More Decent News About Trans Rights

(It’s in regard to the news posted here the other day.)

RFK Jr agenda suffers another loss as trans advocates hail ‘huge step forward’

Judge’s repeal of Trump ban on gender-affirming care for children ‘a meaningful win for patients’, experts say

A federal judge overturned the Trump administration’s ban on gender-affirming care for children on Saturday, decrying Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “wanton disregard” for the law that “causes very real harm to very real people”.

It’s another loss for Kennedy’s agenda as secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the second Trump administration – an agenda that has focused on restricting healthcare, including vaccines, abortion and gender-affirming care.

A different legal decision recently halted the agency’s attempt to raze vaccine recommendations, and new research and regulatory decisions have undermined controversial announcements by Trump and Kennedy on autism.

“Unserious leaders are unsafe,” Mustafa T Kasubhai, a US district judge in Oregon wrote in the opening to his final judgment on the gender-affirming care case, a 49-page decision that excoriated the administration for disregarding the law and overreach in its regulations. The judge also barred the administration from implementing similar policies under any other names to restrict care nationally by withholding funding.

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, called the ruling “incredibly powerful” and “far-reaching”.

“It enjoins them from doing anything to interfere with the authority of states to regulate medical practice,” Minter said.

For healthcare providers and families who have been in limbo for months, “this is a huge, huge step forward”, said Jan Oosting, an associate professor of nursing at City University of New York (Cuny).

Khadijah Silver, director of gender justice and health equity at Lawyers for Good Government, who uses they and them pronouns, said they were “so overwhelmingly ecstatic” and “couldn’t actually process” that the ruling “was real life”.

In December, Kennedy announced that any health system providing pediatric gender-affirming care would be suspended from receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding. Medicaid and Medicare would also be banned from paying for any gender-affirming care, he said.

As nearly all major hospitals and health systems rely on Medicaid and Medicare, the proposed rule amounted to a ban on gender-affirming care for children, setting a precedent for the government limiting healthcare for any patients.

At the same time, Kennedy issued a declaration invoking a regulation to allow the HHS to exclude healthcare providers from Medicaid and Medicare when the providers no longer “meet professionally recognized standards of healthcare”. Unusually, the new rule was enforced immediately, without going through the usual rule-making process, including public comment.

Gender-affirming care often includes puberty blockers and hormones, but can also involve psychosocial support and, very rarely and after extensive medical consultation, surgery. It is widely agreed to be essential to the health of gender-expansive individuals. The Kennedy declaration claimed pediatric gender-affirming care for minors was “neither safe nor effective” and therefore fell below these standards.

Declarations like these are meant to be used for emergencies when the HHS needs to communicate the steps it’s taking to protect public health, Silver said, who added: “They have never once been abused in such a fashion to go against standards of medical care that are widely accepted … let alone to override the state’s primary authority in the regulation of medicine.”

Minter said: “This was an attempt by the federal government to impose a national ban and usurp the authority of states to regulate medical practice within their borders.”

Within eight days, the HHS general counsel, Mike Stuart, began referring health systems to the HHS office of inspector general for violating the new policy. The decision included several screenshots of posts from Stuart celebrating referrals of health systems for violating the rule.

At least 40 health systems have said the threat of losing federal funding is why they stopped providing care in recent weeks. Oregon and 21 other states sued the administration. In response, the US government argued that the Kennedy declaration was merely an individual’s personal opinion.

When the judge overturned the declaration, he called this argument “a bald-faced lie” and an attempt to “bully or gaslight” the court. The judge said the Kennedy declaration was “clearly unlawful” because it violated administrative law and the Medicare statute that forbids federal officials from exercising “any supervision or control over the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided”.

Following the judge’s preliminary injunction against the new rule in March, Children’s Minnesota began offering gender-affirming care again.

When another health system, Children’s Hospital Colorado, ceased care, patients and families sued the hospital. The case is currently before the Colorado supreme court, where judges have expressed concerns that forcing the hospital to resume care could bring federal backlash, endangering even more children. Silver noted that reversing the federal ban now could change the outcome of that case.

“This should be a huge relief and a tremendous source of protection” for families and children whose care was delayed or disrupted, Minter said. When health systems announced they would comply in advance with the directive and stop providing gender-affirming care, often effective immediately, it was “shocking and appalling behavior”, he said, but this decision “should remove that fear” and allow the care to resume.

Oosting noted that the “biggest source of fear, which was the threat of losing Medicare and Medicaid funding, is removed now, so I think that there will be reassessment by each individual hospital of what programs are going to be put back into play, what programs will have to be modified”. That’s especially true in states like New York that have laws against discrimination in healthcare, she said.

