The federal government is escalating efforts to seek private medical data for children undergoing gender-affirming care, as at least one hospital faces the first known criminal probe of its kind.
Last week, NYU Langone Hospitals in New York City received a grand jury subpoena for information about young patients who received gender-affirming care at their facilities anytime in the past six years.
A grand jury subpoena indicates that a federal criminal investigation is underway. This would be a first in regards to gender-affirming care.
The subpoena came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas, part of the Justice Department. The office is also seeking the names of hospital employees involved in providing gender-affirming care. The government has previously sought medical records of transgender kids from other states, and so have Texas officials, but not like this.
Parents of trans youth under the age of 18 who have received care at NYU Langone got a notification from the hospital alerting them to the grand jury subpoena. According to that notification and to the hospital’s public statement, NYU Langone is one of several institutions that received a subpoena May 7. The hospital said it is still evaluating how it will respond to it.
New York law prevents the disclosure of medical records related to gender-affirming care and abortion except in limited circumstances and broadly prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with investigations into gender-affirming care. This sets up a potential legal fight over the subpoena.
Several legal battles are currently playing out in response to other attempts from the government to obtain trans kids’ medical records.
Eleven families just filed a class-action lawsuit to block the Justice Department from obtaining confidential information about young trans patients seeking gender-affirming care. The agency sent more than 20 subpoenas last summer to doctors and clinics involved in providing such care, with the intent to investigate “healthcare fraud, false statements, and more.” Both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have sought to investigate gender-affirming care as medical fraud.
Multiple judges halted these DOJ subpoenas in their tracks, after hospitals fought back. A federal judge in Massachusetts called the agency’s investigations into gender-affirming care “motivated only by bad faith.” A judge in Colorado, who blocked a similar subpoena, said patient medical records must be protected from “improper disclosure.”
Separately, a federal judge this month temporarily blocked the FTC from investigating two medical groups that support gender-affirming care for transgender people. Those groups, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society, were served civil investigative demands for years of internal records and financial information. Both groups sued.
Over the past year, hospitals in states like New York, where gender-affirming care is legally protected, have come under pressure by the federal government to halt care for trans youth. For patients, that care has been spotty: earlier this year, NYU Langone halted gender-affirming care for young patients, citing “the current regulatory environment” as a key reason. More than 40 hospitals across the country have done the same, per STAT News.
Gender-affirming care for trans youth primarily refers to hormone therapy and puberty blockers used to treat gender dysphoria, which is a medical condition that can cause significant distress. Very few transgender youth seek and access surgeries. Restricting gender-affirming care is a top priority of the Trump administration, which has proposed regulations to greatly restrict the care for youth and stated its opposition to trans identity as a whole.
When I tell people the premise of Ignore All Previous Instructions, they often remark how it reminds them of real life these days. In Ignore, the characters live in a space colony on Callisto where a generative AI company owns everything – and where making art or telling stories, without the AI’s assistance, is strictly not allowed. (snip)
Another part of the novel, even closer to my heart and equally timely, was the problem of queer self-expression and book bans.
In 2023, I was at an early stage in therapy. I was just starting to think back, in ways I hadn’t allowed myself before, about how some of my experiences growing up had shaped me. This included a lot of things, many of them not germane to this post, but it also included the experience of growing up queer without understanding that that’s what it was. (snip-MORE, and it’s really good; go read it!)
In this interview Graham Platner responds to his detractors accusations against him. He discusses the tattoo and the Jewish times report that says he had talked about it while working at a bar during the time frame he was not working there. So there is not any credible evidence that he knew what the tattoo was. As he said why would he have danced with it in full display to his extended Jewish family? He makes sense. He understands that people may not like him because he is not polished as a politician. He also says he stumbles verbally and struggles to correct and improve himself. It was a hard hitting interview and Platner came off as very reasonable. Hugs
Now, in this must-watch interview, Mehdi Hasan speaks to Platner not just about his vision for a progressive “political revolution” in Washington DC but also about some of his controversies, including his social media and his tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol.
