The Supreme Court on Thursday waded into the legal fight over state laws that ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school and college sports, taking up cases from West Virginia and Idaho.
The court will hear cases involving two transgender students, Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who challenged state bans in West Virginia and Idaho, respectively.
Both won injunctions that allow them to continue to compete in sports. Pepper-Jackson, now 15, takes puberty blocking medication, while Hecox, a 24-year-old college student, has received testosterone suppression and estrogen treatments.
“Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth,” said Joshua Block, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who is part of the legal team representing both students. “We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.”
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey welcomed the Supreme Court’s intervention.
“The people of West Virginia know that it’s unfair to let male athletes compete against women; that’s why we passed this commonsense law preserving women’s sports for women,” he said.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, who is defending that state’s law, echoed those sentiments, saying that “women and girls deserve an equal playing field.”
Oral arguments will likely take place later this year, with a ruling expected by June 2026.
The states both enacted bans that categorically bar transgender students from participating in girls’ or women’s sports. More than half the 50 states now have such laws, but legal challenges have not been decisively resolved.
The fight for and against the expansion of transgender rights has become a flashpoint nationwide and was an issue in the recent presidential election, with Donald Trump denigrating Democrats for supporting the effort. His administration has begun to roll back measures taken by President Joe Biden to expand protections for transgender people.
In February, the National Collegiate Athletic Association also changed course,announcing a new policy to limit women’s sports to “student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
In Pepper-Jackson’s case, a federal judge initially ruled in her favor but concluded in January 2023 that the law was most likely legal and allowed it to be enforced against her. Pepper-Jackson appealed, and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked West Virginia officials from enforcing it against her.
The Supreme Court in April 2023 rejected the state’s attempt to enforce the law against Pepper-Jackson while the litigation continues, meaning she has been able to continue to participate in school sports, namely cross-country and track.
Hecox, who plays soccer and also runs, similarly obtained an injunction from a district court judge against Idaho officials. She also won on appeal at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pepper-Jackson and Hecox both failed to qualify for running teams at their respective schools, according to court papers. Pepper-Jackson did place third in the state for middle school discus and sixth in middle school shot put, losing out to cisgender girls. She finished 67th out of 68 in a cross-country event in eighth grade.
In barring transgender girls from participating in girls sports at the middle school, high school and college levels, the West Virginia law enacted in 2021 says gender is “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” As such, it says, a female is a person “whose biological sex determined at birth as female.”
The Idaho law, passed in 2020, states that sports “designated for females, women, or girls should not be open to students of the male sex.”
Both cases concern whether such laws violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the law apply equally to everyone. Pepper-Jackson’s case also raises a claim under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
The Biden administration unveiled proposals on how Title IX applies to transgender athletes, saying that blanket bans would be unlawful but concluding that it may be lawful to limit involvement in competitive sports.
But the the Trump administration has reversed course, with the White House issuing an executive order titled: “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports.”
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law barring sex discrimination in employment protected LGBTQ people, a ruling that angered conservatives. The court is yet to rule on whether the same reasoning applies to Title IX.
On June 18, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The 6-3 ruling is expected to have a broad impact as 24 other states have already enacted similar laws, which bar puberty blockers, hormone therapy (HRT) and gender transition surgeries for trans youth.
Uncloseted Media wanted to pass the microphone to the kids and young adults who could be directly affected by SCOTUS’ decision. So we called up Romana, Zavier, Ray, Dylan and Samuel—who are all receiving some form of gender-affirming care—to get their reaction to the decision.
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer: Hi everyone, I am here with five trans kids and young adults from across the United States. Guys, thank you so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today.
All: Thank you for having us.
Spencer: Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in a landmark case that prohibits health care providers [and] doctors from administering gender-affirming care to minors. That includes puberty blockers and HRT. I want to know, where were you guys when you heard the news and what was your reaction to that?
Samuel: So I’ve been following this case since November. I think the ruling’s ridiculous. I think it’ll kill kids.
Spencer: When you say this ruling is going to kill kids, that is a really bold statement. Why do you say that?
Samuel: It’s a bold statement. The care that enables so many people to live their lives. I think taking that possibility away from people who need it is incredibly cruel and short-sighted.
Romana: Ifelt disgusted, especially since I think [it’s] just from [the] hate. And I know people who gender-affirming care has saved the life of as teenagers. And I think every kid should be able to have that. And also, this ruling makes me scared that a state might try to ban trans care for adults.
Spencer: It could be a slippery slope.
Romana: Yeah,definitely.
Spencer: When you think about your future as a trans person without the care, what does that look like for you? Why is that so devastating?
Dylan: Because there’s not one.
Samuel: Yeah.
Spencer: Unpack that a little bit more. Why? Like, why do you think there is not one?
Photo courtesy of Dylan Brandt.
Dylan: Personally, now that I have had [testosterone] for almost five years, there would be no way that I would be able to lose everything that I have worked so hard for… And go back to living a life that was not me.
Spencer: Would you compare it to, like, if I were being forced to live as a woman every single day? Is it the exact same thing to you?
Dylan: Absolutely.I mean, if you were forced to be living [as] a woman and you, that was not something that you wanted? Absolutely.
Samuel: I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. When I was younger, it almost killed me then. I couldn’t do it now. I think they’d have to kill me to force me to stop transitioning because it saved my life. I think living as myself, living as Sam, as a man, is so integral to who I am. For somebody to even try to force me to stop that would include stopping me entirely, if that makes sense.
Spencer: Okay, let’s talk about Donald Trump. Trump has tasked several federal agencies to police and ultimately stop gender-affirming care for minors, which he has equated to child abuse and child sexual mutilation. He’s also falsely stated that kids are going to school and coming back with sex changes. I wanna know, as a trans kid, what would you say if you could talk to President Trump right now?
