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    White House may seek legally binding control over Columbia through consent decree – report

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    The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a dramatic escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.The university has already accepted a series of changes demanded by the administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal grants and contracts that the government suspended last month over allegations that the school failed to protect students from antisemitism on campus.A consent decree – a binding agreement approved by a federal judge – would be an extraordinary move by the Trump administration, which has threatened government funding as a way to force colleges and universities to comply with Donald Trump’s political objectives on a range of issues from campus protests to transgender women in sports and diversity and inclusion initiatives.As a party to the consent decree, Columbia would have to agree to enter it – and the Journal report states that it is unclear whether such a plan has been discussed by the university board.In a statement to the Guardian, the university did not directly address the report. “The University remains in active dialogue with the Federal Government to restore its critical research funding,” a spokesperson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the Journal, the proposal comes from the administration’s antisemitism taskforce, composed in part of justice department lawyers, who have reportedly expressed skepticism that Columbia was acting in “good faith”. If Columbia resists, the justice department would need to present its case for the agreement in court, a process that could drag on for years with the university risking its federal funding in the interim.Republicans and the Trump administration have sought to make an example of Columbia University, which was at the center of a student protest movement over Israel’s war in Gaza that broke out on campuses across the country. Last month, federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and prominent Palestinian activist who participated in campus protests. He remains in detention.During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump pressed his education secretary, Linda McMahon, to elaborate on the department’s efforts to withhold federal funds from universities that were “not behaving”.“You’re holding back from $400 Columbia?” he asked McMahon. She nodded and named other schools, noting that the administration had frozen nearly $1bn in funding from Cornell.“We’re getting calls from the presidents of universities who really do want to come in and sit down and come in and sit down and have discussions,” she said. “We’re investigating them but in the meantime we’re holding back the grant fund money.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trans soldiers served their country. Now the US is rolling back their healthcare

