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    ‘Love, hope, community and resistance’: ACLU to unveil 9,000 sq ft quilt for trans rights

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    “It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t anxious,” Abdool Corlette said while discussing his latest project with the American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom to Be. An award-winning film-maker and head of brand at the ACLU, Corlette has been working for nearly two years with hundreds of trans people across the country to create a 9,000 sq ft quilt, composed of 258 panels that are packed with responses to the question: what does freedom mean to you?Corlette is anxious because Freedom to Be is all about trans joy and trans freedom, and it will make a defiant stand for both on 17 May in Washington DC in spite of the war that Donald Trump has waged against the trans community since his inauguration.“We have been doing everything we can to create contingency plans to make sure we have every scenario accounted for,” Corlette said. “This is what keeps me up at night, making sure our guests are safe.”This was not the celebration that Corlette had hoped for. When Freedom to Be kicked off in September 2023, it was focused more around combating the tsunami of anti-trans legislation that has taken over statehouses since 2020, as well as the related wave of anti-trans rhetoric that has seeded the ground for such legislation. The first two prongs of the campaign have already occurred: with the first, Corlette helped tell the stories of trans kids whose lives had been transformed by gender-affirming medical care, and with the second he spearheaded a rally on the steps of the supreme court on 4 December 2024, in conjunction with oral arguments in the case of United States v Skrmetti. The eventual ruling on that case will decide on the legality of bans against gender-affirming care for trans minors.The third prong of Freedom to Be happens this weekend as part of WorldPride, an annual global celebration of the LGBTQ+ community that just happens to occur in DC this year. The festivities will play out during the upswing of one of the most virulently anti-queer governments in US history, and, already, attenders from all over the world have pulled out, as have many of the event’s corporate sponsors.View image in fullscreenIn spite of the potentially dangerous situation, Corlette is hoping that the trans community will be able to find joy as he publicly displays the completed quilt. “I want someone who is feeling heavy to walk into that space and see that across the United States there’s 9,000 sq ft of messages of love, hope, community and resistance,” Corlette said. “Joy is what I want to blanket that day.”Lee Blinder, founding executive director of Trans Maryland, took part in helping create some of those messages that Corlette hopes trans people and their allies will see in DC. On 9 February this year, less than three weeks into the Trump administration, Blinder walked into a local queer bar to host more than 100 members of the trans community in creating squares for the quilt. According to Blinder, coming together to make the quilt instilled hope amid the onslaught against trans people that filled Trump’s first weeks in office. “People walked into that room feeling extraordinarily grateful to be there,” Blinder said. “There were these gorgeous multicolored sewing machines; there was so much thought and intention that went into the event. Multiple people came up to me and said, ‘We’re so grateful that y’all had this event. This is what I needed.’ It was really nice to be there and take time out of that impossible week.”Blinder’s comments speak to the power of being in community, even when confronted by the profound threats to basic human rights and bodily autonomy posed by the Trump administration and Republican-led state governments. It is a power Blinder is quite familiar with, as for years they have led Trans Maryland in hosting weekly trans support groups and organizing a program in which trans people help each other with name and gender marker changes. “It’s trans people who have been through the process helping other community members,” they told me.View image in fullscreenBlinder plans to be in DC for the unveiling of the Freedom to Be quilt, and they are extremely thrilled to be participating. “I’m really excited to see it all stitched together in person,” they said. “I saw all the quilt squares stacked there [in the bar] after everyone had made them – there’s this pool table in the space, and they’d lay them out there where we could see a little bit of the vision of how they would all come together.”Blinder echoed many who have posed art as an important element in fighting back against the Trump administration and other anti-LGBTQ+ governments. In particular, they see the way that art can bring together communities, while also opening minds and hearts, as integral to pushing back against authoritarian political movements. “The process of creating art has been a longstanding element of resistance for the trans and queer community,” they said. “It’s a key component with the resistance against fascism – it’s played a key role in the past, and I think it will continue to play a significant role in the resistance as it is right now.”According to Corlette, working with trans people at a particularly dangerous time for the community has been a powerful and often painful experience, as he has built personal relationships with individuals who have been harmed by repressive governmental policies. “Individuals who were storytellers in the first part of this campaign have had to pick up and leave their home states for fear of safety for their own bodies,” he said. “That’s what makes it so personal.”View image in fullscreenCorlette hopes that Freedom to Be will not just reach trans people and their allies but also connect with anyone who is feeling demoralized amid the authoritarian ambitions of the Trump administration. “No matter how daunting this fight is, hope has not been lost,” he said. “If the most marginalized community in the country is remaining in the fight, everyone else should be as well.”Ultimately, Corlette sees Freedom to Be as continuing a legacy of transformative community action taken by the queer community in support of itself. For him, spreading stories and joy while giving the community ways to be together is what’s most important. “This monument is a direct descendant of the Aids memorial quilt,” he said. “We wanted to really be in the legacy of those who came before us, to use art and advocacy to not only memorialize but to create pockets of joy for communities to tell their stories and come together to celebrate their existence.” More

