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temporary injunction blocking Paxton’s office from demanding the information, writing that “immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to PFLAG and its members” if Paxton’s office is able to obtain information about the group’s members, which number close to 600 in Texas alone. Under the terms of the restraining order, Paxton’s office may not attempt to stop PFLAG from operating for refusing to hand over documents and identifying information about its members, especially those who may have reached out to the national pro-LGBTQ advocacy group to determine how to seek gender-affirming care out of state.Paxton’s office may also not demand information from PFLAG revealing the identities of its members, officers, employees, lawyers, volunteers, or donors.Paxton’s office claimed their demand for PFLAG documents, issued in early February, was part of an effort to investigate whether medical providers were violating Texas’s law banning them from prescribing gender-affirming treatments like puberty blockers and hormones to minors.PFLAG filed a lawsuit last month asking for a temporary restraining order and relief to protect the identities and privacy of its members.

press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

News 5 Cleveland.This has raised questions about whether such a provision relies too heavily on gender stereotypes about clothing and behavior that could also impact non-LGBTQ students. The policy prohibits students from transitioning genders or using gender-affirming pronouns, bars same-sex couples at school events, and prohibits students from “advocat[ing] or celebrat[ing]” the LGBTQ community, including displays of the Pride flag or rainbows.A student’s biological sex will determine bathroom usage and membership on single-sex school-sponsored sports teams, although girls may join boys’ teams “when deemed appropriate.” Parents will also be notified if their child is believed to be gender-nonconforming.The new policy has been criticized by some who have claimed it appears to conflict with more welcoming remarks by Pope Francis regarding the inclusion of members of the LGBTQ community within the Church.The diocese has defended the policy as a request from church and school leaders, emphasizing the importance of training and education youth in Church teaching — even as it continues to claim that “each and every person is welcome and invited to be a part of the Church,” according to The Hill.DignityUSA, a group for LGBTQ Catholics and their families, and the organization’s Northeast Ohio chapter, have said the diocese’s policy appears to “betray the essence of Catholicism.”“The policies that our bishop has recently released send a clear message that welcome in our schools and churches is conditional,” Susan Russell, the President of Dignity Northeast Ohio, said in a statement.

New York Post.Based on records of in-patient and out-patient procedures obtained from two national surgery databases, around 4,550 Americans sought transition-related surgical procedures in 2016, with that number more than tripling to 13,000 by 2019, according to the study, published in JAMA Network Open.The study’s authors attribute the rise in surgical procedures to federal and state laws approved during the Obama administration requiring coverage for medically necessary care, including treatments for gender dysphoria. The study only looked at surgical procedures in the years prior to 2020, and not hormonal interventions intended to assist in a gender transition.In total, about 48,00 individuals underwent surgical procedures from 2016 to 2020, while the overall number of “health system encounters for gender identity disorder” tripled during that same time.“The rapid rise [in gender dysphoria diagnoses] suggests that there will be a greater need for clinicians knowledgeable in the care of transgender individuals and with the requisite expertise to perform [gender confirmation surgery] procedures,” the report says.Following an 11th U.S.

vacated a lower court’s injunction blocking state authorities from enforcing a similar law in Alabama.In a decision criticized by LGBTQ advocates, Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, ruled that the district court had applied the wrong standard when determining whether to issue an injunction blocking the law.Lagoa argued that there is no constitutional right of parents to “treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards,” as argued by plaintiffs.This comes even though the Supreme Court, in numerous other legal battles, has ruled parents possess a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit.As a result of Lagoa’s opinion, the Alabama law was allowed to go into effect. State authorities can punish doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors suffering from gender dysphoria.

order issued Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, of the Northern District of Georgia, said the law’s provision prohibiting medical professionals from prescribing hormone therapy for such patients was “substantially likely to violate the Equal Protection Clause,” reports CNN.Under the law, which went into effect on July 1, medical providers are prohibited from recommending gender-affirming care to any minor, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender confirmation surgery — the latter of which is rarely performed on minors.