Ray: It’s kind of painful to hear the same argument that he pulls out of his asshole every single time just because he wants to weaponize the fact that we’re a marginalized community and people are afraid of us because they don’t understand so his tactic to basically throw people off is to make us look like we’re indoctrinating kids. We’re coming back from school with surgeries. Which, by the way, you don’t just go to school and be like, “Ah, yes, I would like a surgery please.”
Spencer: Do you guys feel sometimes like you’re being used by adults as political pawns?
Ray: All the time!
Dylan: Yeah, I have been fighting this fight for so long that I’m not even necessarily surprised by what’s said anymore. I think that if I could say something directly to Trump, it wouldn’t be very nice. Because at this point I’m done being nice. At this point I’m just mad, because it has gotten to a point where they’re toying with people’s lives. They are toying with people’s lives making us look like monsters for their political gain. Because if they have people on their side that think that we are everything that they say they are, people are gonna believe ‘em.
Spencer: Especially when most Americans have never even met a trans person before.
Dylan: Absolutely.
Spencer: And trans people represent, as far as we know, less than one percent of the overall population.
Romana: I feel like a political pawn, because there’s so much talk about trans people and so much legislation passed around it and it just feels like we’re being used as a scapegoat and just someone to put the blame on and hate on in society. If I could say something to President Trump, I would proudly say something like, “Just leave us alone.”
Photo courtesy of Romana.
Spencer: It’s hard for me to square away why [Trump] would make trans issues the number one platform of [his] campaign when it’s such a small percentage of the population. It doesn’t really make sense mathematically.
Samuel: I think to your point, it’s exactly because it’s a small area of the population. For a lot of these politicians, the hate is real. But to some extent, it’s like we are the issue they can use right now because we’re such a small community that we’re targetable. It’s the small size of the transgender community and the lack of education that the general public has that is what drives being able to target this group.
Spencer: I think there’s a lot of misinformation in the United States about what gender-affirming health care actually is. So tell me what gender-affirming health care means to you and how did you make the decision to get on it?
Dylan: It took me a really long time to realize or to put words to how I was feeling. And once I did, I spoke with my primary doctor who referred me to the gender spectrum clinic in Little Rock. And I went, had my first appointment with them. And that was a six-month process where you meet with those doctors multiple times. You have to be in therapy. You have to get a psychiatric evaluation to make sure that you are doing this for the right reason. And when I tell people that they’re like, “Oh! I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that there was a process,” and I [would say], “Yeah, I’m not just walking in and saying, ‘Hey can I have it?’” And then with my top surgery too. I had to have been in therapy. I had to get letters of recommendation. I had to get it signed off, basically, by multiple people.
Gender-affirming care, to me, is hope. I graduated last year, and I never thought that I would make it to graduation, and the only reason that I did is because of my gender-affirming care. I’ve been on testosterone for almost five years, and even up until four years ago I was just so unhappy with the way that I looked, with the way I felt. I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t want to go do anything, and now I do.
Sam: I think I resonate with everything Dylan said, from the length of the process to the sort of life-saving benefits. I don’t think I would have made it to 18 without starting care at 14 when I did. I was just so uncomfortable, but the process is long. I think it was two years because my parents weren’t really sure about care at first.
Spencer: I think one of the critiques a lot of adults in this country have on gender-affirming care is that there are irreversible impacts, right? And for things like testosterone, like there are things like facial hair, for example, that you can’t fully go back on, right? Was that decision hard to make when you know that sometimes there will be elements of this that could be not completely reversible?
Photo courtesy of Samuel.
Sam: I can see why it would be a hard decision for a lot of people and I think in some ways that’s like why there’s so many safety checks and it’s also why maybe my parents were so. You know, like…
Spencer: Cautious?
Sam: Nervous, yeah. Especially because they were like, oh, you know my daughter now, you’re no longer my daughter and that was a huge adjustment. But for me, as long as I’ve been out, I’ve known that this is what I wanted to do. Like once I had the language to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m trans,” and knew that that was the path I wanted to go down. So in the end, after considering everything, it wasn’t really a hard decision.
Spencer: And Zavier, you are 11. A lot younger than everyone else on this panel, and it sounds like you are taking blockers, which to any Americans watching are completely reversible and have been given to cisgender girls for things like precocious puberty for decades. Zavier, what does gender-affirming care mean to you?
Photo courtesy of Zavier.
Zavier: Well, when I was 3 years old, I came out and I was wanting to be trans. Once I got older, my parents, they put me on blockers and let me take medicine for it.
Spencer: A lot of people, adults particularly, would say, how could a kid ever know at 3 that they’re trans? What would you say to that? How did you know?
Zavier: I just saw people. I just thought about wanting to be trans and I’ve wanted to be trans ever since.
Spencer: And you’ve always felt like a boy?
Zavier: Yeah.
Spencer: And Ray, how about you? When did you kind of know you were trans or start having feelings that you could be trans and what’s the process for you been like to get on gender-affirming care?
Ray: I’ve known since I was like 6, 7-ish. I’ve always wanted to be the dad, always wanted to be a king. I didn’t want to be a queen, none of that. It took about seven to eight months of doctors visits. First we had to make sure my mental health was good. So they prescribed me like Strattera and other types of medicines to help elevate my levels and stuff. And then they eventually put me on testosterone.
Spencer: And how has that been for you, the transformation? Has that felt good?
Ray Oh, I feel like myself now, finally! I feel like everybody in this call or this meeting feels like themself after they finally take their hormones.
Spencer: So for me, a cisgender gay boy growing up, I’d want to wear my mom’s clothes and kind of act like a girl and do different things that would tap into my femininity. But there’s never been a question that I could be a trans woman, right? What do you think is the difference between how you guys feel versus how I feel about wanting to explore my gender?