The proposed rule preventing Medicaid and Medicare from paying for gender-affirming care is also blocked by this decision, Minter said. The rule did not come before the judge because it hasn’t been finalized, but Minter reads the ruling as “effectively prohibiting those rules from being enforced as well”.

Challenges still exist for children who need gender-affirming care but may not be able to access it.

“Although this removes a major federal barrier, it doesn’t erase those state-level restrictions,” Oosting said. Some states have introduced bans on the care. In Ohio, the state’s supreme court will rule on whether a ban is constitutional in coming months.

Some families in states with bans or gaps in healthcare are once again able to access care by moving or traveling out of state – a “burdensome”, disruptive and expensive process, but an “important” one, Minter said.

Overturning the ban was a “meaningful win for patients and providers and, honestly, for healthcare integrity in the US”, Oosting said. It lessens fear and uncertainty around seeking and providing care, and it shows that “major changes in healthcare policy have to follow the law,” Oosting said – which has repercussions for other politicized changes to health regulations, like limitations on abortion. It was “a powerful tool to stop the federal government from that type of attempted overreach” in healthcare, Minter said.

The decision reinforces the fact that “the federal government can’t use Medicare and Medicaid restriction as a blunt-force instrument to control care and access to people’s bodies,” Oosting said. It’s significant not just for making gender-affirming care available again but also because it sets “the rules of the road – how far the federal government can go in terms of influencing what’s happening in a patient exam room”, she said.

Republican FCC Reviews TV Ratings System In Regard To Trans/Non-Binary Characters & Content

Trump’s FCC Targets Parental Rating System Over Transgender TV Characters

The FCC is seeking comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines rating system needs to be changed to penalize shows for transgender or nonbinary content.

Erin Reed Apr 22, 2026

Today, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the FCC would be seeking comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines rating system needs to be changed to address shows with transgender or nonbinary characters. The public notice, which Carr posted on twitter this morning, seeks to weaponize the TV ratings system to restrict shows that include such characters—asking whether programs that contain “the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes” should “be rated differently or contain relevant descriptions.” Though the FCC’s direct authority over the TV ratings system is limited—the system is voluntary and industry-run, and streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ can maintain their own standards—the FCC retains enormous coercive power over broadcast networks and their parent companies, many of which also operate streaming platforms. The move comes after a series of attacks on network television weaponizing the FCC for political purposes, including Carr’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses over news coverage of the Iran war and his targeting of ABC over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. It appears to be an attempt to extend “Don’t Say Gay”-style policies—which have restricted discussion of LGBTQ+ people in classrooms across red states—to national television ratings.

“Years ago, Congress passed a law that empowers parents to decide the types of TV programs that are appropriate for their kids by standing up a TV show ratings system. But recently, parents have raised concerns with the industry’s approach—including with ratings creep. Specifically, they argue that New York & Hollywood programmers are promoting controversial issues in kids programming without providing any transparency or disclosures to parents. This undermines the whole point of the law and the ratings system parents rely on. The FCC is now seeking comment on whether the industry’s approach provides parents with the types of information and disclosures relevant to them today,” Carr wrote on twitter. However, the actual document posted alongside his statement tells a more specific story—it primarily centers on gender identity. (snip-MORE on the page)

4th Amendment Workplaces

When ICE Shows Up, These Businesses Will Be Ready

Across the U.S., training, resources and hotlines have emerged to help workplaces exercise their rights in the case of an ICE raid.

By: Emily Nonko

Last April, at the James Beard Foundation’s Chef Action Summit, food industry leaders gathered to discuss the political and economic landscape with one concern hanging grimly in the air: undocumented and immigrant workers were increasingly afraid to come into work after ICE raids ramped up at the outset of Trump’s second term.

But it just so happened the summit took place in Asheville, North Carolina, where activists had already asked, “What would it take to make this the safest state for immigrants in the south?” as Andrew Willis Garcés, senior strategist with the immigrant justice organization Siembra NC, puts it.

One answer: 4th Amendment Workplaces, a framework developed by Siembra NC and launched at the summit to help restaurants and other businesses train up on legally vetted protocols to defend employees against ICE. The idea quickly took hold — there are now over 1,000 4th Amendment Workplaces across North Carolina, with 4th Amendment Workplace resolutions passed in three cities and similar efforts underway across 12 states.

It’s emerged as perhaps the most powerful workforce training to help businesses prepare for ICE raids, but it is not the only one. Across the country, training, resources and hotlines have been developed for workplaces, alongside an effort to harness the wider labor movement as a force against ICE.