The law, SB 49, which is scheduled to take effect on August 28, prohibits health care providers in Missouri from prescribing puberty blockers, hormones, or gender confirmation surgery — the latter of which rarely is prescribed for those under 18 — to minors suffering from gender dysphoria.The law contains an exception for those who have already begun gender-affirming care that will allow them to continue receiving it if their doctors believe that stopping treatment would do more harm.The law also prohibits Medicaid from covering the cost of any transition-related treatments or procedures, regardless of the age of the patient — meaning low-income transgender adults are effectively barred from accessing gender-affirming care, and prohibits incarcerated individuals from obtaining gender confirmation surgery.The lawsuit argues that the ban is unconstitutional, violating the rights of transgender youth by discriminating against them on the basis of both sex and gender identity, and violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions they believe to be in the best interest of their children.The lawsuit also claims that, unless the court issues an injunction to block Missouri from enforcing the law, all the plaintiffs will be irreparably harmed. By banning the transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care, the state is likely to exacerbate the youths’ feelings of anxiety and gender dysphoria, as well as lead to potential mental health issues.

WABE that the attorney general will do his job, which includes defending any law passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, including the ban on gender-affirming care. At least 20 other states with Republican-dominated legislatures, in addition to Georgia, have passed laws restricting gender-affirming care. But several of those laws have been blocked by the courts.

temporary injunction prohibiting the state from seeking to enforce Section 4 of Senate Bill 150, a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill that, in addition to barring gender-affirming medical care for minors, restricts which restroom and locker room facilities transgender students can use, allowing teachers and other students to misgender trans-identifying minors, and prohibits certain types of classroom instruction on LGBTQ-related topics and topics related to sexuality, HIV, or other sexually-transmitted diseases.The measure was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in March over concerns that it infringed not only on LGBTQ students’ right to freedom of expression and equal protection under the law, but the parental rights parents who choose to affirm their children’s identities.In issuing the injunction, Hale sided with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which sued to overturn the law on behalf of seven families with transgender children.

similar law passed in Arizona last year that bans gender-affirming surgeries for minors — which is less severe than bans on all types of gender-affirming care that have passed in 18 other states over the past two years.The lawsuit challenging the law, signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb in April, was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, a physician who specializes in gender-affirming care, and a health care clinic offering itself out to individuals suffering from gender dysphoria, a condition where a person’s anatomy does not match the gender by which they identify. “Because Plaintiffs have some likelihood of success on the merits of constitutional claims, a preliminary injunction is in the public interest,” Hanlon wrote in his ruling.

sued to block the law, arguing that it violated transgender people’s right to equal protection, parents’ rights to make appropriate medical decisions for their children and doctors’ free speech rights. They also asked for an injunction to block Arkansas officials from attempting to enforce the ban on transition-related care.In an 80-page ruling, U.S.

The Hill.“Whether you’re organizing a Pride parade, running a small business, or just trying to focus at school, you should have — you shouldn’t have to deal with bomb threats, harassment, and violent attacks,” Biden said of the administration’s new initiatives.He also touted past progress on LGBTQ rights, including reversing the ban on transgender service members in the U.S. Armed Forces; executive orders signed by Biden ensuring protections for housing, employment, health care, and education; efforts to combat conversion therapy; national efforts to address public health crises, including the HIV epidemic and the outbreak of monkeypox; the FDA’s relaxing of restrictions on gay and bisexual male blood donors; and the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would ensure same-sex marriages are recognized as valid, even in the case of a reversal of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing marriage equality.Biden noted that more has to be done to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination and urged Congress to pass the Equality Act.

a ban on transgender athletes last year.The most prominent of the bills is a measure to ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming treatments meant to treat gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers, hormones, or surgical interventions, the latter of which are rarely performed on minors.The ban on gender-affirming care appeared to be dead last month after Sen. Fred Mills (R-New Iberia, the chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, voted with Democrats to reject the bill when it came before the committee.  Mills said that his decision had been heavily influenced by a 2022 Louisiana Health Department study on gender-affirming health care.It found that no gender-affirming surgical procedures had been performed on any minors enrolled in Medicaid in the state between 2017 and 2021, and that hormone and puberty blockers were rarely prescribed to transgender-identifying minors in Louisiana during that same period. National conservative pundits — who have deemed opposition to LGBTQ visibility, transgender rights, and “wokeness” as essential to their party’s brand — were outraged at Mills’ defection, and promised political retribution.Mills’ fellow Republicans caved to pressure from those voices to revive the bill.Senators then used a rare procedural maneuver to recommit the bill to a different committee, allowing it to pass on a 29-10 vote, reports the Associated Press.The bill now heads back to the House, which previously overwhelmingly approved the ban on gender-affirming care.