Dylan: So in my house, I’ve had both. You know, my brother is a 17-year-old gay man. And when he was little, he did. He put on my dresses and my mom’s high heels and boots and everything. And so we had that, and then we had me. From the time I could dress myself wanting strictly jeans and t-shirts, and nobody was allowed to touch my hair. And there is so much of a difference. My brother was exploring that, and I don’t want to say exploring that as in a hobby, and I was exploring it more as a lifestyle. That sounds wrong to me. But that’s the best way I can explain it.
Spencer: A big difference could be comparing it to some gay guys [who] like to dress up in drag on Halloween. You want Halloween to be every single day for the rest of your life.
Dylan: My entire life, yes, yes.
Spencer: Take me more into your mind about the feelings of wellness, of health, if you are able to live as your gender identity.
Photo courtesy of Dylan.
Dylan: The validation started the moment I cut my hair off. I mean, from that moment, I opened the door for somebody. It was, “Thank you, sir.” We went out to eat with my mom, me and my brother. “What do you boys want?” I mean it was right off the bat. And that’s honestly what made me realize that’s who I was supposed to be, because it made me feel so good. I mean, even to this day, somebody calling me sir or any form of male affirmation, anything, makes me feel so good. Just knowing that these random people in the deep south have no clue who they’re talking to. And if they did, their reaction would be way different. But the fact that these country hicks in the Deep South, who I know voted for Trump, are calling me sir or bub or anything? Makes me feel so good about myself knowing that they have no idea.
Spencer: And Zavier, how about you? You’re the youngest, why is it important for you to transition at such a young age?
Zavier: When I was growing up and people would call me a girl, I would just not feel like I was a girl. And when they said that I would just be like, “No,” inside my head.
Spencer: And do you play on the boys sports teams and do you use the boys bathroom?
Zavier: I do use the boys bathroom and my parents are signing me up for kickboxing.
Spencer: Love it, that’s super cool, yeah. And you feel great since you’ve transitioned. Is there ever any regret or feeling like, “I wanna go back to living as a girl?” No? And that would be the case for everyone here is my sense, right? No regret, no sense of de-transitioning, anything like that, yeah? Do you guys find that when you meet people and actually have conversations with them about who you are and why you need this care, hearts and minds are changed, does that help?
Sam: Yeah.
Spencer: You’re shaking your heads. Yeah, go ahead.
Dylan: [In my] School, everybody knew, I live in a small town. It wasn’t a secret. Even the 60 Minutes episode, I mean, you have no idea how many people watched that and came to me and said, “I am so sorry. I never thought about it the way that you put it. I didn’t understand until I watched that.” Like there were so many people in my school and work that [60 Minutes] truly changed the way that they thought about the transgender community. People have this pre-idea of what the transgender community is. And it’s just not, at all, how it actually is. And you don’t know that until you speak with somebody that is living it.
Spencer: And to your point on misinformation, I mean, if you turn on Fox News, which is the most watched cable news channel in this country right now, misinformation is rampant. There are comparisons that gender-affirming care is literally just bottom surgeries or so-called general mutilation. What do you think those media portrayals of trans kids and gender-affirming care for trans kids does to the mindset of Americans as they see you guys?
Dylan: They see that people are talking about giving 7-year-olds bottom surgery at school. Yeah, that could be scary to somebody that doesn’t understand. You see that, and your brain automatically goes to, “Oh, that’s not right. They can’t do that. That’s not right.”
Spencer: But that’s not happening.
Dylan: That’s not happening, absolutely. But, you see that as somebody that doesn’t know for sure that that’s not happening. And I mean, yeah, I don’t blame them for being like, “Oh, we have to stop this.” But it’s that misinformation of people saying, “Oh this is happening” when it’s not. So they’re scaring people for no reason.
Romana: I definitely agree that they make it sound really scary. And I’ve met people who’ve thought that way. I think the news really paints trans children especially as victims of being trans, which isn’t true. Or like, you’re being groomed into it, which doesn’t happen.
Spencer: Zavier, as an 11-year-old, have you even had conversations about surgeries or anything like that?
Zavier: The answer is no, because I’m only 11 years old, and I started the blockers about a year ago. So, since I’m 11 years old and you usually get surgeries at like 17 or 18, maybe. Nobody’s talked about it to me. Because if I change my mind, which I probably won’t, it’s in like six, seven years.
Spencer: Right, and you started on blockers because it gives you more time to delay puberty so you can still give yourself time to make up your mind. Right? And that’s something that I’m assuming you’re exploring with your family and your doctor to decide what’s best for you, is that right?
Zavier: Yeah.
Spencer: Ray, is it okay if I speak about the experience we had in South Carolina?
Ray: Yeah.
Spencer: Okay, well, we came to film an episode on conservative-minded dads. May your dad rest in peace, I know he passed away, and I’m so sorry about that. When we were filming with your dad, who was a military veteran, who was kind of a redneck—can I say that? From Georgia. I remember him saying to me, “This is completely against Republican ideology, get the government the hell out of my child’s doctor’s office.” Do you guys have anything to say about why it’s all Republicans coming after trans health care when it really is completely opposite to how conservatives see government intervention in family health care and parents’ rights?
Ray: Republicans are really bad at realizing that everything is not their business. We have HIPAA for a reason. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that they don’t to be in everybody’s lives. They feel like they have to protect these children, even though they’re not really protecting them.
Spencer: Is it fair to say that like gender-affirming care can be complicated and it can be nuanced and we need to have conversations about nuance by this but it’s tough to have those when you have people just attacking, attacking, attacking?
Samuel: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s medicine and all medicine is complex. Doctors and patients and their families are more qualified than politicians.
Photo courtesy of Ray.