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      When Savannah Blake joined the air force at 22 years old, she was looking for stable employment and a way out of poverty. For the last few years of her service, she worked as a cyberdefense operator in the intelligence squadron. But the work, which involved overseeing computers operating drone surveillance, eventually took a toll on her mental health.“If I had to watch any more of this, I was going to not be alive anymore,” Blake said, who says she experienced suicidal ideations. “I just felt like the bad guy. I felt evil.”View image in fullscreenAfter seven years of service, Blake, who is trans, left the air force with PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder and chronic depression. But she also left with the hope she could finally live as herself without fear of harassment from fellow service members. Last year, she began receiving estrogen through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Now she fears for the future of that care.“Every day, I wake up and I don’t know what the rules are anymore in the country I live in,” said Blake. “It’s becoming increasingly hard to see a future where we’re OK.”Blake is one of about 134,000 transgender veterans living in the US. It’s an alarming time to be someone like her. On his first day in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order recognizing only two sexes, stamping out gender identity in federal documents and public spaces. A series of other orders have attempted to restrict trans rights, including participation in sports, access to gender-affirming care for youth, educational materials in schools and military service.The crackdown has sent shock waves through the VA, which functions as one of the US’s largest healthcare providers, offering free or low-cost care to more than 9 million veterans. After Trump’s inauguration, some VA health centers began removing LGBTQ+ affiliated objects, including pride flags, rainbow magnets, stickers and posters.When Mary Brinkmeyer’s medical center ordered the removal of LGBTQ+ patient flyers and other affirming material days after Trump’s executive orders, she refused, and ultimately resigned. For nearly three years, she had worked as a psychologist and LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator at the VA facility in Hampton, Virginia. Hospital leadership ordered her to stop LGBTQ+ outreach, advocacy and gender-affirming training to departments because it could be considered “gender ideology”.View image in fullscreen“We all have ethics codes in our professions that say that you’re supposed to do no harm, and that if you’re caught between institutional pressure and the ethics code, you’re supposed to resolve it in a way that’s consistent with the ethics code,” Brinkmeyer said.Brinkmeyer fears for the mental health of trans veterans, whom she saw experience “really intense suicidal crises” after Trump announced a ban on trans people enlisting in the military in 2017. After the election last November, some of her patients requested the removal of trans identifiers in medical records, and others withdrew from coverage over fears of being targeted and losing access to care. For many, those fears have become a reality.Rollbacks became official in March when the VA rescinded directive 1341, a policy that ensured “the respectful delivery of health care to transgender and intersex Veterans”, and announced the phasing out of gender-affirming medical care. The agency had been providing gender-affirming treatment including hormone therapy, prosthetics, hair removal, voice coaching and pre-surgical evaluation including letters of support for more than a decade. While cisgender veterans will still be able to access these treatments, veterans diagnosed with gender dysphoria are now excluded. Mental health services for trans patients and existing VA and military coverage for hormone therapy won’t be affected, according to the memo, which also formalizes banning trans patients from using facilities that align with their gender identity.View image in fullscreen“I am scared for the huge amount of people that are about to be forcibly separated, because the VA is not there to actually catch these people,” Blake said, referring to an influx of trans service members who could be forced out of the military under Trump’s transgender military ban. “I hate that the ladder was pulled up behind me.”‘A death sentence’The changes have put trans veterans seeking gender-affirming care in limbo. It has also created a climate of fear for the trans veterans already receiving hormone therapy, who worry it could be pulled at any time.View image in fullscreenThat’s the reality for Kaydi Rogers. While at the moment her hormone therapy will not be disrupted, she is terrified of losing access to estrogen if the VA continues its crackdown.Rogers spent about five decades acquiring estrogen pills through pharmacies in Mexico or friends with prescriptions.“I was desperate,” Rogers said. “I didn’t know any way of doing anything about what was going on with me. It was not a common thing back in the 70s and 80s to come out trans.”She finally switched to VA coverage because of the potential health risks of taking unregulated pills. But Rogers said if the VA ever stopped prescribing her estrogen, the desperation would return and she would again rely on self-medication for survival.Beyond her concerns about continued access to care, Rogers feels the loss of welcoming and safe spaces inside VA clinics. She says she tries to avoid drawing attention to herself during appointments, fearful of being harassed or attacked.“Before last year, every time I went to the VA, I went dressed as Kaydi and no one seemed to bother me or care,” Rogers said. “Now, not so much.”Other veterans share these safety concerns, including Lindsay Church, the executive director and co-founder of Minority Veterans of America. Church, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, has experienced harassment and discrimination inside VA clinics in the past, and began carrying a printed copy of directive 1341 to prove they were entitled to treatment that respected their gender identity. With that directive rescinded and no guarantee of protection, they’ve canceled VA appointments and sought care elsewhere.View image in fullscreenThe veterans affairs secretary, Doug Collins, stated that trans veterans “will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”. In response to questions about the new policy, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, directed the Guardian to the press release from 17 March.Church said the discriminatory climate is having a chilling effect on trans veterans, regardless of whether their care plans have been discontinued under the VA’s new policy. “If I can’t use [my healthcare plan] because I’m scared of being harassed and intimidated, and experiencing physical violence in a bathroom, I can’t use the system,” they said.They called the policy reversal a “death sentence”.View image in fullscreen‘We tell them we will take care of you, and that’s a lie’Trans veterans face higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, PTSD and military sexual trauma compared with cisgender veterans. They are also twice as likely to die by suicide compared with cisgender veterans, and almost six times more likely than the general US population. Advocates and providers say these psychiatric and socioeconomic risk factors, when combined with the loss of an affirming medical environment, places an already vulnerable population even more at risk.One VA clinical social worker, who requested anonymity, said his LGBTQ+ patients don’t feel safe and are experiencing more suicidal ideations than before Trump took office.“I have seen an increase in suicide risk evaluations,” he said. “I’ve done more of those in the last two months than I’ve done the last two years.”View image in fullscreenAnother LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator said a trans patient attempted suicide at her facility after Trump’s inauguration, and she fears there could be more people who attempt the same. She said notifying trans patients of the policy change has been heartbreaking.“I’ve worked for the past two and a half years to gain people’s trust, and now all of a sudden, I’m pulling out the rug from under them,” she said. “It feels terrible.”She had to tell one patient wanting to start hormone therapy that the VA could no longer help them, and is preparing the same message for trans patients on a months-long waitlist to begin treatment. While she has been looking for ways to provide alternatives, many of her trans patients live in rural areas where accessing gender-affirming care is difficult.Other VA employees see cutting trans healthcare as a betrayal of the benefits promised to service members when they enlist.“We’re asking these 17-year-olds to give their entire bodies to the US government,” said one VA nurse, who requested anonymity over fear of losing her job. “And they’re given one promise, which is that we will care for them. And this is part of care, whether you like it or not.”Gender-affirming medical care has been endorsed by every major medical association in the US, and medical providers say that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to decide how they care for their patients.“You’re giving so much to the military. You give your whole life, you have no say over where you live,” the nurse said. “Then we tell them we will take care of you, and that’s a lie. We’re lying to people – and not just trans veterans, all veterans.” More