A week before the US went to war with Iran, Pete Hegseth, the war secretary, invited the head of his church to lead prayers at the Pentagon. From his pulpit in Idaho, Doug Wilson, a 72-year-old ultraconservative pastor, preaches that homosexuality is a sin, women who dress immodestly are “sluts”, and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the “silliest thing in the world”.
Despite Hegseth’s evangelising, Wilson says the Trump administration is far from morally pure. He says the president is “not someone I would call a godly Christian man”, and disagrees with Trump’s appointment of a gay man, Scott Bessent, as his Treasury secretary because homosexuality is not just a sin, it is “a bad one”.
Of all his gripes, however, Wilson is most indignant about the 1960s sexual revolution, a moral catastrophe that he condemns frequently in his blog posts, sermons and books. He thinks women should dress modestly. But what is modest dress? “Not what they’re doing now,” he says. “I could pick on yoga pants.” He continues: “Men know what they think of hookers, which is not very much. When you’re just giving it away to every slob on the bus who wants to look, you’re degrading the currency.”
Does that mean Wilson and his followers sympathise with the dress codes enforced by Shia clerics in Iran? “No, because wrapping them up in a bedsheet is another way of degrading them. It is possible to be modest and attractive — attractive without attracting. Bundling them up the way really conservative Muslims do is a different kind of degradation. Like you’re not a person. But for a woman to dress like a slut is a different kind of degradation. Both kinds of degradation play off of each other.”
Wilson appeared here last month when he called for criminalizing homosexuality and outlawing all LGBTQ events.
In March, Wilson declared that under his Christian nationalist theocracy, all non-Protestant public events – such a Catholic parades that venerate the Virgin Mary – would be banned.
Also in March, a separate pastor at Hegseth’s church prayed for God to kill Senate candidate James Talarico.
Pete Hegseth’s pastor: ‘Women who dress immodestly are sluts’
Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed surprise to see the Vatican publishing the testimonies of married gay men.
Some of the hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families who joined a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome, celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Catholic Church and crediting Pope Francis for the change, walk through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
The Vatican released a report on Tuesday (May 5) that included the testimony of two married gay Catholics and acknowledged the church’s role in “the solitude, anguish, and stigma that accompany persons with same-sex attractions and their families.” The report also reflects on the negative impacts of conversion therapy, or “the devastating effects of reparative therapies aimed at recovering heterosexuality.”
“ It’s a big deal because they included testimonies and published testimonies from two LGBTQ people, both of them married, which is also unusual for the Vatican to do,” said the Rev. James Martin, a founder of Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic ministry. “As far as I know, it’s the first time that in any official publication of the Vatican, they’ve included witnesses and testimonies and stories from LGBTQ Catholics in any kind of detailed way.”
The report comes from a group of theologians, including bishops, priests, a sister and a layperson, convened by the Vatican to study “controversial” issues raised by the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis’ signature listening initiative, to which Martin was a delegate. Though church reform advocates hoped — and traditionalists feared — that the synod would bring major changes to church teaching around gender and sexuality, the decision to relegate contentious issues, such as LGBTQ+ inclusion, to study groups instead of general discussion was widely seen as a damper.
As expected, the synod study group report does not announce major changes to church doctrine, but it does suggest that the Catholic Church address the impasse between “doctrinal firmness” and “pastoral welcome” by listening and using a transdisciplinary approach, such as incorporating insights from psychology, alongside the Bible and church doctrine.
“ It’s a really good — I would even say historic — document,” said Yunuen Trujillo, a lesbian lay minister from Los Angeles. “ It’s still calling for all Catholics to engage in a process of discernment that is respectful of people’s lived experiences.”
Trujillo, author of “LGBTQ Catholics: A Guide to Inclusive Ministry,” said it might take a while for LGBTQ+ Catholics in the pews to feel the impact and noted that the document only focuses on lesbians, gays and bisexual people. “But I do believe it would be a positive impact, not a negative one,” she said.