Ray: Politicians, they don’t have like a degree in anything to be able to say, “Oh, this is bad.” Like they’ve never done the research. They do not have a qualification. Until I see them have an MD, they don’t have any qualifications to say anything. And I do believe research should be done. I mean, everything has so many different symptoms for every different person. I believe research is very important.
Dylan: Lawmakers don’t need to be involved in my doctor visits. They have no right. They have no knowledge. I just… They’ve got a lane and they should stay in it.
It seems not everyone is welcome in Idaho after the state’s attorney general ordered schools to prohibit signs that read “Everyone is Welcome Here” under a new state law.
H.B. 41, which went into effect July 1, bans the display of banners or flags in K-12 classrooms that represent “political, religious, or ideological views, including but not limited to political parties, race, gender, sexual orientation, or political ideologies.” Republican Raúl Labrador issued guidance on how schools should apply the law, determining that the policy applies even to vague messages promoting kindness.
Labrador specifically referenced signs hung by Sarah Inama, a sixth grade history teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School who went viral in March after she revealed that Ada School District administration ordered her to remove signs in her classroom that read “In This Room, Everyone Is Welcome, Important, Accepted, Respected, Encouraged, Valued, Equal,” and “Everyone Is Welcome Here.”
“These signs are part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump,” he wrote. “Since that time, the signs have been used by the Democratic party as a political statement. The Idaho Democratic Party even sells these signs as part of its fundraising efforts.”
The “movement” that began in Minnesota referenced by Labrador was a group of local moms who carried pastel signs that stated “All are Welcome Here” in protest of someone tagging their children’s high school with racist graffiti following Trump’s election, as reported by Kare11. Some local businesses also displayed the sign in solidarity, but it is not the same design or slogan as the one in Inama’s classroom, which instead featured a row of hands with varying skin tones.
Per Labrador’s guidance, even children’s artwork could be prohibited under the law “if it meets the statutory definitional criteria of a ‘banner,'” though there is “an exception for a ‘brief curriculum-based educational purpose’ display which may apply to the artwork.”
After refusing to remove the signs for several weeks, Inama ultimately resigned. She told local station KTVB when the controversy first began that “I was told that ‘everyone is welcome here’ is not something that everybody believes. So that’s what makes it a personal opinion.”
“I don’t agree that this is a personal opinion,” she said. “I feel like this is the basis of public education.”
The U.N. Human Rights Council voted on Monday to renew the mandate of an LGBTQ rights expert, a move welcomed by advocates amid the absence of the United States, a former key supporter that is now rolling back such protections.
Western diplomats had previously voiced concerns about the renewal of the mandate of South African scholar Graeme Reid who helps to boost protections by documenting abuses and through dialogue with countries.
The motion for a three-year renewal passed with 29 votes in favor, 15 against and three abstentions. Supporters included Chile, Germany, Kenya and South Africa while several African nations and Qatar opposed it.
“The renewal of this mandate is a spark of hope in a time when reactionary powers worldwide are trying to dismantle progress that our communities fought so hard to achieve,” said Julia Ehrt, executive director of campaign group ILGA World.
The United States, which has disengaged from the council under President Donald Trump, citing an alleged antisemitic bias, was previously a supporter of the mandate under the Biden administration.
Since taking office in January, Trump has signed executive orders to curb transgender rights and dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the government and private sector.
His administration says such steps restore fairness, but civil rights and LGBTQ advocates say they make marginalized groups more vulnerable.
In negotiations before the vote, Pakistan voiced opposition to the mandate on behalf of Muslim group OIC, calling it a tool to advocate “controversial views.”
Virginia officials have agreed not to fully enforce a 2020 law banning conversion therapy for minors as part of an agreement with a faith-based conservative group that sued over the law, authorities said earlier this week.
The Virginia Department of Health Professions, represented by the state’s office of the attorney general, entered into a consent decree with the Founding Freedoms Law Center last month, saying officials will not discipline counselors who engage in talk conversion therapy.
Shaun Kenney, a spokesperson with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, said on Tuesday his office was satisfied with the consensus.
“This court action fixes a constitutional problem with the existing law by allowing talk therapy between willing counselors and willing patients, including those struggling with gender dysphoria,” Kenney said in a statement. “Talk therapy with voluntary participants was punishable before this judgment was entered. This result—which merely permits talk therapy within the standards of care while preserving the remainder of the law—respects the religious liberty and free speech rights of both counselors and patients.”
A Henrico Circuit Court judge signed the consent decree in June. Two professional counselors represented by the law center sued the state’s health department and counseling board last September, arguing that the law violated their right to religious freedom.
The term “conversion therapy” refers to a scientifically discredited practice of using therapy in an attempt to convert LGBTQ people to heterosexuality.
The practice has been banned in 23 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ rights think tank.
The practice has been a matter of dispute in several states. A ruling is expected any day from the Wisconsin Supreme Court over whether a legislative committee’s rejection of a state agency rule that would ban the practice of “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ people was unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in March to take up a case from Colorado to determine whether state and local governments can enforce laws banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ children.
According to the law center, the Virginia consent decree applies not only to the two counselors but to all counselors in Virginia.
“We are grateful to the Defendants in this case and to the Attorney General, who did the right thing by siding with the Constitution,” the law center said in a statement.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, who backed the 2020 bill, blasted the decree.
“This was a statute that was enacted to save lives,” he told reporters during a Zoom session on Tuesday. “All the research, all the professional psychiatric organizations have condemned conversion therapy. They say it doesn’t work, and they say it’s counterproductive.”
As new GLAAD research was released simultaneously, it is clear that there is an abundant overlap in findings: There are catastrophic effects from the lethal assault on the LGBTQ community with a flagrant focus on transgender people.
“We lead with facts first,” Tristan Marra, GLAAD’s Vice President of Research and Reports said.