slammed by LGBTQ advocates as one of the worst bills targeting the transgender community, in part due to its provisions that extend well beyond the realm of transgender health care.In addition to banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, it restricts what bathrooms students may use in schools, limits the scope of sex education to exclude LGBTQ-related topics or information on sexually transmitted diseases, and allows school administrators, employees, and students to misgender trans-identifying minors. None of those other provisions have been challenged in court. The plaintiff families sued last month, alleging the law’s provisions barring transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming treatments infringe on their parents’ right to autonomy in terms of how they choose to raise and make medical decisions for their children and on the youths’ right to equal protection under the law.Corey Shapiro, the legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement that the families “should be able to begin or continue essential medical care” for their children, arguing that the law is an egregious form of government overreach into personal family decisions.They also argue that it is inconsistent with leading medical organizations’ recommendations for treating children suffering from gender dysphoria.“Banning medically necessary care for trans youth is not supported by science or reputable major medical organizations,” Shapiro said.

only state in the Deep South that does not expressly prohibit doctors from recommending gender-affirming treatments for transgender youth.Louisiana’s bill failed in a vote in the state Senate Health and Welfare Committee when Sen. Fred Mills (R-New Iberia), the committee chairman and a pharmacist by trade, voted to defer the bill rather than pass it out of committee.Mills said his decision was heavily influenced by a 2022 Louisiana Health Department study on gender-affirming health care, which found that no gender-affirming surgical procedures had been performed on any minors enrolled in Medicaid in the state between 2017 and 2021.Instances in which medications, such as hormones or puberty blockers, were prescribed to transgender minors were also exceedingly rare, according to the report.Mills said he trusts physicians more than legislators to make medical decisions in a patient’s best interests.“I always in my heart of hearts have believed that a [medical] decision should be made by a patient and a physician,” he said, according to The Hill.Had it passed, the bill would have barred healthcare professionals from prescribing gender-affirming treatments to minors, or referring minor patients to places where they could obtain such treatments.

a lawsuit brought by three families of transgender minors.In the complaint, the Justice Department argues that the law prohibiting access to gender-affirming care discriminates against transgender individuals under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.As such, the complaint asks the court to issue an order blocking the law from going into effect on July 1.Under the bill, SB 1, which easily passed on a largely party-line vote in the Republican-dominated state legislature, healthcare providers are prohibited from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgical interventions to minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria.Those who do, as well as the parents of any minors who allow their children to receive such treatments, can be sued for up to 30 years afterwards if the patient later experiences “regret,” and medical providers can potentially lose their license to practice.In its complaint, the Justice Department argues that the law’s blanket ban on all types of medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria prohibits patients from receiving the most up-to-date, scientifically accurate, and best-recommended treatments, and forces doctors to decide between keeping their licenses or providing the best available care to their patients.The complaint also notes that the blanket ban discriminates against transgender people on the basis of both sex and transgender identity, denying them certain types of treatments, such as hormone therapy, that would otherwise be offered to cisgender individuals experiencing various ailments or conditions where hormonal interventions might be a recommended course of treatment.“SB 1 violates the constitutional rights of some of Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens,” U.S.

several major elements of Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.Under the newly enacted Kentucky law, school districts are banned from using pronouns that do not match a student’s assigned sex at birth, from teaching certain sex-related courses, and from allowing students to use facilities that match their gender identity, reports Louisville FOX affiliate KDRB.Teachers would be forced to disclose information to parents about their children’s behavior, including whether they are using different names or pronouns that don’t match their sex at birth, or any information disclosed to them by their students about their sexual orientation or gender identity. The new law prohibits schools from teaching human sexuality or sexually-transmitted diseases until after 5th grade, and no student, of any grade level, can receive instruction with “a goal or purpose of students studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.”Schools will also be required to adopt policies informing parents before any class in 6th grade or higher studies sex-related topics, including STDs, and must obtain parental consent before proceeding with any lessons.Schools must also provide alternatives for students whose parents wish to “opt out” of sex-related instruction, and must allow parents to review any materials used in the course of teaching.The bill also prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to minors, or from performing surgical interventions to assist a minor in transitioning to a gender that is different from their assigned sex at birth.

debunked theory that claims young people — especially those assigned female at birth, and those who claim to have so-called “autism” or similar neurological or developmental disorders — will identify as transgender due to “social contagion” or peer pressure. The newly enacted law makes Mississippi the sixth state to pass either a complete or partial ban on gender-affirming care, although complete bans in other states, such as Alabama and Arkansas, have been halted as lawsuits challenging those laws work their way through the courts.Other states, such as Utah and Arizona, have enacted partial bans, blocking all surgical treatments on minors. Utah’s law also imposes a permanent moratorium on puberty blockers for any youth who has not already been receiving hormonal interventions for at least six months.The passage of the Mississippi law continues the trend of Republican-dominated legislatures and Republican governors taking aggressive action to prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans-identifying minors.A similar law signed by South Dakota Gov.