In this Oct. 4, 2023, file photo, Pope Francis, far right, participates in the opening session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Marianne Duddy-Burke, a married lesbian Catholic and DignityUSA’s executive director, said, “ The most significant thing for me was the recognition that top-down trying to dictate behavior and morality on the basis of dogma isn’t working,” adding she was “hopeful” to see the report using the language of a “paradigm shift.”
The “paradigm shift” the report proposes is a move away from applying abstract theological principles to on-the-ground realities and instead seeing theory and practice as a “virtuous cycle.” For the two to effectively inform each other, the report argues, requires a focus on relationships, transparency and learning. The document offers this theological framework not just for LGBTQ+ issues but for broader use, including in nonviolent activism and protest.
This synod document was written by the study group, not the pope, but its release to the public would have required his authorization.
The report’s release garnered some blowback, a portion of which fell on Pope Leo XIV. Far-right Catholic news organization LifeSite published a story on the report, raising concerns that the report was questioning “the sinful nature of homosexuality” and leaving unresolved the “debate on same-sex ‘marriage.’” Co-founder John-Henry Westen released a video warning that the report’s pro-LGBTQ+ stance makes clear the meaning of “synodality” under Leo.
Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed surprise to see the Vatican publishing the testimonies of married gay men.
“ I was expecting a rather bland report. And this was not that,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which serves LGBTQ Catholics. “ In days gone by in the church, they would try to tick off the token box by getting someone who had certain traits and characteristics, but who was just not critical of the church in any way.”
Martin said this is the first time he remembers seeing conversion therapy “critiqued that strongly” in a Vatican document. “There have been certain bishops who have been very muted in their critique of conversion therapy, but then there have also been bishops who have used organizations whose techniques really verge on conversion therapy,” he said.
One gay Catholic wrote of “wounds from the Christian community” in his Vatican-released testimony. “I cannot ignore the scars I carry. I have witnessed the devastating effects of ‘conversion therapies’ and the break-up of families, which felt like an attack on God’s sensitive and blameless creation. These experiences deeply hurt, because they target the inherent dignity of a person who simply bears the love of another of the same gender.”
But the married Portuguese man also wrote of his deep faith in the Eucharist and his sharing “a life of faith, service, and love” with his husband. “I live my life in profound peace with God, who knows me from my mother’s womb.”
“I feel the Church needs to move beyond mere ‘welcoming’ and ‘pity,’” he wrote in the testimony. “We need to proclaim the unspoken truth: God loves you and desires your wholeness. Sexuality is one part of our life, and difference is a hallmark of Creation.”
DeBernardo said the testimonies of LGBTQ+ people and their advocates have also been moving for the 17 bishops who have participated in three different meetings with New Ways Ministry in recent years. “We had a bishop at the end of the meeting in tears because he was so regretful of the way he had thought about LGBTQ people,” DeBernardo said.
“Dialogue really is the first step,” said DeBernardo. “ The genius of Pope Francis is that he realized that people had to start talking with one another, and learning about each other and not having the fear and the stereotypes.”
For Duddy-Burke, who represents a grassroots group led by LGBTQ+ Catholics that was banned 40 years ago from meeting in Catholic spaces — and who said she has struggled for years as a result to even have these conversations — the document inspires hope: “We didn’t have a place at the table and, and this document says that it’s time that we did,” she said.
At the same time, Duddy-Burke worries about whether those who hold the power will continue to dialogue and be willing to have their “minds and hearts changed.”
“And how will that be managed in parts of the world where it’s absolutely unsafe and it’s sometimes illegal, you know, for people to come forward as queer?” she asked.
The synod report also addresses “active nonviolence,” highlighting the examples of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Filipino “People Power” and Polish “Solidarity” anti-government movements, as well as the experience of a Catholic Serbian conscientious objector. Peace has been a major focus of Leo’s pontificate, and his recent anti-war statements have led to conflict with the Trump administration, which has used theological language to promote its war in the Middle East.
In the Vatican report, the theologians suggest that “just war theory,” which Catholic U.S. Vice President JD Vance has referenced to defend the war, is “inadequate” in the modern context. “Since war can no longer be confined to military targets but overflows into civilian life, taking on new forms (hybrid, asymmetrical, etc.), the recourse to frameworks used in the past for legitimate defence — and even more so for ‘just war’ — appears increasingly inadequate,” they write.