Marra is responsible for making sure GLAAD’s emerging data gets out to the public in a way that helps shape accurate conversations about the at-large LGBTQ community.
“Facts are thought-provoking, facts build empathy, and facts are a bridge to greater understanding. Thoughtful research that shines a light on our lived experiences and the realities we face creates opportunities for cultural change,” Marra continued.
Today, the basic rights of trans people, about 1% of the population, continue to get eviscerated year-by-year, state-by-state, and now, under a federal administration dedicated to stripping trans people of their dignity.
Twenty-five states have bans in place for best practice healthcare for trans youth, and with at least 17 lawsuits challenging different states’ bans, according to the Movement Advancement Project (MAPS).
“They’re Ruining People’s Lives” documents the harm caused by bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the U.S. It highlights the severe toll this takes on the mental and physical well-being of transgender youth,” the lead researcher and writer of the report Yasemin Smallens said at the press conference. Smallens is an officer in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.
The report is based on the interviews of 51 people including transgender youth, parents, healthcare providers, and advocates across 19 states, and illuminates the barbaric effects of transgender healthcare bans on transgender people in the U.S.
Of those interviewed, 11 families told Human Rights Watch they were compelled to travel out of state for care, often making regular trips to consult physicians, or obtain prescriptions. Four youth were unable to begin care due to legal barriers combined with geographic and financial obstacles. One family relocated to another state to secure reliable access to care and escape an environment hostile to trans people. Seven other youth attempted suicide in relation to the bans; three attempts led to hospitalizations.
Likewise, GLAAD’s latest research affirms these experiences, and further predicts expectations of violence in the future.
The 2025 ALERT Desk report released late last month shows that over the past year, 52% of all anti-LGBTQ incidents were targeting transgender and gender non-conforming people (485 out of 932 incidents). GLAAD’s 2025 Accelerating Acceptance also reported that two in three LGBTQ adults (68%) expect the violence or threats against LGBTQ Americans to increase within the next year.
For many, this data saves lives, even when it reveals the effects of maleficence.
“Research like this, reports like this, are used in court. They’re used to build policy in the legislature. They’re used to advocate for so much in a real, tangible way because there are reports out that are filled with misinformation and disinformation,” Executive Director of PFLAG NYCClark Wolff Hamel said at the press conference.
PFLAG NYC has services directly targeting the disinformation that prompts the bans that encourage such violence against a single community.
A large part of those services are educating families, the education system, state and federal legislature, and community.
That’s why producing research, Hamel continued, that backs correct information along with actual experiences from real people of the community sets an “incredibly important” precedent.
Hamel and Smallens were joined by Meredithe McNamara MD MSc, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine. NcNamara says that treatment described as gender-affirming care has been used for years.
She says that people lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of gender-affirming care for cisgender (or non-transgender) people is surgery. McNamara is trained in adolescent medicine and started learning about gender-affirming care in college. Now, with 15 years of experience, she advocates for trans truth through science and facts.
“Amongst youth, 97% of surgeries that could be described as for gender-affirming reasons were in cisgender teen boys who had an excess of breast tissue, and felt that did not align with their gender identity and wanted surgery,” McNamara said to the audience.
The Yale professor said bans are contradictory, and focus on a minority of people who receive gender-affirming care, while purposely mystifying the majority of people (non-transgender) who receive this care without any issues. The internal inconsistencies and conflicts of a broad ban for trans healthcare will create confusion, and codify dangerous procedures on intersex infants.
In fact, GLAAD’s Alert Desk found that the increasing attacks on trans communities directly coincides with at least four executive orders from the Trump administration that specifically demean and discriminate against trans Americans, and following $215M in political ads during the 2024 campaign targeting trans people.
What those ads don’t state is that nearly all trans youth continue their care into adulthood, most studies show, and satisfaction rates are high. Despite its proven efficacy, legislative bans have disrupted or denied access to this health care, replacing nuanced medical decisions with blunt, all-encompassing restrictions.
For now, as a need for change bellows out of the hearts and minds of LGBTQ people everywhere, verifiable truth in the face of disinformation can act as a basis for successful resistance efforts for trans equality. “The integrity of data and the power of research as a center of truth and a catalyst for change are critically important. Measuring is the first step in moving the needle on acceptance,” Marra said.
More about the GLAAD Media Institute: The GLAAD Media Institute provides training, consultation, and actionable research to develop an army of social justice ambassadors for all marginalized communities to champion acceptance and amplify media impact. Using the best practices, tools, and techniques we’ve perfected over the past 30 years, the GLAAD Media Institute turns education into armor for today’s culture war—transforming individuals into compelling storytellers, media-savvy navigators, and mighty ambassadors whose voices break through the noise and incite real change. Activate with the GLAAD Media Institute now at glaad.org/institute.
Police Scotland has announced that trans women held in custody by police in the country will now be strip-searched by male officers, not female.
The decision comes over two months after the UK Supreme Court ruling. The landmark case brought by gender-critical group For Women Scotland against the Scottish government found that the legal definition of a woman excludes trans women and the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ under the 2010 Equality Act refers to biology.
In new interim guidance around searching members of the trans community, Police Scotland, which is the UK’s second-largest police force after the Met, issued a five-page document, which states that searches will be conducted “on the basis of biological sex”.
However, if someone requests an officer of their affirmed gender to perform the search, “efforts will be made to ensure an appropriate officer conducts the search, where this is operationally viable to do so”.
In these scenarios, written consent from the authorising officer, the person being searched and the officer/s conducting the search will be required.
Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton said via the press release: “This is a complex and important area of policing and searching members of the public is a significant intrusion of their personal liberty and privacy.
“It is critical that as an organisation, Police Scotland continues to fulfil its legal duties as well as ensuring officers and staff feel confident that they are conducting searches lawfully.
