I really like the reporting of this person. I strongly suggest everyone subscribe to her substack and support her efforts if you can. But even though this is 7 days old it is really important as it shows how feelings are changing on protecting trans people. Hate won’t win if we and our politicians fight back. When they had the right takes advantage to attack the rights of the LGBTQ+. Hugs
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Early Tuesday morning, final appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—and related agencies—were released, marking the last major funding measures to be negotiated in the aftermath of the record-breaking government shutdown fight in 2025. That standoff featured multiple appropriations bills loaded with anti-transgender riders and poison pills for Democrats, ultimately ending in a short-term continuing resolution that punted many of those provisions to the end of January. While other “minibus” packages funding individual agencies moved forward, the Education and HHS bills were conspicuously absent, as they contained some of the most sweeping and consequential anti-trans riders ever proposed in Congress. Now, with the final bills released, it is clear that no anti-transgender riders were included—meaning transgender people will largely be spared new congressional attacks through most of 2026 should they pass as-is.
As the government shut down on Oct. 1, the state of appropriations bills needed to reopen the federal government for any extended period was extraordinarily dire for transgender people. Dozens of anti-transgender riders were embedded across House appropriations bills, even as those provisions were largely absent from the Senate’s versions. The riders appeared throughout nearly every funding measure, from Commerce, Justice, and Science to Financial Services and General Government. The most extreme provisions, however, were concentrated in the House HHS and Education bills, including language barring “any federal funds” from supporting gender-affirming care at any age and threatening funding for schools that support transgender students. Taken together, those measures would have posed a sweeping threat to transgender people’s access to education and health care nationwide.
Those fears eased somewhat when the government reopened under a short-term continuing resolution funding operations through the end of January. In the months that followed, Democrats notched a series of incremental victories for transgender people, advancing multiple appropriations “minibus” packages that stripped out anti-trans riders as the government was funded piece by piece. As amendment after amendment fell away, those wins grew more substantial, including the removal of a proposed ban on gender-affirming medical care from the NDAA—even after it had passed both the House and Senate. Still, the most consequential question remained unresolved: what would ultimately happen to the high-impact anti-trans provisions embedded in the HHS and Education bills.
Now, the package has been released—and for the moment, transgender people can breathe again. The final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom, and no mandate forcing colleges to exclude transgender students from sports or activities like chess or esports. The bills are strikingly clean. As such, they avert yet another protracted shutdown fight in which transgender people are once again turned into political bargaining chips—and, at least for now, remove Congress as the immediate vehicle for new federal attacks, should they pass as-is.
When asked about the successful stripping of anti-trans provisions, a staffer for Representative Sarah McBride tells Erin In The Morning, “Rep. McBride works closely with her colleagues every day to defend the rights of all her constituents, including LGBTQ people across Delaware. In the face of efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to roll back health care and civil rights, she was proud to work relentlessly with her colleagues in ensuring these funding bills did not include anti-LGBTQ provisions. It takes strong allies in leadership and on committees to rein in the worst excesses of this Republican trifecta, Rep. McBride remains grateful to Ranking Members DeLauro, Murray, and Democratic leadership for prioritizing the removal of these harmful riders.”
This does not mean that transgender people will not be targeted with policies and rules that affect them in all areas of life. The Trump administration has acted without regard to law in forcing bans on sports, pulling funding from schools and hospitals, and banning passport gender marker updates. The Supreme Court has been increasingly willing to let the office of the presidency under Trump do whatever it would like to transgender people. However, the lack of passage of bills targeting transgender people means that these attacks will only last for as long as we have Trump in the White House, and a future president should hopefully be easily able to reverse the attacks.
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I have never understood the rights hate of LGBTQ+ people just for being different. I used to think it was they couldn’t understand it because they did feel that way. If they did not feel that way then it must be wrong or not exist. The very same things they say about trans people they said about gay people when I was a school kid. I remember that people were pushing to ban gay guys, and it was always gay guys just like it is always trans women, from teaching because they would molest the kids. Now it is we can’t let trans people use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity because of some fear they will molest the little girls. Always to protect the kids but if that was the goal then may I mention religious leaders? I think also the fear some religious right wingers have is that they find trans women attractive and that terrifies them. They want to force kids to go through the wrong puberty so it is harder for them to fit in with the stereotypes people have of what is masculine or feminine. For some they think they are doing the bidding of their deity but I don’t remember reading Jesus saying anything about trans people. But he did preach love and tolerance a lot. Maybe the pain and cruelty is the point after all. Hugs
Trans youth almost always feel less suicidal while undergoing treatment. (Getty
Trans youth almost always feel less suicidal while undergoing treatment. (Getty)
Yet another study proving that trans youth almost always feel less suicidal on gender-affirming care has been thrown on the pile of evidence that puberty blockers are safe and effective.