On Tuesday, the Vatican also released the report of another Synod study group dedicated to bishop selection and other bishop issues. That report proposed broad consultation — including the perspectives of lay people, in addition to clergy and religious — when it comes to potential bishop candidates as well as ideal future bishop qualities.
A Florida man is facing life felony charges after allegedly brutally assaulting a defenseless 5-year-old boy in an act of hate-fueled child abuse. “This was a brutal and hateful attack on a defenseless child. There is absolutely no excuse for it. We will make sure justice is served and these children get the safety and support they deserve,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said that on Sunday, May 3, 33-year-old Andre Brown Jr. from Davenport was arrested for child abuse. According to officials, this charge has been categorized as a life felony because it is considered a hate crime.
During interviews with the children in Browns care, it was revealed that Brown had been physically abusive toward a 5-year-old boy, specifically targeting him because he was “mad at him for being gay.” Brown reportedly told deputies that he abused the child because of his sexual orientation, claiming he would “beat the gay out of him if possible.”
The boy told authorities he was afraid of Brown and did not want to talk much about what happened. He had the worst injuries of the three: marks and bruising on his legs, arms, back, and stomach; a fracture to his right wrist; and a contusion to his forehead. He had marks all over his body consistent with being hit by a belt, the sheriff’s office said.
When deputies attempted to remove Brown from the scene, he pulled away, became loud and began yelling slurs, the sheriff’s office said. He continued yelling and pulling away once placed in handcuffs, according to the release, and also was charged with resisting arrest.
Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including domestic battery strangulation, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping with intent to commit a felony, home invasion robbery with a firearm and battery on a law enforcement officer, the release said.
“This idea of, ‘I won’t be erased,’ that’s something that brewed in my childhood,” she said. “I think that’s where the fight comes from. … I don’t want to fail, and I haven’t failed yet. I think that’s the scary part. I’ve never, ever had a floor beneath me.”
Brady-Davis is currently the only Black trans person holding public office in the United States, serving on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. She previously shared that title with Minneapolis City Councilor Andrea Jenkins, who retired in January.
And while water reclamation commissioner, a job that involves juggling budgets and managing wastewater and stormwater for Cook County, might not sound like a big title, those in the know are eyeing Brady-Davis carefully. She recently toured Washington, D.C., with Rep. Sarah McBride, who made history herself as the first trans person elected to Congress.
Brady-Davis doesn’t rule out the possibility of a congressional run. But she’s coy about her ambitions, talking around a bid for national office.
“For now, my focus is on being effective at the local level — but I’ve thought about how that work could expand to have a broader impact on issues like the environment, LGBTQ rights, and education,” she said.
“I absolutely think she could be a congressperson,” said Tracy Baim, co-founder of Chicago’s LGBTQ+ newspaper Windy City Times, who has watched Davis’ rise. “There’s no doubt in my mind she has the qualifications.”
Precious Brady-Davis speaks during an interview in her office. (Erin Hooley/AP)
Early life
Brady-Davis largely grew up with her grandparents but eventually wound up in foster care, where she was confronted with a version of Christianity that saw homosexuality as sinful.
In her memoir, “I Have Always Been Me,” Brady-Davis recalls going to a Pentecostal youth retreat and having a pastor call her out specifically: “I bind the foul spirit of homosexuality out of you,” she recalled him saying. “You are not a woman. You are a man.”
The preacher and others in the group lunged toward her; Brady-Davis later awoke prostrate on a kitchen floor, traumatized from the experience.
While she worked to conform for a while, as she learned about the world and herself, she gradually rejected those ideas. In college, she began performing in drag, first in her home state of Nebraska and then in Chicago.
At this time, two transitions were taking place. Brady-Davis was starting to live full-time as a woman. And her professional career was starting.
She took a job doing HIV prevention work among youth of color at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, the LGBTQ+ community center in the heart of Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood, amid tension over violence at the 2011 Pride parade and the subsequent crackdown on crime.
