t comply with the directive to cover rainbow crosswalks and street murals.
Many cities were given deadlines in early September, though some, including Delray Beach, were extended after the city requested a hearing with the Transportation Department. Delray Beach officials have until Friday to submit supporting documents contesting the removal of a rainbow street mural, according to WPTV, an NBC affiliate based in West Palm Beach.
Tire marks across a newly unveiled Pride flag intersection in Delray Beach, Fla.WPTV
The guidance applies to a variety of street art, including a “Back the Blue” mural on the street outside the Tampa Police Department’s headquarters and a crosswalk in front of the Daytona International Speedway that looks like a checkered raceway finish line, The Associated Press reported.
“Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” Duffy said in a statement at the time.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has maintained a similar refrain.
“You don’t have a First Amendment right to commandeer someone else’s property,” DeSantis said Tuesday, when asked about protesters who were arrested in Orlando for chalking the rainbow crosswalk in front of Pulse. “You do not have a right to take somebody else’s property for your messaging purposes.”
‘Refuse to be erased’
Some Floridians who disagree with the Transportation Department’s new policy say its reasoning isn’t supported by data. For example, an April 2022 studycommissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies using historical crash analysis found that roadways with asphalt art projects saw a 50% decrease in the rate of crashes involving pedestrians or other vulnerable road users, a 37% decrease in the rate of crashes leading to injuries and a 17% decrease in the total crash rate. The study also found a 25% decrease in pedestrian crossings involving a conflict with drivers, a 27% increase in frequency of drivers immediately yielding to pedestrians and a 38% decrease in pedestrians crossing against the walk signal.
An investigation by WPTV found that there have been only two crashes at the intersection where Delray Beach’s Pride mural is located since the crosswalk was painted four years ago. In contrast, there were 15 incidents at the same location in the four years beforehand.
Orlando police outside the Pulse interim memorial in Orlando on Aug. 24.Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP
Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting and the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, said Wednesday that the state has repeatedly changed its justification for removing the street art. He pointed to data showing that vibrant crosswalks improve pedestrian safety. He also noted that in 2023 DeSantis named a road in Florida after conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
“It doesn’t work to say you’re erasing political statements from the pavement, and so now you’ve gone to, ‘Well, we just want every crosswalk to be standard,’” Wolf said. “The incoherence of their own strategy tells you that they’re not sure why they’re doing this, except to visibly demonstrate that they have control and power. That is what this is about. It is about a physical demonstration of force, of power over people — a reminder that they are the people in control, and at any given moment, they can decide to erase something.”
Blake Simons, the attorney representing the four people who were arrested at the Pulse crosswalk over the weekend for using chalk on it, said that he is personally not upset about the Transportation Department’s policy. Rather, he said protesters have a right to exercise their free speech.
“As long as people are not actually damaging things, we still have the right to exercise our free speech, even through conductive actions, as long as we’re not defacing property,” Simons said, adding, “This argument that this chalk is defacing it is just ludicrous.”
Wolf said DeSantis and the Trump administration have “desecrated” the Pulse nightclub memorial, where the state approved the rainbow crosswalk in 2017. When he’s there, he said, he feels closest to his friends Juan Guerrero and Drew Leinonen, who were killed in the shooting.
He added that the protests are “a testament to the power of the people to refuse to be erased.”
“If DeSantis and Trump thought that they could silence or erase a community with one crosswalk or with one bucket of paint, they were sorely mistaken,” Wolf said.
Have you ever wondered what to do with the piles of Advocate or Out magazines you’ve collected through the years? Or swag you’ve collected at Pride events that you keep in storage boxes in closets? What about those ticket stubs to Melissa Etheridge concerts you kept religiously? LGBTQ+ archives throughout the country seek to create a home for those artifacts to help preserve queer history.
Archives can help people understand that they aren’t alone, archivists say, allowing them to see that queer identities have always been around and are a part of history, even if some of that history has been lost or erased.
A proud lesbian at the first Stonewall anniversary march in NYC in June 1970.
Collecting physical pieces of history is Invisible Histories’ mission. It’s a queer community archive working to preserve LGBTQ+ history in the Deep South. Maigen Sullivan and Joshua Burford are the cofounders and co-executive directors. Their work is finding people and organizations willing to donate their items to help preserve the region’s LGBTQ+ legacies.