Utah has banned most gender-affirming care for minors.Gov. Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 16 into law Saturday.

challenging a similar law in Utah.Under the bill, doctors are prohibited from providing various forms of gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormones, and surgical treatments, to minors. Supporters claim such restrictions are needed to protect children from pursuing irreversible transition-related treatments that they may later grow to regret.“We need to stand in the gap for vulnerable children and guide them towards true health and healing,” Sen.

Pediatrics, researchers found that the percentage of adolescents identifying as transgender actually declined between 2017 and 2019. That finding challenges the claim, often repeated by skeptics of gender identity, that the number of people identifying as transgender is climbing due to broader societal acceptance, the influence of social media, and peer pressure.The findings were based on data collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a biennial national survey distributed to high school students asking them about the environment they face at school, their mental well-being, and their health habits, including drug or alcohol use. Although the CDC survey does not require states to record students’ gender identity, questions about sexual orientation have been administered since 2015, and 16 states opted to include questions asking students about their gender identity in 2017 and 2019.

Former Fox News host and conservative pundit Megyn Kelly equated gender-affirming care for transgender youth to conversion therapy that attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation.Appearing on the Eric Bolling: The Balance show on Newsman this past Tuesday, Kelly commented on a Fox News profile of Ryland Whittington, a trans 14-year-old boy living in California. Fox News’ Bryan Llenas, a correspondent for the America’s Newsroom program, interviewed Whittington and his family on the experience of coming out and transitioning. The story was viewed as a largely positive one, as the Whittington family was accepting of Ryland’s transition, and his mother, Hillary, reportedly said: “I would rather have a living son than a dead daughter.”But the positive coverage of transgender topics — which conservatives have seized on as a cause to rail against — angered many of Fox News’ viewers.

tweet earlier this week that the legislation would not prevent mental health counseling for those struggling with gender dysphoria.“If an adult wants to self-mutilate in pursuit of the fiction they can defy G-d and science, more power to them — as they don’t expect me to pay for it. But no child should be put in the position of making life-altering decisions before they are of the age of majority,” Fine tweeted.“I can say I’m a porcupine, but that doesn’t make it so,” he continued.

Journal of Adolescent Health finds that transgender youth who receive gender-affirming hormone therapy have lower rates of depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts than their other trans and nonbinary peers who have not received hormones.The article, “Association of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy with Depression, Thoughts of Suicide, and Attempted Suicide among Transgender and Nonbinary Youth,” is being hailed as the first large-scale study examining transgender youth receiving

The Advocate, a Baton Rouge-based newspaper. Edwards warned that any legislation seen as attacking the LGBTQ community could potentially bring an “adverse impact to the state,” such as the economic backlash experienced by North Carolina in 2016 when lawmakers there passed a bill restricting which public restroom facilities transgender people could use.New Orleans is currently scheduled to host the NCAA’s Final Four basketball tournament in 2022, and some opponents — including Edwards — worry the

SB 514, would prohibit any transgender person under the age of 21 from receiving gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery, and would penalize medical providers who prescribe or provide such treatments by revoking their medical licenses and fining them $1,000 per violation.See also: assasasaA provision within that bill would require any state employees — including teachers, school administrators or counselors — to “out” transgender or nonbinary students to their

nominee to be assistant secretary of health at the U.S.

See also: Mississippi wants to block transgender people under age 21 from receiving gender-affirming careCritics of Allen’s bill argue that the provision around school officials is ambiguous, and doesn’t make clear whether those officials would be thrown in prison for withholding information that a youth’s gender identity doesn’t match their assigned sex at birth.“Because it’s ambiguous, it can absolutely be read that those felony penalties would apply to teachers and that’s part of what makes

Rep. Brad Daw – Photo: Facebook.

Demonstrators protest a South Dakota bill that sought to bar transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care in February 2020. The bill was defeated in committee. – Photo: Greg Latza/ACLU.

Source: Ted Eytan – Flickr

Rep. Brad Daw – Photo: Facebook.

South Dakota State Capitol – Photo: Jim Bowen, via Wikimedia.