Research set to be published in the Journal of Paediatric’s February volume has once again proved that trans adolescents show “meaningful reductions” in depression and anxiety after beginning clinically-endorsed hormone therapy.
Co-written by paediatricians in Nevada, Texas, and Missouri, the study examined the wellbeing of 432 patients before and after undergoing treatment.
The participants, aged 12 to 20, were surveyed on their mental health before and at least 364 days after beginning appropriate medical treatment such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Trans youth regularly come under attack by politicians. (Getty)
Using the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) toolkit – an internationally acknowledged assessment of suicidality in young people and adults – researchers found significant improvements in the mental health of patients across the board.
Suicidality among participants decreased significantly over time, according to the study’s results, with rates continuing to decrease as time went on.
The reductions, clinicians noted, were consistent regardless of gender identity, treatment duration, and, interestingly, the age at the start of therapy.
This not only once again proves that gender-affirming care is remarkably effective in improving the wellbeing of trans patients, but that its effectiveness in reducing suicidal tendencies does not diminish as patients get older.
Clinicians recommended following-up the study with a “larger sample and longer follow-up” to sufficiently prove the consistency of gender-affirming care’s mental health treatments.
Politicians continue to ban puberty blockers despite evidence
Numerous studies across the globe have proven that gender-affirming care is almost always a good thing for trans people, especially trans young people.
One study from October 2024 found that 97 per cent of trans under-18s were “highly satisfied” with the results of gender-affirming treatment, while another from March in the same year found that, out of 548 patients who accessed trans healthcare, just two regretted it.
Regret rates for gender-affirming treatment are very low according to a paper from May 2024, which found that patients are more likely to regret knee surgery, breast augmentation, and even having children than those starting gender-affirming care.
Despite the mountain of evidence proving that gender-affirming care can be, and almost always is, life-saving, anti-trans politicians and political pundits regularly claim trans young people shouldn’t be allowed to access clinically-approved medical treatment.
Wes Streeting has routinely come under fire for his policies on trans people. (Getty)
At least 27 states in the US ban gender-affirming care in some capacity, preventing over 40 per cent of America’s trans youth population from accessing care. Puberty blockers are also banned for trans youth in the UK, despite being freely available for cisgender youth.
The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organisation, warned these bans have “detrimental impacts” on the mental health of trans young people, who are already disproportionately likely to feel suicidal.
Research conducted by Dr Natacha Kennedy in the University of London found that Wes Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers for trans young people is “significantly, extensively, and relentlessly harming trans children and young people”.
She spoke to the parents of trans young people who were once “happy, well-adjusted, and little different from most cis children”, but who have now resorted to self-harm because of an inability to access care.
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
That is because of the constant refrain they are hearing from the right. If they hear hate all day they start to hate. That is why anti-bullying campaigns were so important in schools. They taught kids young that it was OK to be different and not everyone is straight or cis. Hugs
Young men are more likely to hold homophobic views, study suggests.
Men born in the 2000s are far more likely to hold conservative views on LGBTQ+ rights compared to previous generations and women of the same age, a study has suggested.
Polling from the Pew Research Center found that men aged 24 and under are far more likely to oppose same-sex marriage and even homosexuality generally than those born between the 1980s and 1990s.
Men are also far less likely to support LGBTQ+ rights than women of the same age. In fact, women are consistently more likely to be LGBTQ+ allies than men across all age ranges.
The 2024 study, highlighted in a report from the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) in December, found that 71 per cent of men born in the 2000s believe same-sex marriage should be legal. Comparatively, 77 per cent of men born in the 1990s and 73 per cent born in the 1980s support same-sex marriage.
Research from the Pew Religious Landscape Survey. (AIBM)
Sixty-five per cent of 2000s men believe homosexuality should be accepted in society, over seven per cent less than those born in the 1990s and three per cent less than 1980s men.
Women aged 24 and under, meanwhile, are far more likely to support LGBTQ+ rights, with 83 per cent supporting same-sex marriage and 82 per cent supporting homosexuality generally.