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“While the guidance will bring clarity to both our colleagues and members of the public, we are acutely aware of the impact and depth of feeling around this issue, both among the transgender community and those who hold gender critical views.
“Our priority continues to be ensuring that in all our interactions we police and make decisions in line with our service values of integrity, fairness, respect and upholding human rights.”
The interim guidance remains under review “with ongoing legal advice and engagement with key stakeholders”, amid the pending publication of revised national guidance. Police Scotland added that its wider review into sex and gender is ongoing, and further updates would “be issued in due course”.
A spokesperson of the Scottish government told the BBC: “It is for Police Scotland to decide their operational processes, including their guidance for officers, and ensure they are in line with legal obligations.
“The Scottish government has made clear we accept the Supreme Court ruling and that public bodies have a duty to comply with the law.”
Since 1989, the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, Virginia, has built up what CEO Stacie Walls calls a “test and treat” model. For every patient that walked through the doors of their HIV clinic after working up the courage to get tested, there had been the promise that, if they tested positive, all they’d need to do to get treatment was walk down the hallway.
But since the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to HIV funding took place earlier this year, that’s no longer the case. “The grant money that pays for people who are uninsured is the grant money that they have canceled,” Walls told Uncloseted Media. “That’s so disheartening and scary and goes against everything that we’ve ever wanted to embrace as a nonprofit service agency.”
With these cuts, staff now have to send uninsured patients to the next nearest community HIV program in Hampton, a 30-minute drive away. Walls says they’ve already had to transfer 19 existing patients, including some of their frequent client base of low-income LGBTQ people of color, who are disproportionatelyimpacted by the virus. While the center has been able to shift to covering at least their initial treatment appointment, they are unable to cover further care, and Walls says that even this is not sustainable.
The LGBT Life Center is just one of the many U.S.-based HIV organizations and programs that have fallen victim to the billions of dollars worth of cuts by Trump and his newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
HIV funding has been hit particularly hard: Uncloseted Media estimates that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated more than $1 billion worth of grants to HIV-related research.1 In addition, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has terminated 71% of all global HIV grants, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been the subject of temporary suspension and major proposed cuts.
Additional cuts are also on the horizon, with the Trump administration’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 calling for the closure of all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV programs.
The effects of these cuts are deadly. Researchers estimate that PEPFAR’s funding freeze alone may already be associated with more than 60,000 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, and numerous experts say that the entire global health system could be upended if the administration’s HIV cuts continue as planned. Mathematical models show that the worst-case scenario is apocalyptic: nearly 11 million new infections, 3 million deaths, and an infection rate outpacing the virus’s peak in the 1990s.
“This is not something that’s just a matter of the scientists losing funding; the community is losing funding, and in the long term, losing ground in the fight against HIV,” says Noam Ross, executive director at research nonprofit rOpenSci.
The Domestic Impact
Cuts to HIV funding in the U.S. have been a significant casualty of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce spending and attack Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Researchers behind Grant Watch, an independent third-party database of grants terminated by the NIH and the National Science Foundation, have identified HIV-related funding as one of the most common targets for termination. As of June 17, Uncloseted Media has calculated roughly $1.353 billion in HIV-related terminations in Grant Watch’s NIH database, accounting for more than a third of the $3.7 billion in recorded NIH cuts overall.
List of terminated HIV-related grants in Grant Watch’s database | Screenshot
“They’re certainly casting an enormously wide net in this,” says Ross, who is also Grant Watch’s co-developer. “It doesn’t matter that they’re not explicitly saying that ‘it’s a war on HIV’ because if they’re gonna have a war on sexual minorities and transgender people, it’s a war on HIV too.”
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has explicitly told HIV groups across the country that funding was cut because it believes health research for LGBTQ people and racial minorities is unscientific. Researchers across the country have received letters and emails from the NIH with nearly identical statements informing them of their grant terminations:
“Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to the scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.”
One of the programs subjected to cuts is the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network (ATN), an HIV program that has been active since 2001. Its goal is to prevent, diagnose, and treat HIV in young people.
Research under ATN’s umbrella has seen promising developments, including progress towards a product that could combine PrEP and birth control into one pill as well as new methods for reducing HIV transmission in young men who use stimulants. Despite this, NIH cut $15 million worth of grants to ATN because of its focus on high-risk LGBTQ youth populations. The program’s funds were later restored, but only after ATN agreed to cut off a study on transgender youth of color.
“There are particular issues around Black women, LGBTQ people, [and] the type of treatment that they need … that’s the social side of medicine, which is a very important part of medicine—it’s not just molecules, it’s people,” Ross says, adding that grantees focused on “delivery and participation and how to keep people in care,” such as programs that help vulnerable populations stay on PrEP or undetectable folks maintain their antiretroviral therapy regimen, are “very undervalued by [the] administration.”
“So that stuff feels like it’s faster to get canceled,” he says.
Rowan Martin-Hughes, senior research fellow at the Burnet Institute in Australia, says cutting programs that support prevention and long-term treatment is dangerous.
“With other infectious diseases, you treat people and then they’re recovered; with HIV, people require lifetime treatment,” he told Uncloseted Media. “Most of those people infected with HIV are still alive, and if you take treatment away from them, many people will die. And because treatment is also the best form of preventing transmission, many millions of additional infections will occur.”
Many advocates and lawmakers are pushing back against the cuts. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Boston ruled that the NIH’s DEI-related grant terminations—including many HIV programs—are illegally racist and discriminatory toward LGBTQ people, saying that in his four decades as a judge, he had “never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable.” HHS officials say they will consider an appeal.