Seeing a queer historic record can be enlightening, Burford says. It’s evidence that counters the “misconception that queer identity is only for young adults,” he adds, and it can help bridge generational gaps. Queer history provides an “antidote to the isolation and invisibility” that’s been historically experienced by LGBTQ+ people, while also providing accessible records and a more complete picture of community history beyond major events, Burford says. Archives illustrate that queer people have always been here, surviving, thriving, and existing.
Donations to Invisible Histories have included flyers from the Boybutante Ball, a drag event that began raising funds for the Georgia organization AIDS Athens in 1989. The group also has digitized and transcribed oral histories recorded on cassette tapes by southern LGBTQ+ activist Donna Jo Smith, who interviewed a number of fellow queer rights advocates in the ’80s and ’90s.
A child holds a sign at the L.A. Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, in June of 2019.
Items of value to archives don’t have to be decades old, Sullivan and Burford say. “We are in an incredibly acute historical moment. And so your everyday is also really historically significant both now and in the future,” Sullivan says.
Showing “existence and resistance through archival work” is key to fighting authoritarianism, she adds. “We can go into the archives and show you, ‘Look at all these amazing people and what they did.’ Now, what would you like to do with this information? What would you like to do with this power that we’ve given you to imagine the future?” Burford says.
It’s something that Olivia Newsome, a special collections coordinator with the Lesbian Herstory Archives, echoes. This volunteer-run archive has existed since the early 1970s, with a mission to preserve lesbian history. The organization recently featured on social media a scrapbook showing a woman’s membership card to the Gay Activists Alliance as well as a letter from her mother about accepting her daughter.
Wildrose has been a mainstay of LGBTQ+ nightlife in Seattle, Washingon, since 1984.
“Archiving lesbian history, queer histories, as they are being forcibly removed by fascist regimes … is important to remind people that we exist. Archiving your own life and the lives of those around you can be a radical moment of self-actualization. In a world which tells you not to exist, you can engage in the radical act of literally putting yourself into a broader historical context,” Newsome explains.
Sullivan points out there’s also concern that under the Trump administration — which has made news for erasing queer and trans identities from government web pages and policy — could go after archives in academic spaces. That possibility has spurred Invisible Histories to seek to collaborate with academic archives to ensure these collections remain safe and available for years to come.
Ultimately, donating to and learning from archives can be done by anyone, especially in the current political moment. “Archiving isn’t just for famous people, the wealthy, or for white cishet men,” Newsome says. “Archiving is for us all — your life matters and deserves to be remembered.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an alarming Request for Information (RFI) to attack the field of gender-affirming care—a safe, effective, and medically necessary practice grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise—as an “unfair and deceptive practice.”
The FTC’s actions are not grounded in evidence and are a distortion of the agency’s mission to protect the public from actual deceptive practices. Instead, they reflect a deep-seated bias against transgender, gender-diverse, and intersex people.
What’s Happening?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an alarming “public inquiry” to attack the field of transition-related healthcare (gender-affirming care)—a safe, effective, and medically necessary practice grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise—as an “unfair and deceptive practice”.
Under Sections 5 and 12 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the FTC has the authority to launch investigations into misleading, unfair, and deceptive trade practices and issue enforcement orders based on their findings, whenever they deem necessary and appropriate. RFIs such as this are likely intended to inform who they investigate and how. This authority extends to the ability to investigate and issue enforcement orders against those marketing and advertising various health products.
Why Does it Matter?
The Trump administration has continued to push false narratives about the transgender community. The FTC’s RFI is their latest effort to discredit our essential health care. Gender-affirming care is a safe, effective, and medically necessary field of medicine grounded in decades of research and clinical expertise. The provision of this healthcare to trans youth is overseen by well-trained clinicians utilizing staged and evidence-based clinical guidelines, that prioritize informed consent and open communication between providers, patients, and their families. For trans people, this care can be lifesaving.
This RFI will also impact intersex adolescents and adults whose healthcare needs significantly overlap with gender-affirming care, and whose identities have also previously been attacked by this administration. Adolescent and adult patients with intersex variations face similar consequences as they often depend on these same medical providers, who treat transgender patients, when seeking care.