Center on Halsted, an LGBTQ+ community center in Chicago’s Northalsted neighborhood, where Precious Brady-Davis worked in HIV prevention among youth of color early in her career. (Jamie Kelter Davis for The 19th)
The job would prove difficult to impossible. While residents were angry with the Center, youth advocates claimed that the Center over-policed young people, calling law enforcement on homeless kids looking for safe places to sleep. Brady-Davis was forced to defend an institution that was being attacked from all sides. It would be her first political test.
“I advocated for those young people the best I could,” she said. “It was just cruel. … When I think that something is wrong, I’m going to speak up about it.”
Baim said she watched Brady-Davis turn every challenge into an advance.
“Precious has managed to navigate so many of the land mines that others have not survived, and came from a very, very grassroots approach to the work, and has really reimagined herself for each iteration,” Baim said.
Brady-Davis would do a stint with About Face Theatre, the LGBTQ+ youth theatre troupe in Chicago, and then join the Sierra Club, where she eventually became northeast communications director and battled President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency during his first term.
It was work that made sense for her, she said.
“How can I say that my work is invested in diversity, equity and inclusion when I’m not working in all kinds of diversity?” she asked. “Environmental justice felt like another kind of diversity.”
A family legacy
During Brady-Davis’ stint at Center on Halsted, a young man came literally knocking at her door without an appointment. The man, Myles Brady, was bald and eager to chat. He wanted to get involved in programs with youths. He shared that he was transgender, too. The fact surprised Brady-Davis. But he was so talkative that Brady-Davis didn’t know what to make of him.
“Like it was weird to me, and I was very protective of the young people at the Center,” said Brady-Davis. She decided to never follow up with him again.
Brady was persistent. He kept appearing at events. One night he asked Brady-Davis to dinner. She reluctantly agreed.
“I was like, at least I’ll get dinner out of it, right?” she said laughing. “I was like, I’ll go on this date, and I’ll never have to see him again.”
But a few months later Brady-Davis was headed to the Philadelphia Health Conference. She got an email from Brady. “I can’t wait to see you in Philly,” it said.
The message struck her as cute. Later that night while she was out to dinner with trans friends Brady walked in and sat down. Brady-Davis didn’t know it, but he had been invited by others at the table. She was being set up. Brady told Brady-Davis she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and that he wanted to build a life with her and take care of her.
“I saw him so differently that night,” she said. “It was the first time that I truly saw him.”
The two left the conference together and have been together ever since. They were married in 2016, and Brady-Davis appeared on TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress,” the first transgender bride to be featured on the show.
Precious Brady-Davis and her husband, Myles Brady-Davis, wave to the crowd during the Chicago Pride Parade. The couple were the first transgender parents in Illinois history to be listed as their accurate genders on their children’s birth certificates. (Chicago Pride)
They had two daughters, Zayn and Zyon.
The birth of their first daughter, Zayn, provided another opportunity for advocacy. Brady, who was carrying the child, learned in 2019 that the state of Illinois would list him as a “mother” on the birth certificate and Brady-Davis as “father.” The two teamed up with Lambda Legal and petitioned the state, successfully changing the policy. Brady would be recognized as Zayn’s father, and Brady-Davis was listed as her mother.
“I always say it brings me the most joy to take my kids to school in the morning,” said Brady-Davis. “It’s one of the most normal things that I get to do as a human being. And it’s not about me being trans at all. It’s about me being a mom. …I’m proud of the ways in which I’m parenting my girls to be a part of a world that I hope is more inclusive, diverse.”
Into politics
Sierra Club positioned her well for her next big move, into electoral politics. In 2022, she vied for a spot as a commissioner on the Water Reclamation District. Though she fell short in the primary, the next year Gov. JB Pritzker appointed her to finish the term of the candidate who had beaten her, who had since joined the state legislature.
“Precious Brady-Davis distinguished herself as a trailblazer even before her historic appointment to public office in Cook County,” Pritzker said of Brady Davis in a statement to The 19th. “Throughout her political and nonprofit career, Precious consistently stepped up as the first — first to speak up for the LGBTQ+ community, first to share the story of her path to activism and public office, and first to encourage others to claim their seats at the table.”
Precious Brady-Davis speaks at a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago board meeting. After being appointed to the board in 2023, Brady-Davis won her primary this year by large margins. (Courtesy of Precious Brady-Davis)
When time came for her reelection bid this year, Brady-Davis won her primary by large margins.
But whether she finishes her six-year term remains to be seen. Apart from her time in D.C. with McBride, she has been chatting up major political donors. McBride says she would not be surprised to see Brady-Davis serving alongside her in Congress.
“I think the sky is the limit for her, and she is someone who I respect deeply,” McBride said. “It was personally meaningful to walk these halls with a trailblazer whose story is only just beginning.”
Sorry this is not as long as I normally do. Ron found me sleeping at my desk an d only gave me a few minutes to finish before he forced me to bed physically. Hugs
The house below was once owned by Scott Bessent the current Secretary of Treasury under tRump. I would love to own a home like this or at least be able to afford one like it. It is a famous home called the Pink House. Hugs
These are fake The first three were posted by tRump but the left is the one that has to turn down the rhetoric.
This is the real Obama bowing picture.
And this guy posted 86 46 during Bidens term and the post is still up. But Comey is on trial for threatening the cult leader and not Posobiec who did the same to Biden.
And this one is real. tRump suluted an enemy general from North Korea.
And this one is real also.
“The more likely prospect, they say, is that he becomes an independent who caucuses with the GOP, or simply casts his vote to ensure Thune remains majority leader. Ensuring control of the Senate could be especially critical should there be a Supreme Court vacancy http://www.politico.com/news/magazin…
NEW: A Republican U.S. Senate candidate said he's recruiting off-duty police officers to serve as poll watchers in Detroit for the 2026 midterms — and suggested they could flash their badges at voters.Intimidating voters is illegal. Interfering with someone's right to vote is a federal crime.
🚨BREAKING: Florida voters and pro-voting group Equal Ground Education Fund filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the GOP’s new congressional gerrymander, urging a court to block the map for violating the state constitution’s ban on partisan gerrymandering. http://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/…
Judge mulls contempt over DHS’ ‘patently false’ allegation in deportation caseThe Trump administration attacked a judge for releasing an accused murderer, but it withheld existence of the foreign warrant.www.politico.com/news/2026/05…
You see this press release from DHS about a federal judge? The agency pushed it out 5 days ago. Today, a DOJ attorney admitted to the judge that it “simply was not true.”(It’s also still online at DHS dot gov as of 540 pm Monday)1/
* SOUTH KOREA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY: FIRE AND EXPLOSION HAPPENED ON A KOREAN VESSEL IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ* SOUTH KOREA FOREIGN MINISTRY: CHECKING CAUSE OF FIRE AND DETAILS ON DAMAGE AT THE KOREAN VESSEL* SOUTH KOREA FOREIGN MINISTRY: TO CLOSELY COMMUNICATE WITH RELEVANT COUNTRIES@reuters.com
President Donald Trump threatened Iran, saying it will be 'blown off the face of the Earth' if it doesn't stop attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
More Than 150 Wind Projects Stall as Pentagon Delays ReviewsThe delays, which companies say have worsened significantly in recent weeks, are the latest step in the Trump administration’s efforts to block wind power.www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/c…
“While my opponent obsesses over my gender and uses cowardly tricks to try to avoid facing me, I will continue to fight for practical solutions to problems that actually impact our communities.”
Michigan Democrats are firing back after one of their own—a candidate in a state representative race—filed a complaint with the Wayne County Division of Elections, aiming to boot his primary opponent, Joanna Whaley, from the ballot. This is because Whaley is transgender and went through a legal name change process.
It seems that another contender for Michigan’s 2nd State House District seat, Frank Liberati falsely believed Whaley’s name change hadn’t gone through. So, last week, he accused her of running under a false name in violation of election procedures, official documents show, which were provided to Erin in the Morning by Whaley.
They also showed that Liberati went even further in his anti-trans rhetoric. The complaint invoked Whaley’s deadname (a given name a trans person no longer uses) at every turn, consistently misgendered her, or called Whaley “she/he.”
The Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus denounced Liberati’s “transphobic tactics.”
“During a time of increasing and relentless attacks on the trans community, submitting this sort of meritless challenge to the Wayne County Clerk serves no purpose but to stoke the flames of transphobia for personal political gain,” a statement from the Caucus reads.
Democratic lawmakers further called on officials to throw out the complaint. “The Clerk should promptly reject this baseless challenge to Whaley’s candidacy and allow the voters of 2nd State House District to decide this election at the ballot box. Weaponizing transphobia as an electoral tactic has no place whatsoever in Michigan politics, and certainly not in a Democratic Party primary,” the statement said.
Whaley told Erin in the Morning that she expected to encounter transphobia when running for office, but she was shocked when she learned it was from a fellow Democrat.
At the same time, she also said she has been flooded with support from voters, Party members, and leaders who were outraged by Liberati’s maneuver.
“I spoke with the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, and we are united across the state that this is not how Democrats act,” Whaley said. “This is not what we represent.”
Whaley said Liberati’s complaint was based on outdated court filings. When Whaley first came out, excessive state fees ended up delaying aspects of her legal transition. Since then, the state legislature has passed laws to make name changes less burdensome. Whaley filed again, got her name successfully updated, and has been going by Joanna ever since.
“When a candidate cannot run on their own merits, they resort to lies and distractions,” Whaley said in a public response when news of the challenge first broke. “Our campaign remains focused on the issues that matter to the residents of this district: lowering water and utility bills, expanding healthcare access, fixing our infrastructure, and protecting our freedoms.”
“While my opponent obsesses over my gender and uses cowardly tricks to try to avoid facing me, I will continue to fight for practical solutions to problems that actually impact our communities,” she continued.
This isn’t the first time that issues with name changes and state identification laws have been weaponized against trans voters and/or candidates. Gendered party seat positions, which were initially created to advance the representation of women in office, have since become a barrier for people of marginalized genders who want to run for a position.
Meanwhile, stringent voter ID policies are poised to hinder trans and gender nonconforming people’s ability to vote if their current documentation or gender expression doesn’t match their name and gender assigned at birth. (The name change issue extends beyond trans people; married women who take their husband’s last name have also reported barriers to voting.)
In addition to her candidacy, Whaley is a parent, a hospital chaplain, and a proud Democrat. She told Erin in the Morning she was in part inspired to run for office by Liberati’s brother: Sitting member Tullio Liberati, who crossed party lines last year to vote in favor of a bill that discriminated against transgender women and girls in sports.
Transphobia, it seems, runs in the family. Frank personally signed off on the complaint submitted to officials, notary and all.
Liberati did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prior to this race, he had served for six years as a state representative in Michigan’s 13th District.
Whaley said she expects the complaint to be resolved and that she hopes to bring the conversation around her candidacy back to the issues that impact everyday voters.
“[Resorting to] this move in the first place shows that we are the campaign to beat,” Whaley said. These are tactics to “knock me out of the race, because [Liberati] can’t win on the issues.”
“I don’t see any path aside from the full removal of feminism. So long as we have democracy coupled with universal suffrage, you’ll constantly be going against the grain. You’ll constantly have half of the population voting for temperance, tolerance, suicidal empathy. I don’t think you’re going to get people to vote away democracy. It has to be taken. I think that men, virtuous, ambitious, masculine men have to climb the ladder of power and forcefully take away from the people that which is their detriment.” – Christian nationalist hate Pastor Joel Webbon, who appeared here last year when he called for Trump’s military to seize churches that fly Pride flags or have female clergy. In 2024, Webbon appeared here when he called for the death penalty for homosexuality.
Enjoy your rights while you have them, because Joel Webbon says the America First Christian nationalist movement is "going to take over the GOP" by 2032: "It's not if, it's simply when." https://t.co/nXHRp2C2yGpic.twitter.com/paQkcqMzYx
Scottie's Playtime 