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      US to begin immediate removal of up to 1,000 trans military members

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      The Pentagon is removing the 1,000 members of the military who openly identify as trans, and giving those who have yet to openly-identify as transgender 30 days to remove themselves, according to a new directive issued Thursday.The memo is fueled by Tuesday’s supreme court decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a ban on trans military members. The defense department has said it will follow up by going through medical records to identify others who haven’t come forward.Officials have said that as of 9 December 2024, there were 4,240 troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria in active duty, national guard and reserve service, representing a tiny fraction – of the 2 million people in service, although they acknowledge the number may be higher.The memo released on Thursday mirrors one sent out in February, but any action was stalled at that point by several lawsuits. When the initial Pentagon directive came out earlier this year, it gave service members 30 days to self-identify. Since then, about 1,000 have done so.In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the 1,000 troops who already self-identified “will begin the voluntary separation process” from the military.Rae Timberlake, a spokesperson for Sparta Pride, is one of the 1,000 who chose to self-identify. Timberlake has served in the Navy for 17 years and said that trans service members who don’t take the current buyout offer could lose out on benefits that took years of service to build.“There’s no guarantee to access to your pension or severance or an honorable discharge,” Timberlake said.Despite Timberlake’s decision to leave, they said many trans troops would continue serving if allowed to.“This is not voluntary. This is a decision that folks are coming to under duress,” Timberlake said. “These are 1,000 transgender troops that would be serving if the conditions were not created to force them into making a decision for their own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of their family long-term.”The move is the latest by the Trump administration taking aim at trans members of the military and trans veterans. After Trump took office and issued a flurry of gender-focused executive orders, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) started cracking down on healthcare for LGBTQ+ veterans, starting with the rescinding of VA directive 1341, thereby phasing out treatments for gender dysphoria.The expulsion of trans service members comes in tandem with the secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s past views that women are not suited for combat roles, at a time when military recruitment is profoundly struggling and veterans have voiced concerns that potential VA cuts could further hinder young Americans from enlisting.Announcing the removals on Thursday, Hegseth doubled down on his hardline approach. “We are leaving WOKENESS AND WEAKNESS behind. No more pronouns,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “We are done with that sh*t.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Canada not for sale, says Carney; trans military ban proceeds for now

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      In the White House on Tuesday, the prime minister of Canada told Donald Trump: “As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.” Trump agreed: “That’s true.”Mark Carney continued: “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever.” “Never say never,” said Trump. Carney smiled and mouthed “never, never, never, never.”The light sparring between the two leaders came as Trump’s script about a 100% tariff on foreign-made movies was undergoing a further rewrite as the president said he would consult with the industry.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump and Carney meet amid trade and sovereignty disputesDonald Trump has said he “just want[s] to be friends with Canada” after his first post-election meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney – who used the gathering to shoot down any prospect of his country becoming the 51st state.Read the full storyUS supreme court backs Trump trans military banThe Trump administration can begin to enforce a ban on transgender troops serving in the military while a challenge to the policy plays out in the courts, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a significant decision that could lead to the discharge of thousands of military members.Read the full storyPentagon stopped Ukraine aid without Trump’s approvalRoughly a week after Donald Trump started his second term as president, the US military issued an order to three freight airlines: stop 11 flights loaded with artillery shells and other weaponry that were bound for Ukraine. The order to cancel the flights – which were quickly reinstated – originated in Pete Hegseth’s office, without Trump’s approval.Read the full storyTrump claims Houthis to stop ship attacks in truce The US will halt its bombing of Yemen’s Houthis after the group agreed to stop targeting shipping in the Red Sea, Donald Trump has said. It comes after Israel claimed its jets had bombed Yemen’s main airport out of service in retaliation for a missile strike on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. Oman, which has been mediating, confirmed a deal to ensure “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea.Read the full storyTrump softens tone on movie tariffsDonald Trump appeared to be softening his tone after widespread dismay in Hollywood and further afield at his shock announcement of 100% tariffs on films “produced in foreign lands”, saying he was “not looking to hurt the industry”.Read the full storyAmericans’ health at risk as Trump cuts EPA staff Americans’ health is being put at risk after new cuts were announced by Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce staffing to 1980s levels and gut its scientific research arm, experts and advocacy groups warned.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Columbia University is slated to cut 180 staff whose work was supported by federal grants that have now been revoked by the Trump administration.