The FTC’s actions are not grounded in evidence and distort the agency’s mission to protect the public from actual deceptive practices. Instead, they reflect a deep-seated bias against transgender, gender-diverse, and intersex people. The FTC should focus on stopping real consumer harm—not undermining trusted medical care that saves lives.
Read below for special instructions on how to submit your comment, what to include, and what not to include. Find a template from A4TE to write your comment here.
What You Need to Know Before You Submit
This portal will enable Advocates for Trans Equality to submit your story, on your behalf. This ensures that your submission is not traceable back to the computer or device you used to submit your comment. This “air gap” is a protective measure for our community and our allies. Because Advocates for Trans Equality is submitting your comment on your behalf, you may not notice your comment in the portal right away. We commit to submitting comments by the RFI’s deadline, September 26. Antagonistic, hateful, and threatening comments submitted through this portal will be omitted. If for any reason we encounter difficulty in submitting your comment, we will make every effort to contact you to resolve the issue. We will also retain a copy of your comment securely in our internal records.
Remember Your Audience
We encourage all submitting parties to consider the nature of the actions described in their comments, related to the FTC’s hostile framing of gender-diversity and the provision of gender-affirming care. Given this hostility, the information that you provide should be measured, free of identifying information, and provided in such a manner as to not put yourself or others at risk.
This portal will enable you to submit to the FTC Request for Information (RFI) with a reduced risk of identification than you may have if you were to make your submission directly to the Federal Regulations Portal.
As you draft your comment, depending on your experiences with and relationship to transition-related healthcare, also called “gender-affirming care”, there are certain pieces of information you should consider sharing as well as pieces of information you should highly consider omitting.
Legal Disclaimer: As an intermediary party in your submission, Advocates for Trans Equality and Advocates for Trans Equality Action Fund take no responsibility for comments, statements, or actions described in your submission; nor does our delivery of your submission to the FTC represent an endorsement of said statements, attitudes, or actions.
By submitting text to this portal, you are consenting to having the exact, unedited text of your comment uploaded to the FTC’s Regulations.gov comment portal. If you include your name or other identifiable information, we will include this in your submitted comment.
BEFORE YOU SUBMIT A COMMENT, PLEASE READ:
Tips for your Safety
All submitting individuals should read the following guidelines closely to minimize community risk. Don’t see yourself listed below? That’s okay! You can still submit a comment. Reviewing the information below can still help you craft a comment that is safe and helpful!Expand allCollapse all
All Submitting Individuals
These comments will be viewable by the general public as well as this administration’s Federal Trade Commission. Accordingly, we highly recommend that regardless of your experiences, you withhold and avoid disclosingany identifying information. This includes:
Your full name (consider using a pseudonym);
Your date of birth, social security number, or other identification numbers;
The name of your patients, children, or medical providers;
The state you currently reside in and where transition-related care was received;
Your address;
The exact location, including the name of the clinic or hospital, where you or your child received care;
Where you work
Again, all submitting parties should withhold the information above, as well as any similar identifying information.
Parents and Caregivers of Trans and Gender-Diverse Youth
Great Information to Share
This RFI is seeking information regarding your experiences accessing and navigating the clinical provision of transition-related healthcare with your minor child. The RFI is looking for information from the public regarding how that care was described to you and your child, as well as the conditions under which it was provided. In that regard the following types of information are excellent to share in your submission:
Any barriers to accessing this care;
The ways in which potential adverse effects of various treatments were described to you;
The materials you received about this care;
The depth of the discussion and the number of appointments that pre-dated the first treatment;
How your child was diagnostically assessed;
Your oversight of the treatment process;
The strength of your child’s understanding of their gender identity;
The psychological and mental health support that your child received both before and alongside this care;
The positive effects and benefits of this care for your child;
Your provider’s professionalism;
The deliberate and gradual nature of how this care was provided;
The clinical guidelines that your provider utilized;
Your role in supporting your child in their transition;
The extensive nature of the counseling you and your family received regarding this care.
What to be Cautious of Sharing
This administration, including the FTC, has demonstrated a hostility towards gender-diversity itself as well as the field of transition-related care. Accordingly, the information that you provide has a high potential to be taken out of context and distorted. Within the context of the FTC’s authority to investigate this healthcare, parents/caregivers are likely to be considered “consumers”, much like patients. This, however, is an informed guess and we encourage parents/caregivers to exercise caution with what they communicate in their submission. Some considerations:
Avoid characterizing experiences as quick or brief;
Avoid downplaying providers’ disclosures of potential adverse effects;
Do not share the names of your providers, nor any identifying information about them;
Be cautious regarding how you describe the informed consent process.