NIH is far from the only agency issuing massive cuts to HIV. The CDC has terminated large grants to numerous HIV clinics across the country. Los Angeles-based St. John’s Well Child and Family Center lost $746,000, and the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk has lost over $962,000 and could potentially lose a whopping $6.3 million, which makes up 48% of their operating budget. Walls says it’s not just their treatment model that’s taken a hit—the center had to cancel 16 free mobile testing events in June alone, which she fears could cause many more people to contract the virus without knowing, contributing to its spread.
“When we’re out in the community in our mobile testing van, it’s super convenient for people. We’re parked there, they can just walk through, get their test and keep on going, and so that is a low-barrier way to test,” says Walls, who says that easy access is critical for low-income LGBTQ people of color. “[Without it], thousands of people that we test every month or every year are not going to be tested.”
The Vaccine Impact
DEI isn’t the only reason the government has given for HIV-related cuts. The Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD), a consortium of researchers at Scripps Research and Duke University, was informed last month that, after seven years of funding from NIH, their grant would be terminated next year.
Dennis Burton, the program’s director, says they are close to a major breakthrough, with promising technology based on broadly neutralizing antibodies that can disable thousands of different strains of HIV being nearly ready for clinical trials in humans. But without NIH funding, the project may be unable to continue.
“It would put back the development of an HIV vaccine by a decade or longer,” Burton told Uncloseted Media. “We begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel … it’s just the wrong time to stop.”
A senior NIH official told the New York Times that “NIH expects to be shifting its focus toward using currently available approaches to eliminate HIV/AIDS.”
And while Burton says that existing HIV treatment medicine like antiretroviral therapies is “a miracle,” the decision to jettison vaccine research in its favor is misguided.
“The drugs are fantastic … but they’re expensive and people have to take them—the great thing about a good vaccine is that with one or a limited number of shots you can get lifelong prevention,” says Burton. “We want people to live without the fear of HIV, and vaccines are the proven way of preventing viral infections and viral disease.”
The Global Impact
The most sweeping cuts to HIV funding have been to foreign aid. On his first day in office, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid funding as well as a stop-work order for PEPFAR. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver to continue some critical operations, department memos specifically prohibited funding for PrEP for all populations except pregnant and breastfeeding women.
This move, coupled with the dissolution of USAID and a proposal to cut an additional $1.9 billion from PEPFAR in the FY26 budget request compared to the prior year, has created a perfect storm with staggering results.
The PEPFAR Impact Tracker, a project by Boston University infectious disease modeler Brooke Nichols, estimates that over 60,000 adults and over 6,000 children have died due to PEPFAR-related disruptions between January 24 and June 17. And a survey conducted over the first week of the stop-work order found that 86% of PEPFAR recipient organizations reported that their patients would lose access to HIV treatment within the next month, more than 60% had already laid off staff, and 36% had to shut down their organizations.
The impact hits the hardest in sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest HIV concentration, accounting for an estimated 67% of HIV positive individuals globally as of 2021. Numerous long-running and influential LGBTQ health clinics in South Africa have been forced to close, and an investigation by The Independent found that communities in Uganda and Zimbabwe are rapidly being torn apart as more people risk death from lack of access to HIV treatment due to the cuts.
Numerous LGBTQ people told the Daily Sun, a South African digital newspaper, that the closure of long-running clinics like Engage Men’s Health in Johannesburg and Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute was devastating.
“I take PrEP, but you can’t go to any clinic as a queer person and ask for it without people looking at you weirdly,” one trans person told the Daily Sun. “At the trans clinic, it was different. Everything was smooth, everything flowed.”
The U.S. has historically been the biggest contributor to fighting HIV, accounting for more than 70% of international funding, but they’re not the only ones making cuts. Following Trump’s example, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced 6 billion pounds in funding cuts to foreign aid, including HIV, and France and Germany also announced multi-billion euro cuts.
“HIV has received a lot more funding than any other health area,” says John Stover, vice president for modeling and analysis at Avenir Health. “So it’s a likely target just because the money is so large.”
Martin-Hughes of the Burnet Institute thinks these cuts are dangerous for the entire global health system. He co-authored a study modeling the potential impacts of HIV funding cuts from the major global funders, and the results are grim.
In the worst-case scenario, where PEPFAR is discontinued with no replacement or mitigation alongside the proposed cuts from the top five biggest-spending countries, the study projects that there could be nearly 11 million new infections and nearly 3 million deaths by 2030, which would raise the annual infection rate higher than its 3.3 million peak in 1995.
This is not necessarily the most likely scenario, as PEPFAR is expected to be reinstated in at least some form. However, even the most optimistic estimates show that substantial cuts like the one proposed in the Trump administration’s FY26 budget could still put an end to 15 years of declining infection and death rates—especially since prevention and testing would likely be sacrificed first.
“The world has made really amazing progress on HIV,” Martin-Hughes told Uncloseted Media. “That kind of increase [in infections and death rates would be] a major reversal.” He says that major foreign aid cuts would leave programs for at-risk populations, such as gay and bisexual men, trans women, sex workers and people who inject drugs, particularly vulnerable to being shut down.
Cuts to PEPFAR, a program started by Republican president George W. Bush in 2003, have been controversial even among Republicans, with Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins publicly opposing them. While many researchers and policymakers advocate for funding and leadership on HIV to shift away from foreign aid and more towards local governments, Stover and other experts argue that that transition can only be possible with support from PEPFAR in the interim.
“Overall, we all have a vision of more local ownership and control over the resources and how they’re allocated,” Stover says. “[But] it takes time to make this transition, so it’s gonna be practically impossible if funding is just cut off abruptly.”
Cuts on All Sides
Walls says cuts are also happening at the state level. Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars for HIV programs, and Walls’ center recently lost multiple corporate donors, including Target, due to pressure from the Trump administration to roll back their DEI efforts.
She says that the fear of backlash for supporting LGBTQ initiatives is so pervasive that even some of their continued donors are now requesting that their contributions remain anonymous.