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      in Elections

      Republicans Invoke Newsom in a Hearing on Transgender Sports

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      California Democrats rejected two Republican bills that would have banned transgender athletes from female sports. In a rare turn, Republicans tried to use the Democratic governor’s own words to challenge Democrats.It was a discussion of a kind rarely, if ever, seen in the California State Capitol. For hours on Tuesday, Republicans repeatedly invoked the views of Gov. Gavin Newsom, while the governor’s fellow Democrats took pains to avoid saying his name.At issue were two Republican bills that would have banned transgender athletes from female sports, just days after Mr. Newsom had reiterated his personal belief that their participation was unfair to those who were born as girls.“For the first time ever, Gavin Newsom and I agree,” said Karen England, executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative advocacy group.Democrats, who control the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism, ultimately quashed the bills after dozens of people spoke in a packed hearing room. The debate brought into stark focus an extraordinary rift among California Democrats on the issue of transgender participation in female sports.Mr. Newsom, a longtime supporter of expanding L.G.B.T.Q. rights, publicly broke with his party last month when he said on his new podcast that he thinks it’s “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in female sports. The governor repeated that position Friday during an interview on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” in which he also said the Democratic Party brand is “toxic.”Mr. Newsom has not publicly weighed in on the transgender sports bills, and his office declined to comment on Tuesday. But his recent comments have scrambled the conventional coalitions in California’s Capitol, where Democrats hold a supermajority in the Legislature and occupy every statewide office. While it is common for Democrats to split on bills concerning the environment, economy, crime or education, divisions over L.G.B.T.Q. rights are rare.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares175 Views

      in US Politics

      Hegseth suggests judge who blocked trans troops ban abused her power

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      The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, joined the mounting criticism of federal judges by Donald Trump and others in his administration on Saturday, mocking the judge who blocked a ban on transgender troops in the US military and suggesting she had exceeded her authority.The US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington ruled that Trump’s 27 January executive order, one of several issued by the Republican president targeting legal rights for transgender Americans, likely violated the US constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.Hegseth in a post on social media mockingly called the judge “Commander Reyes” and suggested she was abusing her power by making decisions about warfare.“Since ‘Judge’ Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids,” Hegseth wrote. “After that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare.”Reyes was appointed by the Democratic former president Joe Biden. There have been rising tensions between Trump’s administration and members of the federal judiciary who have issued rulings impeding some of Trump’s actions since he returned to office in January, and rising concern about the safety of judges.Trump, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, the attorney general Pam Bondi and other administration officials have assailed judges in recent weeks. For instance, Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of the judge presiding over a legal challenge to deportation flights, calling him a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator” – prompting the US supreme court chief justice to issue a rare rebuke of the president.Federal courts are hearing more than 100 lawsuits challenging various initiatives by Trump and his administration, with some judges imposing nationwide injunctions to block policies, such as his move to curtail automatic birthright citizenship.Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox News television host, has made culture war issues such as banning transgender troops and abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the US military a top priority.After Hegseth took over the Pentagon, Trump also relieved the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, General CQ Brown, who is Black, and the Navy’s top admiral, who was the first woman to hold the position. Hegseth had previously questioned whether Brown only got the job because he was Black.While Trump and Hegseth have broad authority to relieve US military officers, their efforts to ban transgender service members have triggered numerous lawsuits.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe military said on 11 February it would no longer allow transgender individuals to join the military and would stop performing or facilitating medical procedures associated with gender transition for service members. Later that month, the military said it would begin expelling transgender members.Plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Reyes argued the order was illegal, pointing to a 2020 US supreme court ruling that found that employment discrimination against transgender people is a form of illegal sex discrimination.Lawyers for the administration have argued in court that the military is entitled to bar people with certain conditions that make them unsuitable for service, also including bipolar disorder and eating disorders. At a 12 March hearing, they told Reyes she should defer to the judgment of the current administration that transgender people are not fit for service. More