Medical and Behavioral Health Professionals
Great Information to Share
This RFI is seeking information regarding how adolescents and their families accessed transition-related healthcare. As healthcare professionals you play an integral role in this process, ensuring that transgender adolescents can access the potentially lifesaving medical care that they need to thrive and lived authentic and fulfilling lives. Your role in this care is also under particular scrutiny by the RFI, and as a result you should carefully consider the information you share and how you share it. We have provided a list of recommended Do’s and Do Not’s for you to take into consideration while your draft your comment
DO:
Keep your submission HIPAA compliant.
Do ensure all information about you and your patients is de-identified.
Do share general, high-level descriptions of your experience and expertise.
For example: “As a pediatric endocrinologist who has treated gender-diverse patients for over 23 years…” or “I am a licensed psychotherapist who has treated over 2,000 adolescents during my career…”.
Describe the depth and length of conversations with patients and their parents in equal measure and weight.
Describe the depth and length of your discussions with families regarding the benefits, common adverse effects, and potential adverse effects of treatment.
Describe the procedures related to policy development within professional medical and behavioral health.
Describe the rigor of the informed consent process.
Describe the evidence-based nature of the care you provide.
Feel free to share articles from peer-reviewed journals.
Describe the materials you provide to parents and patients.
Describe the benefits of treatment that you’ve witnessed for patients and their families.
Describe the staged and intentional nature of your clinical approach.
Describe the length, rigor, and depth of your professional training.
Present evidence-based, peer-reviewed statistics and information regarding the patient population.
Keep information focused on the patient/family relationships, to the exclusion of administrative procedures and practices.
DO NOT:
Provide information about the state you practice medicine in.
Provide identifying information about your practice or your patients.
Provide your name.
Provide the exact name of the institutions where you were trained.
Provide the name of your practice, hospital, or clinic where you practice.
Provide license numbers.
Cite op-eds as substantiating evidence regarding this care.
Downplay your expertise.
Adults Who Received Care as a Minor Adolescent
You are likely to be considered a “consumer” by the FTC, you should still carefully consider the information you share in your comment, as well as how you share it.
Great Information to Share
Any barriers to accessing this care;
The ways in which potential adverse effects of various treatments were described to you and your parents;
Your ability to understand and consent to care;
The materials you received about this care;
The depth of the discussion and the number of appointments that pre-dated the first treatment;
The depth and strength of your understanding of your gender-identity prior to initiating care;
The psychological and mental health support that you received alongside this care;
The positive effects and benefits of this care;
Your provider’s professionalism;
The staged nature of how this care was provided;
The clinical guidelines that your provider utilized;
Your parents’ role in supporting your child in their transition;
The extensive nature of the counseling you and your family received regarding this care.
What to be Cautious of Sharing
Avoid characterizing experiences as quick or brief;
Avoid downplaying providers’ disclosures of potential adverse effects;
Do not share the names of your providers, nor any identifying information about them;
Be cautious regarding how you describe the informed consent process.
Ready to submit your comment? Click below to tell your story.
In this rapidly changing landscape, MAP’s LGBTQ Equality Maps provide a detailed snapshot of the current state of LGBTQ laws and policies in the United States. See below for a listing of state and local level policy changes, plus MAP’s bill tracking and policy research updates, as of August 25, 2025.
▸▸ State Policy Updates Ongoing developments with gender marker changes on identity documentsIn Kansas, residents’ ability to change the gender marker on their driver’s licensesremains contested. After a 2023 law was enacted defining “sex” throughout state law to enable discrimination against transgender people, the state’s attorney general successfully sued the state’s license-issuing agency to force them to stop issuing gender marker changes for transgender people — something the state had been permitting, without issue, since at least 2007.This June, a Kansas appeals court ruled that gender marker changes on driver’s licenses should resume, and that the state’s attorney general had failed to prove any harm would be caused by allowing such gender marker changes. But despite the court ruling, the state’s attorney general instructed the state’s licensing agency to continue to refuse to process gender marker changes while he appeals the ruling and the litigation continues.In Indiana, the state issued a proposed rule — not yet in effect — that would prevent people from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate. For justification, the administrative rule refers to a March executive order from the governor defining “sex” throughout state law in exclusionary and discriminatory ways. Public comments were accepted through July 18, with a tentative effective date in October 2025.