      North Carolina election officials must certify Democrat Allison Riggs as the winner of a state supreme court election, a federal judge ruled.

      The California governor proposed a $7.5bn tax credit program and offered to work with Donald Trump to boost US film production.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 5 May 2025. More

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      US supreme court allows Trump trans military ban to take effect

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      The Trump administration can begin to enforce a ban on transgender troops serving in the military while a challenge to the policy plays out in the courts, the supreme court ruled on Tuesday, a significant decision that could lead to the discharge of thousands of military members.The court’s order was unsigned and gave no explanation for its reasoning, which is typical of decisions the justices reach on an emergency basis. The court’s three liberal members – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – all noted their dissent from the decision.Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which represented challengers in the case, called the decision “a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers”.“By allowing this discriminatory ban to take effect while our challenge continues, the Court has temporarily sanctioned a policy that has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” the groups said in a statement. “Transgender individuals meet the same standards and demonstrate the same values as all who serve. We remain steadfast in our belief that this ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”Immediately after coming into office, Donald Trump rescinded an executive order from the Biden administration that allowed transgender people to serve openly in the military. On 27 January, the president issued a second executive order that said transgender people couldn’t serve in the military.“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order said. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.” The defense department began implementing the ban at the end of February.A defense department estimate from earlier this year said there were 4,240 people in the military with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria – roughly 0.2 % of the 2 million people currently serving.Seven transgender servicemembers and one transgender person who would like to join the military challenged the ban. Lawyers for the lead platiniff, navy pilot Emily Shilling, said the military had spent $20m on her training, according to SCOTUSBlog.Several lower courts had halted the ban. The case before the supreme court involved a ruling from US district court judge Benjamin Settle, who blocked the ban in March.“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” Settle, an appointee of George W Bush, wrote at the time. “The government’s unrelenting reliance on deference to military judgment is unjustified in the absence of any evidence supporting ‘the military’s’ new judgment reflected in the Military Ban.”Another judge, Ana Reyes, of the US district court in Washington DC, also blocked the ban, saying it was “soaked with animus and dripping with pretext”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration asked the supreme court to intervene last month. “The district court issued a universal injunction usurping the Executive Branch’s authority to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces,” John Sauer, the US solicitor general, wrote in a brief to the court.Trump’s ban is broader than a similar policy enacted during his first term. The previous policy allowed those who had come out before the ban to continue to serve in the military. The more recent policy affects nearly all active serving transgender members.Pausing the order, Shilling’s lawyers said, would “upend the status quo by allowing the government to immediately begin discharging thousands of transgender servicemembers … thereby ending distinguished careers and gouging holes in military units”.A majority of Americans support allowing transgender people to serve in the military, according to a February Gallup poll. However, there is a sharp partisan split. While 84% of Democrats favor such a policy, only 23% of Republicans do. More

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      in Elections

      Federal Report Denounces Gender Treatments for Adolescents

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      The H.H.S. review may set the stage for additional restrictions on gender-affirming care. Critics described it as an ideological statement.Federal health officials published a report on Thursday declaring that the use of hormonal and surgical treatments in young people with gender dysphoria lacked scientific evidence and expressing concern about long-term harms, a stark reversal from previous agency recommendations and the advice of top U.S. medical groups.The report instead prioritized the role of psychotherapy, a divisive intervention to treat gender dysphoria that many advocates and physicians have equated with so-called conversion therapy.Other parts of the review seemed to call into question the very notion that some people have a gender identity that does not align with their sex at birth.In January, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” giving the Department of Health and Human Services 90 days to produce a report on the best practices for treating young people who say their gender does not align with their birth sex.But the order made it clear that the administration had already reached its own conclusion about gender transition treatments for minors, characterizing the “blatant harm done to children” as a “stain on our nation’s history.”The 400-page report took a more sober tone but reached a similar conclusion. In a remarkable departure from the standard for medical evidence reviews, the authors were not identified pending a post-publication review process that would begin in “the coming days.”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