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      in US Politics

      US judge blocks Trump’s ban on trans people serving in the military

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      A federal judge blocked Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service on Tuesday.US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington DC ruled that the president’s order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.She delayed her order by three days to give the administration time to appeal.“The court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals. In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes,” Reyes wrote. “We should all agree, however, that every person who has answered the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect.”The White House didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.Army reserves 2nd Lt Nicolas Talbott, one of 14 transgender active-duty service members named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said he was holding his breath as he waited to find out if he would be separated from the military next week.“This is such a sigh of relief,” he said. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. This is my dream job, and I finally have it. And I was so terrified that I was about to lose it.”The judge issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military.On 27 January, Trump signed an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness.In response to the order, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. Gender dysphoria is the distress that a person feels because their assigned gender and gender identity don’t match. The medical condition has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.Plaintiffs’ attorneys contend Trump’s order violates transgender people’s rights to equal protection under the fifth amendment.Government lawyers argue that military officials have broad discretion to decide how to assign and deploy service members without judicial interference.Reyes said she did not take lightly her decision to issue an injunction blocking Trump’s order, noting: “Judicial overreach is no less pernicious than executive overreach.” But, she said, it was also the responsibility of each branch of government to provide checks and balances for the others, and the court “therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day”.Thousands of transgender people serve in the military, but they represent less than 1% of the total number of active-duty service members.In 2016, a defense department policy permitted transgender people to serve openly in the military. During Trump’s first term in the White House, the Republican issued a directive to ban transgender service members. The supreme court allowed the ban to take effect. Former president Joe Biden, a Democrat, scrapped it when he took office.Hegseth’s 26 February policy says service members or applicants for military service who have “a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service”.The plaintiffs who sued to block Trump’s order include an army reserves platoon leader from Pennsylvania, an army major who was awarded a Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan, and a Sailor of the Year award winner serving in the navy.“The cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed – some risking their lives – to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the military ban seeks to deny them,” Reyes wrote.Their attorneys, from the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD Law, said transgender troops “seek nothing more than the opportunity to continue dedicating their lives to defending the Nation”.“Yet these accomplished servicemembers are now subject to an order that says they must be separated from the military based on a characteristic that has no bearing on their proven ability to do the job,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote. “This is a stark and reckless reversal of policy that denigrates honorable transgender servicemembers, disrupts unit cohesion, and weakens our military.” More

    • 175 Shares195 Views

      in US Politics

      Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win

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      Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.“As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale,” he said.“I’ve literally seen a difference in the way I’m spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that’s a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world.”“I’m not being alarmist,” he added. “I’m 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen.”Since his inauguration, Trump has ended policies giving LGBTQ+ Americans protection from discrimination. He has also restricted access to gender-affirming healthcare, said the US would only recognise two sexes, and barred transgender people from enlisting in the military.Davies also used his keynote speech at the awards ceremony, which rewards the efforts made to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the UK, to criticise Trump, and the president’s ally Elon Musk.“I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime,” he told the audience, which included the singers Louise Redknapp and Katy B, and the Traitors contestants Leanne Quigley and Minah Shannon.Davies said he had turned 18 and left home in 1981, adding: “And that is exactly the year that rumours and whispers of a strange new virus came along, which came to haunt our community and to test us in so many ways.”“The joyous thing about this is that we fought back,” he said. The community “militarised, campaigned, marched and demanded the medicine”.He added: “We demanded the science. We demanded the access.”When he wrote the TV series Queer As Folk in the late 1990s, he said, it was part of a movement, with writers “fomenting ideas” and putting gay and lesbian characters on screen.Had he been asked to imagine then what life for LGBTQ+ people would be like in 2025, “I want to say it’s going to be all rainbows,” he said, “skipping down the street hand-in-hand, equality, equality, equality.”But the peril the gay community now faced, he said, was even greater than that in the 1980s.“The threat from America, it’s like something at The Lord of the Rings. It’s like an evil rising in the west, and it is evil,” Davies said.“We’ve had bad prime ministers and we’ve had bad presidents before. What we’ve never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter,” he added.Musk, the de facto head of the “department of government efficiency”, bought the social networking site Twitter, which he renamed X. A study by the University of California, Berkeley found hate speech on the platform rose by 50% in the months after it was bought by the billionaire.“We have never had this in the history of the world,” Davies said. “It is terrifying because he and the people like him are in control of the facts, they’re in control of information, they’re in control of what people think, and that is what we’re now facing.”But Davies said the gay community would do “what we always do in times of peril, we gather at night”, and would once again come together, and fight against this latest wave of hostility and oppression.“What we will do in Elon Musk’s world, that we’re heading towards, is what artists have always done,” he told the Guardian, “which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march.”“If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again,” he added, “which is when art thrives, then that’s what we’ll become.” More