Note: MAP will update the Equality Maps if and when either of these developments are in effect.
“Shield” or “refuge” laws protecting transgender health careSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.June 20: Delaware’s governor issued an executive order to protect both patients and providers of medically necessary care for transgender people. Delaware is now one of three states with a “shield” executive order that protects access to transgender health care.
Regulating gender to allow discrimination against transgender and nonbinary peopleSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.
In 2025 alone, eight states total have enacted a new law (7) or executive order (1) defining “sex” throughout state law. To date, 18 states total have such a policy, and more than one in four transgender people (28%) across the country live in these states.June 20: Texas became the 16th state with a law or executive order defining “sex” throughout state law.June 30: Ohio became the 17th state to enact a law, after lawmakers used the state’s budget process to insert and force through multiple anti-LGBTQ provisions. While the governor vetoed some of these provisions, he did not veto this gender regulation/sex definition provision.July 29: North Carolina became the 18th state to enact a law, following the legislature’s override of the governor’s veto.
“Don’t Say LGBTQ” curriculum censorship lawsSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here.June 20: Texas became the 12th state with a “Don’t Say LGBTQ” law. It applies to all grades pre-kindergarten through 12. The same bill also banned DEI-related programs and activities in schools, student groups about sexual orientation or gender identity (such as gay-straight alliances [GSAs]), and more. ACLU has already announced they will sue to challenge unconstitutional aspects of the bill.
Bans on medical care for transgender youthSee our Equality Map here and our supporting citations and additional information here, including a chronology and details on effective dates, exceptions, lawsuits, and more.July 17: Puerto Rico became the first U.S. territory — joining 27 U.S. states — to ban medically necessary care for transgender youth. Unlike other state bans, Puerto Rico’s law explicitly applies up to age 21, making it the farthest-reaching such ban to date. The law also creates criminal penalties for medical providers, with up to 15 years in prison if convicted.August 1: New Hampshire expanded its existing ban on some forms of surgical care for transgender minors to now include both additional forms of surgical care and prescription medication for transgender youth. The expansions will not go into effect until January 1, 2026, and there is a grandfather clause allowing youth who begin prescription medication prior to January 1 to continue receiving that medical care.
Changes in MAP’s policy score categorizationsSee our Overall, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity Policy Tally maps here, summarizing states’ scores across all the 50+ laws and policies we track.Virginia’s undermining of its own law against conversion “therapy” dropped the state to “Fair” on our Overall Tally.
▸▸ Local Policy Updates Conversion “therapy” ordinancesSee our Equality Map with local-level data here and state-by-state listings at each state’s profile.June 23: Columbia, South Carolina, repealed its ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion “therapy.” This repeal was effectively forced by a development in June, when the state enacted a first-of-its-kind law withholding state funds from any municipality that has a local-level law protecting minors from conversion “therapy.” Because the state’s capital, Columbia, was the only city in the state with these protections, this law effectively targeted Columbia, threatening to withhold nearly $4 million in state funding from the city unless they repealed their ordinance.August 19: Whitehall, Ohio, enacted a new ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from conversion “therapy.” Whitehall is the 14th municipality in Ohio with such an ordinance.Nondiscrimination ordinancesSee our Equality Maps with local-level data here and state-by-state listings at each state’s profile.August 19: Whitehall, Ohio’s new ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth from conversion “therapy” also prohibits discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and public accommodations. While the state lacks similar statewide protections, Whitehall is the 40th municipality in Ohio with fully inclusive, local-level nondiscrimination protections.▸▸ LGBTQ Bill Tracking UpdatesTo continue highlighting trends across the country, included below are our current bill tracking counts for anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures.Note: these counts may differ from other organizations or public counts for a variety of reasons, and this work is greatly facilitated by the work of other organizations including the ACLU, Trans Formations Project, and the Equality Federation and their member state groups.