“Now, if Target was to advertise that they were giving money to the LGBTQ community center in their neighborhood or city, they would have consequences from the administration or even shoppers,” she says. “They’re not gonna take that risk.”
Meanwhile, Walls says the LGBT Life Center is staying afloat thanks to the local community stepping up, with an unprecedented number of people signing up to be volunteers and local restaurants and other businesses providing their assistance, whether that’s by participating in citywide fundraising events or offering to help paint the clinic.
“It is amazing to see, and I know that through all of this the community will help carry us through, because we have brought value to this community for 36 years and I feel confident that people see value in our services,” she says.
Still, experts, advocates, and infectious disease modelers agree that if HIV funding doesn’t continue, the effects will be devastating.
“I think it’s hard for people to look at these numbers and not feel like it’s important to prioritize,” says Martin-Hughes. “There needs to be, to avert these worst-case scenarios, sufficient funding for those programs.”
This story was originally published in Uncloseted Media. For all their LGBTQ-focused journalism, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at UnclosetedMedia.com.
Keir Starmer has urged public bodies currently not enforcing the Supreme Court’s gender ruling to bar trans people from single-sex spaces “as soon as possible”.
The court verdict, handed down in April, deemed that the legal definition of the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act referred to “biological sex” only, so excluding trans people.
In response, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality watchdog, issued interim guidance which called for transgender men and women to be banned from single-sex facilities which matched their gender and, in some cases, from using those which matched their “biological sex”.
When asked at the NATO summit in The Hague if hospitals, universities and government departments should implement the findings of the Supreme Court into internal policies, the prime minister said: “We’ve accepted the ruling, welcomed the ruling, and everything else flows from that, as far as I’m concerned.
“Therefore, all guidance needs to be consistent with the ruling and we need to get to that position as soon as possible.”
Maya Forstater, the chief executive of gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters, said Starmer’s comment was an “important intervention from the prime minister” given the “huge number of public bodies failing to implement the Supreme Court judgement and therefore operating outside the law”.
She went on to say: “Political leadership is essential if women, whose rights are being stolen, are not to be forced to turn to the courts, where public bodies will end up losing – at great expense to taxpayers.”
The EHRC’s public consultation period into changes to its Code of Conduct, which aims to “support service providers, public bodies and associations to understand their duties under the Equality Act and put them into practice” closes today. A mass lobby took place at Westminster last week, where trans people hoped to voice concerns to their MPs.
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The situation has left many trans people feeling fear for their rights, and Green co-leader Carla Denyer warned that the EHRC’s interim guidance would “act as a bigot’s charter”, with the potential to unleash “vigilante harassment, intimidation and violence against trans people when they try to use facilities in public spaces”.
Following the Supreme Court judgement, he told the BBC: “I welcome the decision, which has given us much-needed clarity, and I think for those now drawing up guidance, it’s a much clearer position. I’m really pleased the court has clarified the position. We can move on from there and that’s very helpful. I welcome that.”
Starmer went on to say that “a woman is an adult female”, and when asked by ITV West Country if he believed trans women are women, he replied: “I think the Supreme Court has answered that question. A woman is an adult female. It’s important that we see the judgement for what it is: a welcome step forward. We need to move [on] and ensure all guidance is in the right place according to that judgement.”
The Supreme Court case was brought against the Scottish government by gender-critical For Women Scotland, supported by author JK Rowling, following a lower court’s finding that sex was not limited to biology.
For months, the city of Columbia, South Carolina, has been steeped in a battle over conversion therapy in the state capital.
The Republican candidate for governor is for conversion therapy and threatened the city with withdrawing state funds over the issue. The Democratic candidate running for mayor of Columbia is against it; she called efforts to reinstate the debunked practice “a betrayal.”
On Tuesday, the conversion therapy advocates won when the city council voted to overturn its ban, which has been in place since 2021.
The 4-3 council vote reaffirmed another vote with the same result a week earlier. That vote followed months of delayed city council action as activists flooded City Hall chambers urging officials not to repeal the ban, according to the Post & Courier.
The council’s reconsideration began in April with a letter sent by state Attorney General Alan Wilson (R), who’s running for governor in 2026.
Wilson argued the city’s conversion therapy ordinance violated state and federal law, and he enlisted the South Carolina Legislature to introduce a provision that would strip Columbia of $3.7 million in state funding if the council didn’t overturn the ordinance.
Since then, every city council meeting has been packed with LGBTQ+ advocates, licensed mental health workers, and ACLU members urging the council to resist Wilson’s raw power play aimed at riling his MAGA base at the expense of the LGBTQ+ community.
Wilson formally announced his run for governor on Monday.
In the end, current Mayor Daniel Rickenmann (R) and three other council members voted to lift the ban, citing the threat of massive funding cuts.
The loss in state money would be too significant, they argued, over an ordinance some claim was largely symbolic: over the life of the ban, no licensed counselors had been fined or reported in violation of the ordinance. Infractions could have earned counselors a $500 fine.
“For y’all to give in and capitulate without a battle of any kind is strange to me. Where is the outrage?” asked Dr. Isabelle Mandell at Tuesday’s meeting, reported by the South Carolina Daily Gazette. “You haven’t tried. You haven’t fought it.”
“The job now is just to get boots on the ground, spread the message that, ‘Hey, we need new leadership in these positions,’” said Justice Hills, who has shown up to every meeting since April to urge council members to keep the ban.
In a statement following the vote, Columbia’s LGBTQ+ Harriet Hancock Centerurged the community to persevere.
“Our work doesn’t stop with this vote,” the center’s director wrote. “For those who are asking, ‘What now?’ ‘What’s next?’ I encourage you to turn our anger into action.”
Four of the city council’s members are up for reelection in November.