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      Judge Rules Against Trump Administration on Passport Changes

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      A group of transgender plaintiffs sued President Trump and the State Department over a new rule prohibiting passports from including a gender different from the sex listed on an original birth certificate.A federal judge in Boston on Friday ordered the Trump administration to issue passports that reflect the self-identified gender of six transgender people rather than requiring that the passports display the sex on the applicants’ original birth certificates.The order from Judge Julia E. Kobick was a victory, at least temporarily, for the six plaintiffs, who she said were likely to prevail on their claim that a new policy by the Trump administration amounts to a form of unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Fifth Amendment, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act. The State Department adopted the new policy earlier this year to comply with an executive order from President Trump directing all government agencies to limit official recognition of transgender identity.“The plaintiffs have been personally disadvantaged by the government — they can no longer obtain a passport consistent with their gender identity — because of their sex assigned at birth,” wrote Judge Kobick, who was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “The passport policy does indeed impose a special disadvantage on the plaintiffs due to their sex and the court therefore concludes that it discriminates on the basis of sex.”The judge’s order on Friday applied only to six transgender plaintiffs who were seeking new passports and had sued the Trump administration. The order does not apply to a seventh plaintiff, who already holds a passport, valid until 2028, with the sex marker that corresponds to his gender identity. The order, which will remain in place as the case goes forward, does not bar the government from the new passport requirement for other transgender people.In court documents, the plaintiffs suing the government argued that a mismatch between the sex listed on their passport and the way they think of themselves and are perceived puts them at risk of suspicion and hostility that other Americans do not face. During the first several weeks of Mr. Trump’s administration, two plaintiffs received passports with an “F” or “M” marker that was contrary to what they had requested. Another plaintiff learned that selecting an “X” marker, indicating a nonbinary gender identity, was no longer an option in the application process, though it had been allowed since 2022.The restrictions on passports are part of a broad effort by the Trump administration to minimize the role of gender identity in how American society organizes itself. In the first of a series of executive orders on transgender issues, Mr. Trump characterized people whose gender does not match the sex on their birth certificate as “making a false claim.” Gender identity, the order states, is not “a replacement for sex” and “does not provide a meaningful basis for identification.”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

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      Trump ally pushes DoJ unit to shift civil rights focus, new messages show