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      in US Politics

      ‘We’re on the edge of chaos’: families with trans kids fight for care as bans take hold

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      Aryn Kavanaugh was sitting in her living room in South Carolina when her 17-year-old daughter came into the room and said: “I’m really scared. I think people are gonna die.” Katherine, who is using her middle name for her protection, told Kavanaugh that she thought transgender youth may be the target of violence due to the hate generated by Donald Trump’s recent action.On 28 January, Trump issued an executive order to ban access to gender-affirming care for youth under 19 years old. It directed federal agencies to deny funding to institutions that offer gender-affirming medical care including hormones and puberty blockers.“She just felt like the world was crumbling around her. So we talked it out and tried to stay super positive,” said Kavanaugh, a parent of two trans children. “I think she really feels like we’re on the edge of chaos.”In a victory for trans kids and their families, a federal judge in Maryland blocked the ban on 4 March. The preliminary injunction extended a mid-February restraining order that blocked Trump’s directive and will remain in effect until further order from the US district court for the district of Maryland. In the meantime, the order prohibits the government from withholding federal funding to healthcare facilities that provide treatment to trans youth.Still, the executive order sent parents, children and medical providers into a tailspin as they deciphered its impacts. Some hospitals immediately canceled appointments and turned away new patients to adhere to the directive. In early February, Katherine was dropped as a patient at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she received gender-affirming care after South Carolina banned hormone therapy, surgery and puberty blockers for trans youth last year. Some parents say that their children’s mental health severely declined in the weeks following the executive order. And as a result, families have gone to great lengths to ensure that their trans kids continue to receive care, including considering moving abroad or stocking up on puberty suppressants.“We have seen dozens of families affected across the United States, in many, many states that have been left and abandoned without care that they need,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and healthcare strategist at the LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Lambda Legal. “This is an unlawful executive order because it seeks to override the congressional mandate to condition federal financial assistance on non-discrimination, and this order seeks to require discrimination as a condition of federal funding.”The pause follows a lawsuit filed on 4 February by civil rights organizations including Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of transgender youth. ACLU staff told the Guardian that they anticipated that the preliminary injunction would remain through the court proceedings.Some hospitals that stopped providing care to trans youth after the January directive, such as Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Children’s Hospital of Richmond, lifted limits on surgeries or hormonal therapy in late February. Kavanaugh said she was “relieved and hopeful” about the preliminary injunction, though it does not roll back South Carolina’s ban on trans youth healthcare, which was signed into law last year.Her 18-year-old trans son Parker and Katherine received treatment at Medical University of South Carolina and then a private clinic in the state for several years until Henry McMaster, the governor of South Carolina, signed into law a ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors in May 2024. Parker is now old enough to receive his care in South Carolina, but the state ban means that the family has had to drive more than five hours each way to Virginia Commonwealth University for Katherine’s doctors’ appointments and medicine every few months.Being dropped as a patient due to the federal ban “puts us in a really tough spot because we’re already having to find care outside of South Carolina. And so that just limits our options,” Kavanaugh said. Katherine’s doctors connected her to a private medical practice in Fairfax, Virginia, that does not receive federal funding, so they were able to avoid a lapse in her care. While the change in providers did not cost more money, it stretched their commute to more than seven hours.In late February, Katherine’s puberty-blocker treatment at Virginia Commonwealth University resumed. In a statement, the hospital said that patients would continue medications, but that surgeries would remain suspended. Trans kids’ treatment remains in limbo as federal challenges wind through the court.‘A psychological toll’Studies have shown that gender-affirming medical care greatly improves trans people’s mental health and quality of life. A 2022 report published in the journal JAMA Network Open analyzed data from a study of 104 transgender and non-binary youth from ages 13 to 20 who received hormonal therapy or puberty blockers at the Seattle Children’s Gender Clinic for a year. Researchers found that 60% of participants reported lower rates of depression and 73% had less odds of suicidal ideation and self harm after receiving gender-affirming hormones and puberty blockers.Black transgender people, who experience the intersecting stigma of being gender diverse and racial minorities, are at even greater risk of poor mental health. A 2022 national survey of 33,993 LGBTQ+ young people by the Trevor Project, a non-profit, found that one in four Black transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide in the past year, more than double the rate of their cisgender counterparts.