As of August 7, 2025, MAP tracked over 715 anti-LGBTQ bills that were introduced across 49 states — i.e., every state but Vermont — in the 2024–2025 legislative sessions.
Click here to learn more about how the LGBTQ policy landscape has evolved over the last year and how to support on-the-ground changemakers in the fight for equality. ▸▸ MAP Policy Research UpdatesIn July, and in partnership with The Trevor Project, MAP published a new report,LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Laws Protecting LGBTQ Youth From Conversion “Therapy.”
With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear a case (Chiles v. Salazar) in late 2025 challenging the legality of laws protecting LGBTQ youth against these dangerous and discredited practices, this timely analysis details the history of these laws, the present and shifting landscape of both protective laws and counter-efforts to undermine these protections, and the importance of continuing to protect LGBTQ youth.
To schedule an interview with a MAP researcher or for questions, please contact Dana Juniel at dana@mapresearch.org. # # # About MAP: MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all. MAP works to ensure that all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life. www.mapresearch.org
A man has thanked his followers for their support as he battles to free his boyfriend from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention.
Eric Duran has been recording his efforts to free boyfriend Juan since 21 July. In a TikTok posted on Sunday (31 August), he said Juan, with whom he has been in a relationship for more than a year, is being held in Louisiana, having been moved from Colorado and Arizona.
“I got a call from someone whose brother-in-law is with Juan and shared they were transferred to this facility,” Duran wrote. “I was then able to confirm through the ICE locator as his information finally showed in the system. Thank you again for all the support.”
He then mentioned the GoFundMe that has been launched to “help us with legal fees, making sure he has money in there, and potentially setting up to live in a different country”.
Ninety per cent of $5,500 (£4,000) target has already been raised.
‘Physically exhausting and labour-intensive’
“This is all an intentional and calculated effort by the system to make sure he doesn’t get his due process, because Tuesday was his bond hearing and they moved him before that,” Duran went on to say.
The system isn’t there to “support in any way, shape or form,” and nobody truly knows where these individuals are. And at one stage he was told his boyfriend had been “sent home”, Duran claimed.
“The only human experience out of all of this is being able to build a community and being able to show up and support each other. That was truly how I was able to know and confirm that Juan was at the Louisiana facility.
“It’s on us to make sure we know where our loved ones are. All this has been so costly, all this is so physically exhausting and labour-intensive and mentally taxing. I’m so happy there is a community that wants to support in any way they can, so thank you again.”
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ICE officials reportedly ‘burnt out’ by Trump’s immigration crackdown
According to reports, ICE officials are facing “burnout and frustration” as president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continues.
Reuters claimed that agents had complained about White House demands for high arrest quotas, said to be as high as 3,000 a day – 10 times the number under president Joe Biden.
“The demands they placed on us were unrealistic. It was not done in a safe manner or the manner to make us most successful,” one official is quoted as saying.
A former ICE agent was initially told by colleagues that they were happy the “cuffs are off” but several months later, he told Reuters that they were now “overwhelmed” by the arrest numbers and “would prefer to go back to focused targeting”.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing to block a new state law that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools. “Senate Bill 12 is a blatant attempt to erase students’ identities and silence the stories that make Texas strong,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Every student — no matter their race, gender, or background — deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported in school.”
Because of SB 12’s ban on discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms, opponents have compared it to Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which attracted widespread media attention in 2022 due to its far-reaching impacts in public schools. Civil rights lawyers sued to block it, saying the law violated free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. The Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SB 12 author state Sen. Brandon Creighton [photo] last appeared here in June 2025 for his bill requiring students to produce an ID in order to participate in campus protests.
Also in June 2025, Creighton appeared here for his bill that would defund blue cities over “liberal policies” such as LGBTQ rights.
He appeared here in April 2025 for his bill that would force colleges to rewrite history texts to remove mentions of “social, political or economic inequalities” in the United States.
Creighton first appeared on JMG in 2019 for his bill seeking to overturn LGBTQ protections enacted by Texas cities.
In March 2023, he appeared here for his bill that would deny the prospect of tenure to newly-hired university professors.
Creighton has spearheaded the Texas campaign to protect Confederate monuments. He appeared here in August 2023 for his bill that forced the closure of the University of Houston’s LGBTQ Resource Center.
Creighton may soon leave the Texas Senate to become chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.