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      The justice department’s civil rights division is shifting its focus away from its longstanding work protecting the rights of marginalized groups and will instead pivot towards Donald Trump’s priorities including hunting for noncitizen voters and protecting white people from discrimination, according to new internal mission statements seen by the Guardian.The new priorities were sent to several sections of the civil rights division this week by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who was confirmed a little more than two weeks ago to lead the division. Several of them only give glancing mention to the statutes and kinds of discrimination that have long been the focus of the division, which dates back to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Several of the mission statements point to Trump’s executive orders as priorities for the section.The mission statement for the voting section, for example, barely mentions the Voting Rights Act and instead says the section will focus on preventing voter fraud – which is exceedingly rare – and helping states find for noncitizens on their voter rolls (non-citizen voting is also exceedingly rare). The guidance for the Housing and Civil Enforcement section does not make a single mention of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark 1968 civil rights law that has long been a central part of the department’s work.“It’s absolutely astonishing,” said Sasha Samberg-Champion, a former appellate lawyer in the justice department’s civil rights division. “This reflects the complete abdication of the core responsibilities of each of these sections.”The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The decision to send new mission statements to the sections is itself unusual. While the priorities of the sections often change from administration to administration, the core work often remains the same and the department’s career attorneys are expected to be apolitical. Trump has moved to end the independence of the justice department and use it as a tool to further his political goals and punish rivals.“To me, these new mission statements signal a significant change in the priorities that each of these sections will be expected to pursue,” said Jocelyn Samuels, who led the civil rights division from 2013 to 2014. “Some of this is explicit – where, for example, the new statements specifically call out enforcement of some of the president’s executive orders as the guide for the section’s work. Some of it is a matter of omission.“I suspect that the descriptions don’t themselves dictate what the sections will do, but they certainly manifest the expectations that leadership of the division will impose,” added Samuels, who is currently suing the Trump administration for firing her from her position on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.The justice department has already begun to pull back on its civil rights cases. It has withdrawn from several of the voting cases filed under Joe Biden’s administration, terminated an environmental justice settlement on behalf of Black residents in Alabama, and dropped a pay discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a Black lawyer against the Mississippi senate.The primary focus of the department’s voting section has long been ensuring that voting laws and practices aren’t tainted with discrimination. The new guidance this week shifts that focus and echoes Trump’s rhetoric around fraud.“The mission of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is to ensure free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion,” the new mission statement says. “The Section will work to ensure that only American citizens vote in US federal elections and do so securely. Other section priorities include preventing illegal voting, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error. All attorneys within the Voting Section will advocate with zeal on behalf of the United States of America in furtherance of all objectives as tasked.”It also says the voting section will work with the Department of Homeland Security to help states access citizenship data so that they can remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. The section will also “vigorously enforce the statutes, orders, and priorities” in a recent Trump executive order that requires states to require proof of citizenship to vote and to decertify voting machines. Several civil rights groups are already challenging that order in court and say it is illegal.“What’s missing from here is the idea that we’re going to protect the right to vote on a nondiscriminatory basis,” Samberg-Champion said. “Silly me, I always thought was the core purpose of the voting section and the core purpose of the Voting Rights Act.”Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and a top official in the civil rights division during the Obama administration, noted that federal law puts certain restrictions in place “before anybody in the federal government, civil rights division included, can lawfully touch state database information”.Noting that much of the language in the mission statement was broad, Levitt said he would be watching to see how it was implemented.“Read through the lens of all of the rest that the administration is doing, this is a further example of how off-course the administration is. This isn’t the statement that any administration in the last 68 years would have written,” he said in an email. “But the way this gets cashed out is far more important.”The new mission statement for the Housing and Civil Enforcement section says the section will focus on protecting the rights of members of the military and enforcing the Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prevents zoning discrimination. “The aggressive and even-handed deployment of RLUIPA to restore religious liberty will be a top priority,” the document says.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe guidance also says the section will “focus on challenges to racially discriminatory lending programs”. Samberg-Champion said that was a “code red”.“They’re going to look for opportunities to challenge special purpose credit programs and other lending programs that are meant to enhance credit opportunities for people who have been starved of credit historically,” said Samberg-Champion, who served as deputy general counsel for enforcement and fair housing during the Biden administration. “It’s just astonishing that what they’re trying to do is actually diminish the availability of credit for people and go after banks, go after lenders who presumably are trying to make their credit availability fairer.”Guidance for the educational opportunities section focuses on preventing discrimination against white applicants and cites the supreme court’s 2023 ruling saying that affirmative action programs are unconstitutional. It also says the department will focus on anti-transgender issues.“This mandate includes protecting the rights of women and girls to unfettered access to programs, facilities, extracurricular activities, and sports or athletic opportunities that exclude males from presence or participation,” the statement reads. “The mandate also includes preventing racial discrimination in school admissions policies and preventing antisemitism in education wherever it is found.”The new mission statement for the disability rights section appears to have nothing to do with disability. “The zealous and faithful pursuit of this section’s mission requires dedication of the section’s resources, actions, attention, and energy to the priorities and objectives of the President,” the guidance says. It then goes on to list a series of executive orders that target transgender Americans.Eve Hill, who served as a top lawyer in the civil rights division under the Obama administration, said she wasn’t “overly alarmed” by the message to the disability rights section.“It’s hard to tell what effect it will have other than preventing [the disability rights section] from working for people with the disability of gender dysphoria. Which is important, but they hadn’t done much work in that space anyway,” she said.Several of the mission statements include a similar line that says attorneys are expected to enforce the law “faithfully and zealously”.That language is significant, Samberg-Champion said.“They’re anticipating – and I think correctly – that they’re going to get considerable pushback from the career staff as to what they’re being asked to do,” he said. “This reflects their understanding that they are radically changing what each of these sections historically has understood its mission to be. And that this is not going to go over well with the people who have made it their life’s work to enforce these important laws.” More

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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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      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