Though the ICE raids that make the news often take place on the street, workplaces are in fact a frequent target. “We’ve seen ICE this year go into workplaces more than a lot of other kinds of places where people are gathered,” Willis Garcés explains. “With workplaces, there’s usually an open door you can walk through.”

According to the American Immigration Council, ICE publicly reported at least 40 worksite enforcement actions resulting in over 1,100 arrests within the first seven months of the current Trump administration. Businesses employing noncitizen workers — restaurants, car washes, automotive shops, bakeries, nail salons — are typically targeted. ICE has also scaled up large raids at workplaces like meatpacking and manufacturing plants.

These raids often represent legal violations, which 4th Amendment Workplaces raise awareness around. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” without a warrant based on probable cause — that is, reason to believe that a crime may have been committed.

In North Carolina, volunteers canvas businesses across the state to share what it means to be a 4th Amendment Workplace: identify invalid ICE warrants, secure private employee areas, document unconstitutional actions and defend all workers, no matter their immigration status. Resources include a workplace guide, organizing toolkit, posters signaling opposition to unconstitutional search and seizures, employee handouts and tips for designating private employee areas.

Workplaces can request dedicated training, in which organizers help business owners and employees develop workplace-specific protocol, and lead them through roleplaying scenarios. “We help you think through … what would you do right after the fact? What would you do to preserve footage, how do you support families left behind, what’s the immediate triage that needs to happen [after a raid]?” explains Willis Garcés.

Scuppernong Books of Greensboro was an early adopter, participating in training, promoting itself as a 4th Amendment Workplace, hiring a lawyer, regularly keeping staff informed of ICE response protocol, even publishing a book on how to resist ICE. Co-owner Steve Mitchell says it is “absolutely essential” for business owners to step up on behalf of employees, especially if the owners are white and legally protected residents: “It’s important for people like us to say that this isn’t right, and we’re going to stand on this side of the issue.”

Even though there hasn’t been a heavy ICE presence in Greensboro, the bookstore’s work with Siembra NC “gives us some sense of confidence,” Mitchell says. “Whether that’s misplaced or not, it at least helps us know what our rights are in that situation.” He adds that using Siembra’s model has made the business feel connected to a broader network of activists.

Willis Garcés describes that model as “plug and play,” easily adaptable outside the state and across a variety of workplaces. Siembra NC recruited small businesses first, with the goal of expansion into higher-targer workplaces like factories and farms.

Today, some North Carolina farmers display giant vinyl banners about their constitutional rights, a riff on Siembra NC’s signage. In Oregon, organizers dubbed themselves “Baddies for the Fourth.” In Minneapolis, the 4th Amendment Workplace was a central demand in a public-pressure campaign around Target.

There have been other efforts to develop localized training. In New York, Nonviolent Peaceforce trains mostly within the city’s Asian American community, which it has worked with since the pandemic. Last year, ICE raids erupted across the city’s Chinatown.

Nonviolent Peaceforce’s in-person training happens with trusted community partners and focuses on de-escalation and self-regulation tactics, alongside scenario and role-playing. “We came to develop scenarios really at the request of community members who felt that they really needed to know what it was like to be in the moment,” says Roz Lee, head of the organization’s U.S. efforts. She says simple tactics to slow things down — like introducing yourself, asking ICE agents their name, asking for a warrant and taking time to inspect it — can shift a potentially intense and traumatic interaction.

Other groups have tied the urgency around ICE to larger labor organizing efforts. Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) emerged to help non-unionized labor organize in response to COVID-19. More recently, EWOC developed resources for resisting ICE, which are tied to broader workplace organizing tactics like facilitating conversation among employees, building a committee and planning collective action together.

“These steps are very universal, whether you work in an office, in a kitchen, at a nonprofit,” says Wes Holing, an EWOC organizer. “If you’re talking about bread-and-butter issues, or you’re talking about a workplace that’s safe from ICE, you’re still ultimately fighting for a place that respects you as a person.”

This January, EWOC partnered with Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America to hold a No-Work Workshop to train workers on their rights and protections to participate in the Anti-ICE General Strike. It was part of a much larger mobilization among Minneapolis residents and businesses responding to Operation Metro Surge.

The city mobilized far beyond one-off trainings; instead, an entire ecosystem emerged. “The sheer volume, the sheer magnitude of mobilization … it felt like every single person I knew was extremely active,” says Mike Urbanski, who helps lead legal observer training with Monarca. Monarca is a project under the immigrant justice organization Unidos MN, which canvassed businesses in Twin Cities’ immigrant communities. They’d then direct people to Monarca’s ICE hotline as well as its two-hour, in-person training, which focuses on “upstander” legal observation tactics.