“It’s already difficult to access healthcare and treatment. It’s additionally difficult for folks who belong to other marginalized communities, especially families and children of color, as well as folks who are on various forms of state-funded insurance and may have difficulty selecting their providers to begin with,” Harper Seldin, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU, told the Guardian.“There is already a subset of gender clinics in this country who provide this care. When you lay over on top of that insurance and access based on family means, it’s particularly devastating for families who can’t just pick up and go somewhere else – to another city, state or other country – to get care.”While her trans daughter’s care hasn’t been directly affected by the executive order, Sarah, a Texas mother who asked that her last name not be used to protect her daughter’s privacy, said that her daughter Raven was devastated by the president’s directive. Raven, a 16-year-old Black trans girl in Texas who is using a pseudonym, dropped out of school last month due to her declining mental health, exacerbated by the federal ban. Sarah said that Raven had rarely got out of bed, and when she did, she would show her mom news reports of murdered Black trans girls and women.“She has told me that she’s afraid of being killed if she leaves the house,” Sarah said. “She really only will leave the house with me. But that’s very few and far between, because she’s just incredibly depressed.”Since dropping out of school, Sarah said that Raven’s depression and anxiety significantly decreased, and she plans to start GED test preparation classes over the summer.In November 2024, the LGBTQ+ non-profit Human Rights Campaign Foundation released a report that showed that half of the 36 transgender people killed in the last 12 months were Black trans women. That reality has made it terrifying for Raven to live as a Black trans girl, Sarah said.Raven’s medical providers have increased her antidepressants dosage, and she now checks in with her psychiatrist every three weeks. Since last year, Raven has had to fly to Colorado every six months to receive gender-affirming care due to a Texas ban on treatment for minors. She has received grants from the non-profit Campaign on Southern Equality to fund the travel for medical treatment, which has helped defer some of the exorbitant costs of seeking out-of-state care.Sarah said that she has researched living in other nations and would be willing to order medicine from Canada if Raven could no longer get medical treatment in Colorado. Gender-affirming care has drastically improved Raven’s life. “She feels more herself,” Sarah said. “If she didn’t have it, I don’t think she would choose to stay alive.”Navigating medical care restrictions has caused anxiety for parents who are shouldering the burden of the policies’ twists and turns for their children. A Georgia-based parent, Peter Isbister, said that he had chosen not to share the news of the executive order with his 11-year-old trans son Lev, who is using a pseudonym out of fear of harassment: “It’s taken a psychological toll on his parents, not on him.”An endocrinologist is currently monitoring Lev’s hormone levels to determine when he will be put on puberty blockers. Isbister, an attorney and founder of the peer support network Metro Atlanta TransParent, has to contend with the federal executive order and a looming ban on puberty blockers for minors in Georgia.“If the bill passes in Georgia, then we as a family are going to really have to study up more seriously on how it works to be an out-of-state person to get care in California, New Mexico, Massachusetts or wherever,” Isbister said. “And the more states that restrict access to care, the harder that’s going to be.”As a result of the federal and state policies, Isbister said that he has talked with an immigration attorney about acquiring Canadian citizenship for his son. But at least for now, Lev’s clinic continues to provide him care.While Isbister was “heartened” by the judge’s injunction on the executive order, he said that it is “wrenching and in my view unjust that my ability to provide my kid healthcare should be an issue for our federal courts”. More

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      in Elections

      Republican Refers to Sarah McBride, Transgender Congress Member, as a Man

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      A Republican lawmaker abruptly adjourned a congressional hearing on Tuesday after being challenged for referring to Representative Sarah McBride, Democrat of Delaware and the first openly transgender lawmaker in Congress, as a man.The Europe Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs panel was in the middle of a hearing on arms control and U.S. assistance to Europe when its chairman, Representative Keith Self of Texas, introduced his colleague by calling her “Mr. McBride.”Ms. McBride, who entered Congress knowing she would present a unique target for Republicans who have politicized and attacked transgender people, has generally chosen to let such moments slide. On Tuesday, she briefly registered her displeasure by returning Mr. Self’s slight, responding, “Thank you, Madam Chair,” before proceeding with her remarks.But Representative William Keating of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, was not willing to move on. He interrupted to request that Mr. Self repeat his introduction, which he did, again referring to the Delaware Democrat as “Mr. McBride.”“Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Mr. Keating fired back. “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I’ve come to know you a little bit. But this is not decent.”Mr. Self said it was time to continue the hearing. But Mr. Keating refused to let go.“You will not continue it with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More