AIBM noted the gender gap for those born in the 2000s was the widest in nearly every subject compared to every other decade.
Trans rights were by far the most contentious subject among young people. 60 per cent of 2000s women said they believe trans people should be accepted by society, while just 44 per cent of 2000s men answered similarly – a gender gap of 16 per cent.
Support for same-sex marriage saw a 2000’s gender-gap of 12 per cent, support for homosexuality had a gap of 17 per cent, and abortion rights a gap of 10 per cent.
Washington University professor of practice, Ryan Burge, argued the survey results prove that young men are increasingly influenced by “social-issue messaging”, particularly from right-wing religious groups.
“As academics often say – we need more time and more data,” he wrote. “I suspect the next five years of survey results will significantly clarify the trajectories of young men and women when it comes to religion.
“As their lives stabilise, they settle into careers, and some begin to marry and start families, we will get a much clearer sense of whether religion is actually taking hold. If a shift is coming, these next few years will be decisive.”
Research published in 2024 suggested that Gen Z are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than Republican compared to other generations.
The Axios poll found that just 21 per cent of those aged between 12 and 27 describe themselves as Republican, while more than a quarter described themselves as LGBTQ+. It also found that young people are far more likely to be religious than other generations.
Anti-trans person gets Tim Pool twisted and the conversation verse off the tracks. Tim tries to educate her bigotry but she won’t have it and he knows his teenage boy audience wants to hear hate not explanations of truth. Hugs
Just like maga a small very vocal group of people are demanding the entire country roll back all progress made since the 1950s by minorities. Any new discovery by science no matter the field because it clashes with their holy book which they misread to form their warped view of reality. They do not care to let other others live their lives as they get to live theirs in peace and freedom. No they demand that everyone follow and live by their church doctrines because that way their god will favor them, come back sooner to give them rewards while killing the rest of us. Think of it, these people are OK with creating a situation where the majority die horribly to please his god as long as they get rewarded. Seems selfish to me not Christian. Also another important point is the constant repeating of the Christian surge of republican voters despite it being a lie is to shore up the idea that there was voter fraud that stole the midterms from the republicans. Think of it tRump people used a normal occurrence of vote totals shift as mail in votes are counted as evidence of fraud leading to the Jan 6th insurrection. Below I will post a quote from the article that will be used by republicans to show the democrats stole the midterms. Hugs.
Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement.
A United States and Christian flag are sandwiched together (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Turning Point USA ended 2025 with AmericaFest, a blowout conference for the MAGA powerhouse organization started in 2012 by the now-deceased Charlie Kirk. As described by Teresa Wiltz at POLITICO, “the vibe felt less like a political panel than an evangelical revival.” Watching the speeches from this fireworks-laden shindig, Wiltz’s observation felt like an understatement. Many speeches from the event’s main stage were simply sermons extolling a fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity as the one true faith.
“We’re here for one name, and that’s Jesus,” declared Bryce Crawford, a 22-year-old who makes videos of himself accosting strangers, including mentally ill homeless people, under the guise of “winning souls” for Christ. He went on declare that “we’re in the last days” and that every person who doesn’t believe in his version of the gospels will soon “be cast into hell.”
“We’re all on our knees, shoulder to shoulder, under the blood of Christ,” proclaimed the British comedian Russell Brand, who is facing seven charges of sexual assault, including three rape charges, in the United Kingdom. He included Ben Shapiro, by name, in his list of believers, even though Shapiro is Jewish. He then proceeded to insist that Christianity is the key to resolving the conflict between Israel and Gaza, which have primarily Jewish and Muslim populations.
Even rapper Nicki Minaj, newly out as MAGA, understood the primary assignment was talking up Christianity, claiming that she has had “the kind of faith that you think a person is crazy” since she was a little girl.
AmericaFest, as its name implies, is supposed to be a political event, not a church service. By including speakers like Shapiro and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, TPUSA’s organizers were even nodding to the idea that the GOP is supposed to believe in religious freedom and diversity. Or, as Vice President JD Vance put it, “We’re all part of the same American family.” Yet he quickly undercut that message by proclaiming that “By the grace of God, we will always be a Christian nation.” While Vance may claim that you don’t have to be a Christian to be an American, implicit in his words is the idea that only Christians are truly Americans, and everyone else is, at best, second class.
The blunt reality is that AmericaFest wasn’t just overtly religious — it was steeped in Christian nationalism. They equated being an American with being a Christian. But being a Republican, as Crawford suggested in his speech, is synonymous with being an evangelical Christian whose main duty is to convert non-believers. The political message of the event was inseparable from a religious one: that the purpose of the GOP and the MAGA movement is to usher in a religious revival and turn a decadent, secular country into one devoted to a narrow, right-wing version of Christianity.
For decades now, the Christian right has been the most powerful and influential force in the GOP, and yet even by their standards, this marked a dramatic shift toward the theocratic impulse. From a purely rational perspective, this is bad politics. Only 23% of Americans identify as evangelicals. Trump was able to win in 2024 only by convincing large numbers of people outside of evangelical Christianity that he has a secular worldview. This was aided by the fact that he quite clearly doesn’t believe all the Christian language, both coded and overt, his aides coax him to say.
The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
But none of that seems to register with MAGA leadership right now. They’ve convinced themselves — or at least are trying to persuade their donors and followers — that the U.S. is undergoing a massive religious revival. Right-wing media has been pushing the view that huge numbers of Americans, especially young Americans, are converting to fundamentalist Christianity. The hype at AmericaFest suggests they are pinning their hopes on this imaginary religious awakening to deliver big wins to the Republicans in November’s elections.
As my colleague Russell Payne and I reported on in November for Salon’s “Standing Room Only,” Fox News in particular has been running a number of stories claiming a “Charlie Kirk effect” — that the MAGA influencer’s killing in September led to a tidal wave of Americans, especially young Americans, discovering or returning to Christianity.
Since then, there’s been a constant drumbeat of similar claims from right-wing media. “Gen Z embracing faith as more young people return to religion,” Fox News declared again on Dec. 21. NewsNation ran a new year segment that reported a “religious revival” was taking place among the young. This follows many similar segments from both channels dating back months, all swearing to their largely elderly audience that the Zoomers are flooding church services, despite what they may be seeing at their own local congregation. Conservative ministers keep insisting on social media that waves of young people are converting, even as no such numbers show up in surveys with more rigorous research methods.
Much of AmericaFest was also devoted to propping up the narrative that young adults are giving up sex and secularism for Christian nationalism in record numbers. Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, 25, spoke about how Christianity calls on women to “Get married, have babies, have as many as you can and as early in your married life as you can.” Pastor Keenan Clark, 30, preached, “If you have not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ, though you were a conservative, you will find yourself in the bowels of a devil’s hell.” Angela Halili, 29, and Arielle Reitsma, 36, hosts of the “Girls Gone Bible” podcast, preached about saving sex for marriage because “sexual immorality is the only sin that you commit against your own body.”
The presence of Halili and Reitsma is a big clue that this Christian hype may be rooted in something other than an outpouring of faith. As I reported last year, there’s overwhelming evidence that the two podcast hosts were working as poker girls — women who make money at underground poker games by offering flirting and often much more to male players — while launching a Christian channel devoted to preaching the virtues of chastity to young women. Whatever they personally believe, their entire endeavor is rooted in dishonesty, a sin the Bible tends to have more to say about than sexual “immorality.”
There is no evidence-based reason to believe there’s a religious revival among the young that is about to create massive election windfalls for Republicans. On the contrary, a December report from Pew Research found that, “On average, young adults remain much less religious than older Americans. Today’s young adults also are less religious than young people were a decade ago.”
But there’s little doubt that the kind of people who write massive checks to organizations like TPUSA — wealthy, older Republicans — are very interested in hearing that there’s a religious revival in the U.S. It’s worth remembering that TPUSA began as a secular organization, but in 2020, Kirk started to shift to the Christian nationalist cause, arguing there should be no separation between church and state. With this newly religious agenda, money started to pour into TPUSA. Better yet, Kirk nabbed the support of extremely rich Republicans, with half of TPUSA’s $55 million haul in 2020 coming from 10 anonymous donors. In contrast, the organization raised only $8 million in 2016.
TPUSA and right-wing media aren’t the only groups that have a strong interest in creating the illusion of a mass revival swelling among America’s young. Conservative Christian audiences are notoriously gullible, so there’s a big market out there for attention-seekers and outright grifters to cash in using social media. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are awash in young people claiming they have access to Biblical prophecy or know how to perform exorcisms, or who, like the hosts of “Girls Gone Bible,” pair glamorous packaging with claims that young people are embracing an especially sex-free and fundamentalist Christian faith.