Monarca’s trainings were also shared through social media, word of mouth and within community spaces and houses of worship. “We could post a training with 1,000 people in Minneapolis and fill it within four or five days,” Urbanski says, “And most of those people would come, and another 100 people would just show up.”

The Workers Solidarity Circle also canvassed and shared resources among Twin Cities businesses, channeling that energy into the Minneapolis Worker’s Assembly this February, which brought together over 300 unionized and non-unionized workers across sectors. “It was about building working class power and coordinated strike action, to really push people into action and not wait on managers, bosses or labor officials to save us,” says organizer Aminah Sheikh.

Now that Operation Metrosurge has wound down, organizers have turned their attention to this upcoming May Day: organizing strike committees, holding strike trainings, conducting labor education and committing unions and community organizations to strike on May 1st. Sheikh says there is a growing realization that workers must build political power far beyond their workplace.

“Listen, in order for us to really stop — abolish — ICE, like people are saying, from the grassroots,” she says, “then we need to do economic disruption.”

Most US Voters Support Trans Rights, Even Republicans

This video explains what everyone on the real left already knew instead of forgetting the trans / woke culture wars and moving right, the center left keeps demanding which is simply code speak for leaning right. While all the same democratic strategists since the Bill Clinton days demand candidates move to the right to “triangulate” to capture republican voters these polls show what we already knew. The culture wars are losing for the republicans. After republicans spent nearly 3 million dollars in ads against trans people the polls showed almost no one felt those adverts influenced their vote. Even as red states rail against higher education, acceptance, and tolerance of people who are different it is losing them votes. Some thing the Christian nationalists who are in the height of their influence now in political circles don’t understand is that people who grew up with LGBTQ+ classmates, friends, and even dated some do not find them the evil that these hate religions preach they are.

*** Personal note. I explained to Ali in an email that I am not functioning. For what ever reason wheither it be anemia or something worse I am desperately tired from the time I manage to get up. I often get up only to a few hours later go back to bed for four or more hours. I have started taking vitamin B-12 and a woman’s one-a-day vitamin. That with more red meat which was recommended to me in the past every time I go into anemia. How ever I get up, I have coffee and stuff with Ron then I need to go back to bed for normally 4 hours, get up and do dishes while watching The Majority Report. How ever some days like yesterday I did not even get that far, going to back to bed by 2 pm only to have Ron wake me and beg me to eat.

I have done better today only going back to bed for 3 hours later in the morning. I wanted to go to bed two hours ago, but Ron was all upset he couldn’t sleep due to the neighbors having new skirting put around their home outside our bedroom. So I got him in his recliner and moved his CPAP out to his chair. Still he was not tracking. Good news as I was falling asleep at my desk he woke up and is fixing supper. At this point I am so tired I don’t really care whether I eat or not.

I tried to reply to comments, but I couldn’t. I even started to move old saved open tabs out by making a new cartoon / memes post but I simply couldn’t do it. Right now the best I can do to function is make doctors appointments and watch videos that don’t take too much thought to understand. That means most political videos are outside my ability. I am sorry but right now I am functioning at the level of a confused grandpa. Sorry. I hope to get better soon. Ron says if I don’t clear up by next week we will demand the primary care see me and deal with it. I’m not sure if I want that as my last visit he was insisting I think about getting a colonoscopy. Anyway. This is a good video and one I watched several hours ago when I was much sharper than I feel now. *** Hugs

From MUTTS & Jane Goodall

FETCH THIS PRINT

“There is hope in the resilience of nature.”Jane Goodall

So, In Case You Can’t Get Outdoors Today For Earth Day,

enjoy a couple of birdcams, with sound!

And see an albatross do a very cool thing-

It Is Earth Day, 2026

Oh! There are so many things that need to be done, so many of them about which we can do little but still all we can; however, today, I think it’s important that each of us gets outside as best we’re able. I think we should take a minute or two to simply appreciate our Earth, and take joy in its beauty and wonder as best we can; reconnect to it. I hope everyone who reads here is able to get at least a bit of time outside today (don’t get struck by lightning, or anything else unsafe!), and can just be with our planet and its inhabitants. There is peace to be found, which will build strength to continue. But, mostly, everything isn’t all about our battles. Hearing birdsong, watching squirrels frolic, and seeing butterflies flutter, is good for us.

Enjoy a video from Artemis II: