U.K. government covered up dramatic spike in trans youth suicides, new report says

This is what all the medical data and medical science shows which is why laws were passed to promote transgender acceptance. Then some people decided it was an insult to their god, some decided that they needed everyone to be the same as they are in life, and politicians realized it was a way to distract and get people to vote for them. There is no medical reason, no safety reason, and no social reason for hate towards trans people and other LGBTQ+.  To be so dismissive of the needs of other people who cause you no harm is crazy and I do not understand the motivation of the bigots.   Hugs


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John Russell (He/Him)February 12, 2026, 3:30 pm EST· Updated on February 13, 2026
transgender, teen, texas, texans, suicide

The U.K. government appears to have covered up a dramatic rise in transgender youth suicides, according to data obtained by U.K.-based government accountability non-profit the Good Law Project.

As Erin in the Morning reports, data the non-profit obtained from the National Health Service (NHS)-funded National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) via a Freedom of Information request sharply contrasts with the government’s official report on trans youth suicides in the wake of the 2020 Bell v. Tavistock ruling.

As the Good Law Project notes, following the U.K. High Court of Justice’s initial ruling in Tavistock, which found that minors under 16 could not legally consent to receive puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria, the National Health Service (NHS) substantially limited access to gender-affirming care for minors. Those limits reportedly remained in place even after the Tavistock ruling was overturned in 2021.

The U.K. government commissioned its 2024 Appleby Report after the Good Law Project reported that two whistleblowers with the Tavistock gender clinic alerted the organization to a significant rise in suicides among young people on the NHS’s waitlist for appointments to begin gender-affirming care in the wake of the Tavistock case.

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According to Good Law Project, the Appleby Report identified only 12 suicide deaths among current or former Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) patients at the Tavistock clinic between 2018 and 2024. However, as Erin in the Morning notes, the report disregarded young people who were unable to access GIDS care due to long wait times, which, post-Tavistock, now last an average 25 years.

At the same time, Good Law Project submitted a Freedom of Information request with the NCMD, and has only just published the data it received.

“Good Law Project can confirm that in 2021–2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years,” the organization wrote in a February 7 release. “This spike follows the decision by NHS England to pull down the shutters on gender-affirming healthcare for young trans people” following the Tavistock case.

In total, the NCMD data show 46 transgender children in the U.K. died by suicide between 2019 and 2025. In addition to the nine accounted for between 2019–2021 and the alarming spike to 22 between 2021–2022, the data also show 10 suicide deaths between 2022–2023. And, according to Good Law Project, NCMD added that “the numbers reported in more recent years will likely be underestimated, due to a higher proportion of child death reviews that have not yet been completed.”

Good Law Project said it was “appalled” that U.K. health secretary Wes Streeting “commissioned and published a report to reassure the public that there was no significant rise in suicide rates, when 22 children took their own lives in a single year: 2021-22.” The Appleby report, they said, “denied the reality of trans deaths, as Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers denied the reality of trans lives.”

The nonprofit claims that Streeting department “fought tooth and nail” to block its freedom of information requests.

“To silence those raising the alarm on rising trans suicides as ‘dangerous’ while ramping up the policies correlating with that rise is an act of grave moral wickedness,” the group said.

Trans journalist Erin Reed said of these findings, “More alarming is what appears to be an explicit attempt to cover up trans youth suicide deaths. Those who seek to restrict gender-affirming care also seek to restrict any information showing those restrictions may lead to harm. Among the far right, claims have emerged that transgender youth are in no danger of suicide from the withdrawal of gender-affirming care, but this could not be further from the truth.”

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trans Lifeline (1-877-565-8860) is staffed by trans people and will not contact law enforcement. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for youth via chat, text (678-678), or phone (1-866-488-7386). Help is available at all three resources in English and Spanish.

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John Russell is a writer and editor based in New York City. In addition to covering politics and entertainment for LGBTQ Nation, he has written for Vanity Fair, Slate, People, Billboard, and Out. He also writes about film, TV, and pop culture in his free newsletter Johnny Writes…

 

AG says locals have asked about LGBTQ+-themed story time

The haters of the LGBTQ+ community are normally Christian bigots using their religion as an excuse to attack and bully those they don’t like or agree with.   To these people just the existence of the LGBTQ+ people is a crime.   These bigots call just telling or letting kids know that LGBTQ+ people exist is sexualizing kids.  To these haters, just being LGBTQ+ is pornographic.  How stupid and silly. Just not being straight and cis is porn?  All nonesense just to attack the LGBTQ+ community.  Hugs


AG says locals have asked about LGBTQ+-themed story time

Published  1:12 pm

By: Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ) — Missouri’s attorney general wrote to a local library board saying that “residents” have requested her office make sure that an LGBTQ+-themed story time is “conducted in a manner consistent with Missouri law.”

A library spokeswoman told ABC 17 News that the event is family friendly.

The letter was dated Thursday and released publicly by Attorney General Catherine Hanaway on social media platforms.

Hanaway, in her letter, reminded the Daniel Boone Regional Library that providing minors with pornography is illegal, as is displaying sexually explicit material in a public location. She also wrote that libraries jeopardize their state funding if they hold events that are not designated for the proper age group.

The letter is in response to the Columbia Public Library’s “Rainbow Story Time” event scheduled for 10 to 10:45 a.m. Saturday in the Children’s Program Room.

“Join us for a queer-led story time with an LGBTQ+ theme. We’ll share stories, sing songs and do an activity with time to meet new friends at the end,” the event description on the library website states. The page states the event is meant for families, toddlers and preschoolers.

Library spokeswoman Mitzi St. John wrote in an email that the 30-minute event includes readings of “Rainbowsaurus” and “Big Wig.”

“Neither include sexual content,” St. John wrote.

 

‘Hand Jobs, Oral Sex and Anal’: Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Wants Gay Men Prosecuted for These Acts [WATCH]

Again so much hate and anger towards people who do him no harm.  A desire and a demand that he gets to rule how others live.  Such self important Christian love.   No hate like some Christians love for the right to tell others what God thinks. It is strange that their god always agrees with them, never that they need to change or grow, just that others must live by the church doctrines of the hater.  Hate who they hate and the world is a paradise they believe.  Notice the pastor is OK with a man penatrating and using his wife in any way he wants, anally or orally.  Only sex between men in any form is to be illegal. It seems very selfish to me.  Why is the act OK if he does it with his wife but I can’t do it with my husband    Hugs


https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/hand-jobs-oral-sex-and-anal-pete

In his first interview with an LGBTQ publication, Pastor Doug Wilson reveals that as many as 20 people in the government align with his church’s ideology.

GOP lawmaker thanks God for sending Trump to protect America from “homosexuality & perversion”

Why do these haters hate so much towards the LGBTQ+ people?  We never hurt them, but they claim we hurt their god.  But if that is true then can’t their all powerful god fix such an offense?  Unless he made the LGBTQ+ people as he wanted them to be.    

I want to point out the total switch and bait these haters use.  Read the article to see the hate and refusal to accept anyone not straight and cis. Here is a quote from this person; notice how he frames it just to incite outrage. 

Forcing local schools to permit a teenage boy who ‘identifies’ as a girl to use changing rooms, locker rooms, and bathrooms with five-year-old girls.”

See the bait and switch?  A teen boy is somehow threatening your little 5 yr old girl.  Oh the humaity.  


 

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/gop-lawmaker-thanks-god-for-sending-to-protect-america-from-homosexuality-perversion/

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Alex Bollinger (He/Him)February 10, 2026, 9:03 am EST
Congressman Brian Babin, R-Texas, Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, speaks about the introduction of the Birthright Citizenship Act at a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. | Jack Gruber / USA TODAY NETWORK

A Republican member of Congress went to an event hosted by a hate group and, during a prayer, thanked God for sending Donald Trump to stop children from being led “down the path of homosexuality and perversion.”

“Lord, we beseeched thee,” prayed Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) at the Family Research Council’s (FRC) National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance event at the Museum of the Bible in D.C. on February 4. The FRC is classified as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Our prayers were answered in getting us a new president and taking a different direction in our country than we had seen for the previous four years,” he continued. “Apostasy, blasphemy, taking our children down the path of homosexuality and perversion. Open borders. Criminals running rampant in our streets.”

“Lord, we have new leadership, and we thank you for that. But Lord, we know that government is not going to save our country. It’s going to be the American people returning to the path that you have set out for us and our Founding Fathers.”

Babin has consistently gotten a score of “0” on HRC’s Congressional Scorecard for the past several sessions of Congress, showing his solid opposition to LGBTQ+ equality.

In 2022, Babin was one of several Congressional Republicans who introduced a federal bill in the House to ban schools, libraries, hospitals, government entities, or other organizations from “hosting or promoting any program, event, or literature involving sexually-oriented material.” The bill defined “sexually-oriented material” to include anything that discusses LGBTQ+ people.

In 2015, Babin was outraged that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry in its Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

“As a strong supporter of traditional marriage and a firm believer in state sovereignty, I am deeply disappointed that five members of the U.S. Supreme Court have over-ruled tens of millions of Americans – including millions in the State of Texas – who have voted to enact state statutes and state Constitutional amendments to define marriage as between one man and one woman,” he said at the time.

“Traditional marriage has been under assault as courts and some state legislatures have sought to both redefine marriage as something other than between one man and one woman and to penalize and discriminate against those who have religious and conscience convictions against the redefinition of marriage,” he continued.

In 2016, he introduced a bill to roll back Obama-era protections for transgender students, saying that those protections were “throwing common sense and decency out the window and forcing local schools to permit a teenage boy who ‘identifies’ as a girl to use changing rooms, locker rooms, and bathrooms with five-year-old girls.”

The Obama-era protections did not allow for boys to use girls’ facilities. Instead, they were recommendations about how schools could accommodate transgender students, which included allowing them to use facilities associated with their gender identity.

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A veteran online reporter, Alex Bollinger has been covering LGBTQ+ news since the Bush administration. He’s now the editor-in-chief of LGBTQ Nation. He has a Masters in Economic Theory and Econometrics from the Paris School of Economics. He lives in Montpellier.

Parents speak out after their teen died by suicide: Idaho’s anti-trans extremism took a toll

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/07/parents-speak-out-after-their-teen-died-by-idahos-anti-trans-took-a-toll/

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John Russell (He/Him)July 20, 2026, 1:00 pm EDT

The parents of a transgender teen who died by suicide earlier this year are speaking out about the toll Idaho’s anti-trans laws and the Trump administration’s anti-trans crusade took on their daughter.

“You worry about that hatred being internalized, and that’s what happened to my kid,” Elyse Thorpe told NBC News in a recent profile. “It got inside.”

Thorpe and ex-husband Joseph Pollard describe their late daughter, May Pollard, as an energetic and curious child who loved sloths, video games, and writing poetry. She just wanted to live her life and experience the same things any teen does. But she was also keenly aware of the wave of anti-trans laws and sentiment that have swept Idaho and much of the U.S. in recent years.

According to NBC News, May, who had also been diagnosed with autism, came out as trans when she was in eighth grade. She began receiving gender-affirming medical care in ninth grade. But due to Idaho’s ban on such care for minors, passed in 2022 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2024, her parents were forced to travel to Portland, Oregon, every six months to get May the care she needed. Following President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, Thorpe began making the 13-hour round trip by car to avoid creating a flight record amid the administration’s relentless crackdown on gender-affirming care for young people.

While the treatment improved things for May, the obstacles placed between her and the care she needed by anti-trans legislators continued to weigh on her.

Then, in July 2023, Idaho’s law banning trans students from accessing single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity took effect. Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of Boise High School’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance, and in July 2025, May joined the lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe. In court filings, May described feeling stigmatized by being forced to use her campus’s two single-occupancy restrooms, which came to be referred to as the “trans bathrooms.”

“It is scary having to look around before to see if anyone will see me going into the single-user restroom, as I worry about people gossiping and speculating about me being transgender,” she said. “I don’t want people to know I am transgender without my consent — even students who might be friendly. For me, it is not a part of myself I talk about or that I feel is the most important part of my identity.”

Her parents told NBC News that May would avoid eating and drinking during the school day, hoping to not have to use the school’s bathrooms. “I just want to fit in,” she wrote in her affidavit in the Lambda Legal case. “It is upsetting to think that I may have to go through the rest of high school without access to something as basic as the ability to use the same restroom as everyone else.”

May’s parents say she became more troubled last fall and winter, according to NBC News. She attempted to run away to Oregon, and at least one of her poems seemed to reference self-harm. Then on the morning of January 27, Thorpe woke to find May missing from her bedroom. She later found her daughter’s body in a downstairs bedroom. May was just 16 years old.

When a detective asked her parents whether anyone might have wanted to harm May, Thorpe responded that “A lot of America” did.

“There is a huge amount of animosity, every single day, thrown at trans kids,” an angry and grieving Pollard told the detective. “The whole f**king country. The whole f**king administration, every single f**king day.”

As NBC News notes, over the last few years, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) has signed 15 anti-LGBTQ+ laws. In April, Little signed a pair of bills, one of which made it a criminal offense for trans people to use the bathroom associated with their gender, while the other banned Pride flags on government buildings.

As for Lambda Legal’s challenge to the state’s school bathroom ban, at the time of May’s death, she was one of just two plaintiffs left in the case, as all the others had graduated high school and no longer held standing. Earlier this spring, Lambda Legal moved to dismiss the case after the final plaintiff graduated.

But Thorpe has continued to protest Idaho’s anti-trans laws. According to NBC News, she stood outside Gov. Little’s office during a March 31 protest holding a photo of her daughter.

“I wanted to support the protesters and remind everyone, including the governor,” Thorpe told the outlet, “that the stakes are real.”

“The parents go and testify, and we say, ‘Children are going to die,’” she said. “We tell the legislators that, and they dismiss it. I guess they think it’s hyperbole, or they think it’s hysteria, or they think it’s an acceptable outcome, probably some mix of those things. So I don’t understand why there is an unwillingness to connect these laws to these outcomes. It was right there from the start.”

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John Russell is a writer and editor based in New York City. In addition to covering politics and entertainment for LGBTQ Nation, he has written for Vanity Fair, Slate, People, Billboard, and Out. He also writes about film, TV, and pop culture in his free newsletter Johnny Writes…

Conversation Starter: Is the very beauty of what is to come ruined by man?

I recently had a somewhat uncomfortable conversation with my Dad. At 88-years old, he is understandably considering what comes next, and knowing that I’m a ‘blowhard democrat and therefore think I know everything‘, lol, he made it part of my own considerations – at least out loud. But, as we talked, I began to realize that how we look at “what comes next” truly inspires how we view this thing called life, what we value and hold dear.

When I was much younger, I had the opportunity to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I think I’d like to read it again. It was a story that had a great impact on a young troubled life, and while I am sure I didn’t get nearly as much from the book as was offered, I still carry some of that book within my thoughts nearly 35 years later. Chief among those ringing ideas was the consideration that we are on this world to be excellent, to fly free and powerfully, to be our best selves. It is an idea that gives me hope and conviction on the same blade, for I’ve not made much of myself. What I have done, perhaps better late than never, is I’ve begun to understand what is important to me and I’ve tried to adjust my life accordingly.

During my studies of different religions, I found a great deal of beauty. It is probably shocking to some, but Muslims have a beautiful religion filled with dedication to their God, peace and humility. I recently heard a person of influence, a politician, say publicly that he “hated the Muslim religion”. I thought that was tragic. He has painted a billion people with a the same brush and feels fully justified in his self-righteous hate. His words did not influence me to hate Muslims, they only brought me sadness. Here is a man who hopes to profit by hate, and I can only imagine what those wages bring.

Over the years, I’ve come to find a lot of hope in the Christian Faith, but I don’t find myself deluded into thinking that the Bible is definitive or that the Pulpit is infallible. Clearly humans have left their mark on both, and both have gained their insecurities and foibles. Unfortunately, most religions are marked by the greedy and deluded powerful who are sure that they know what is best for everyone and damned be those who disagree. As a result, parishioners lose their search for what is beautiful and magnificent in whatever may come next. They instead follow a set of rules, a kind of club, a group identity. They have given up on God and hope only to please the pastor and Sister Bertha Betterthanyou. They have forsaken courage to seek for the safety of the flock.

Perhaps this is just what we are. How many of us are caught in this idea that by hating someone else, we are somehow doing as God would want? I would be very curious to ask them what they value, and then would I be so brave to ask how their spoken values reflect their current words. Do they value freedom, or just their own freedom? Do they value love, or only for those like them? Do they value hope, but do performative acts some man told them would get them into Heaven? Do they seek or are they comfortable in being told what to think, what to feel, what to do? Do they look for what comes next or are they seeking identity and safety in a church, a political movement, in the acceptance of someone seeking to control them?

I don’t know what I would tell Dad if he asked me again. I don’t think the answer is in religion, any religion. I do think there is something that comes next, what I would loosely if respectfully refer to as God, and if I could quote Ghandi I’d say that God is not restricted by any single religion. I want to believe that this beautiful thing called life doesn’t end. I want to believe in Love. I want to rest in Hope. I want to live a life absolutely riddled with awe at how fabulous humanity can be, rather than live a life of judgement and insecurity. And, when I regard my final days I hope I am looking forward with eager anticipation for all the wonders I will experience.

-Randy

TERF Activist J.K. Rowling Threatens To Finance Wave Of Attacks On Amnesty International Over Report On Anti-Trans Groups

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/terf-activist-jk-rowling-threatens

“They have sued organizations into the ground.”

Today and the plans and what will be.

Hello everyone.  What a morning.   I got up at 4 am and the plan was to power through the cartoons / memes / news post for tomorrow and then dive into the comments.   I understand from what I have been told some are pretty contentious.   However … the best laid plans of mice and men I think is the phrase.   It is now 1:14 pm and I am just getting back to my computers since 8:30 am.

Ron got up late around 8:20 am and he was struggling.   I offered to make breakfast which he really wanted me to do.   But at 9 am my news programs via over the air waves broadcasts of Sunday news programs came on.  But the TV in the kitchen is a very simple plain TV with no features.  The apple box attached to that TV has bluetooth so I can use earbuds.  However again I can’t for broadcast stuff so if Ron doesn’t want to hear it I can’t use the TV.  

Nevertheless Ron said go ahead and watch the news and while I cooked a breakfast of thick sliced bacon, sausage links, and a large bratwurst sausage Ron wanted.  Normally I would do potatoes, but I was not up for that today.  Along with the meat I made 8 hard boiled eggs.  And toast.   

While I was doing this Ron tore apart the bedroom window A/C unit.   It was a dirty mess even though he cleaned the filters regularly.  But as he took it apart it was good he had asked me to order a special A/C cleaning liquid.   Decon 30 I got from Amazon and what a mess he got into as he deep cleaned the unit and then cleaned everything up.  

After I made breakfast and we ate he went back to working on the A/C.   I started cleaning up and doing dishes along with setting up the coffee stuff for tomorrow.   We finished at the same time.  1:20 pm about.   Ron and I then discussed what to do for supper.  It was decided I would make tacos with extra beans and other seasonings while Ron started doing the laundry, both to finish the stuff we had not gotten to and to clean the towels / wash clothes he used to clean the unit.  Ron wanted me to get time to finish the post for tomorrow and I will.   However the comments are a wait and see.   However I pushed sharpening the knives until tomorrow but other than that I have no appointments so should be able to get to comments if I don’t today.   

Last thing I want to mention.  The week after the 4th I had many doctors visits.  As I am a person who engages with the people behind the counters the question kept coming up “What did you do for the 4th”.  Many people complained about the heat and how they tried to either go out or find other activities.  However when they asked me what we did they were surprisingly supportive of what Ron and I did to celebrate the holiday with many saying they wished they had done so as well.  

Ron and I stayed home and we did one of the things we enjoy.  Something we have enjoyed all our time together but much more as we aged.   Cooking and making things in the kitchen together.   When we knocked the walls out and made the extra large kitchen, we did it with just this in mind. We used to make christmas gifts of baked goods we would work together on for days.   

We made a meatloaf.   I have never liked meat loaf before but Ron and James loved it.   They would have it and I would have something else.   But as I have aged my tastes have changed and in truth so has the way we make the meatloaf.   So we made a meatloaf together with Ron doing the making work and me doing the seasoning work.  I then made the potatoes and side dishes.   I will admit at 63 years old it is one of the best 4th of July’s I have ever had.    Hugs

A comment about MAGA’s fear of Trans folks…

I love how the Rev. talks about the remarkable strength of trans people for just trying to live as who they really are, not as who some on the right want them to be.  He sees trans people for the people they are.  He is realistic about the circumstances for them and others in their lives.  Hugs

SCOTUS War Against Trans People Is A War On All Of US