There are various degrees of sincerity in these influencers, yet one thing is undeniable: They are exploiting huge audiences of conservative Christians who want desperately to believe in a religious revival and would rather give their time and money to people who are telling them it’s real than to look at the statistics that show that it’s not.
Between groups like TPUSA, right-wing media outlets and social media influencers, there’s now an entire machinery propping up this false narrative that young people are stampeding into the pews. Even as GOP leaders who can read a poll know that the upcoming elections are not looking good for their party, this fantasy of a Christianizing America is leading the everyday MAGA faithful to believe otherwise. A September poll from September shows that 89% of Republicans think their party will win the midterm elections, which is up seven points from April. In fact, the party is forecast to lose seats as its support continues to erode under Trump’s chaotic mismanagement. But none of that matters: TPUSA is here to take Republicans’ money and sell them a story about how all the kids are coming to Jesus — and to the GOP.
Full disclosure I love watching Digby when she is on The Majority Report. That lady knows her stuff. I don’t know much about Tom Sullivan but if she is willing to put him on her site I will give him the benefit of the doubt. As for Randy Fine. He is a fanatic Christian nationalist who wants the US to be run by his church doctrines, who help write and push for the don’t say gay bill in Florida saying he couldn’t tolerate that when LGBTQ+ people came out to their peers they were accepted instead of being ostracized and beaten up. Yes he wants to return to the days of being different from the straight cis majority got you harassed, harmed, and injured. I guess that means if you are too afraid to come out and live as who you are it will make you a good straight cis person willing to submit to his god? He also is desperately stupid and is full die hard maga. He is another racist who thinks might makes right. Hugs
Where are the Epstein files? A social media poster on Monday noted, “So when an ICE officer tells you to get out of the car, you’re supposed to get out of the car, what are you supposed to do when a judge tells you to release the Epstein files?”
Thus in the field failure to comply with orders barked by kitted-out and under-trained DHS enforcers merits a bullet to the head. Yet failure of AG Pam Bondi’s DOJ to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by Dear Leader, seems not to merit not even a slap on the wrist. Immediately after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the right claimed her death was the consequences of her own choices.
Donald Trump’s “Great Again”: For my friends, a pardon; for my enemies, a bullet to the head. God bless America.
Here’s a choice a fine Republican from Florida’s 6th District made on Monday: H.R.7012 – To authorize the annexation and subsequent admission to statehood of Greenland, and for other purposes.
Is it a troll by a Trump brown-noser? The image suggests that that is likely. But these days, who can tell? Rep. Randy Fine has one cosponsor. Greenland has a tenth the population of Wyoming and no love for Donald Trump. Fine would likely oppose statehood for Puerto Rico or the District.
“By acquiring Greenland, we would prevent our adversaries from controlling the Arctic Region and secure our northern flank from Russia and China,” writes Fine.
Malcolm Nance, former naval intelligence officer, foreign policy analyst and pundit, itemized for Fine a few consequences of annexing Greenland. One assumes from the worst-case rant (and a few misspellings) that Nance is emptying both barrels at the former gaming executive. Nance’s response on X is over the top, but satisfying nonetheless:
CONSEQUENCES FOR DUMBASSES: You are an F’ing idiot. If we invade Greenland we go to war with 31 nations. NATO stays together but without us. Its HQ is in Brussels, not the Pentagon. Our global reach across the Atlantic will end with our closest refueling base in Israel or Egypt. 100,000 American soldiers will be forced to board civil airliners and sent home or be taken as POWs/Detainee sWITHOUT WEAPONS OR EQUIPMENT. Canada will close its airspace and sea space. US Ballistic Missile Defense at Pettufik and Fylingdales ENDS, which means we see nothing except what space sensors can see. US Intelligence is reduced to Fort Meade, Ft Gordon and Colorado Springs and Hawaii. CIA spies will be rolled up by their former friends in HOURS. NO ONE WILL SHARE ANYTHING WITH US. ALL GLOBAL SHIPPING WILL BE CLOSED TO US. Denmark operates the largest shipping company in the world. SIX OUT OF TEN global shipping companies are in Europe … Worlds Biggest container ships? DENMARK! Australia, NZ, Canada are Commonwealth so they will cut ties with us or be neutral too.
PS Denmark & locals tun all life support and generators at Pittufik and Canada resupplies it … all 150 US Spece force personnel would become POWs to guys on sleds. FYI They have troops there now and 35,000 Caribou hunting rifles.
FYI France and UK have nukes. Hundreds of them so you cannot intimidate them with that.
Oh and they collapse the US economy by sanctioning us and selling off 2.3 Trillion in US treasuries simultaneously. Also no Botox, Ozempic or insulin. Its made in Denmark.
Ya fucking dope.
That’s fair. Over the top, but fair. (I especially appreciate Nance’s observation about the potential loss of strategic refueling bases.)
Marcy Wheeler already pointed out that Trump admitted to the New York Times that his need to possess Greenland stems from a personal problem.
Elon Musk’s own AI already reported that not owning Greenland is no impediment to building new U.S. bases there or expanding existing ones. As for mining, several reports observe that if whatever useful minerals lie buried in Greenland, if they were “getable,” mines would already be in operation:
Researchers say it would be extremely difficult and expensive to extract Greenland’s minerals because many of the island’s mineral deposits are located in remote areas above the Arctic Circle, where there is a mile-thick polar ice sheet and darkness reigns much of the year.
Not only that, but Greenland, a self-ruling territory of Denmark, lacks the infrastructure and manpower required to make this mining dream a reality.
“The idea of turning Greenland into America’s rare-earth factory is science fiction. It’s just completely bonkers,” said Malte Humpert, founder and senior fellow at The Arctic Institute. “You might as well mine on the moon. In some respects, it’s worse than the moon.”
So is our sitting president. Pray for consequences for him.
This is about the post Ali sent me the link to and I then posted. This is where I first heard it. I love when Sam shares the news. He says that being terrorism as anyone who holds anti-Christian, anti traditional family values (read LGBTQ+), anti capitalism, anti ICE, anti American exceptionalism sediments. If you have any of those ideas or feeling you are a terrorist according to Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. Hugs
I love Erin’s posts and reporting. The attack on trans rights and health was planned and coordinated by religious conservatives who felt they lost the culture war on gay acceptance and same sex marriage so they decided to jump quickly on the trans issue with lots of money. Their first attempt failed because they went after the idea of trans people itself. So then they changed to the old “protect the children” play book with the entire focus on protecting little cis girls but they never mention the trans boys that cis boys need to be protected from. See how patristical it is? It is all about males needing to protect the little womans. They don’t care about trans kids, they don’t care about female sports. It is about not letting trans kids transition with puberty blockers and the correct hormones as then the kids will grow up as they are fitting the societal view of what men and women look like. That scares the straight cis male religious guys because they are terrified they will be attracted to a trans woman. Imagine the horror if trans people moved freely in society not raising any question of their gender because they conformed to how society sees each gender. That sounds like a grand thing to me, but it terrifies these fanatical religious grifters that want to control how everyone lives to please their god. They make up untrue and scary what ifs, what if a man uses the letting trans people use the bathroom of their gender ID to go into a girls … notice they phrase it girls not womans because that make people more protective from the start, and they harm a little girl, your little girl? Well nothing stops a man from doing that now! Predators don’t need permission and won’t wait for it. And that has happened where a straight cis male dragged a little girl into the male bathroom and raped her while his friend watched. There was a famous court case on it. Look it up if you want. Want to know what has not happened, a trans woman going into the female’s bathroom and assaulting a female. Sorry. The right has tried hard to make one happen, but each claim of a trans person in a locker room or bathroom acting inappropriate has been debunked and disproven. This is all a made up scandal and crisis by people who can not accept the society progressing beyond the old traditional binary they grew up with and they think their holy books claim must be as their god insists on it. Weird how it is always how their god insists on what they already believe or promote. Handy that. So many people can not move past the idea that if it dangles you MUST be a boy regardless of how you feel and if it is an inny you must be a girl regardless of anything else idea. They can not seem to grasp personal feelings, needs, or medial science. Hugs
The bill would establish the Affirming Health Care Trust Fund, administered by the State Treasurer, to support clinics and providers outside the reach of federal funding threats.
Vermont Bill Would Create State Trust Fund For Private Trans Youth Care Clinics As Trump Threatens Hospital Funding
The bill would establish the Affirming Health Care Trust Fund, administered by the State Treasurer, to support clinics and providers outside the reach of federal funding threats.
Erin In The Morning is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a subscriber.
Across the United States, gender-affirming care has come under sustained attack in Republican-led states and from the Trump administration. For transgender youth, those attacks have been especially severe, with roughly half of U.S. states now banning such care outright. At the federal level, the administration has waged an intense pressure campaign against hospitals, threatening funding and prompting many systems to drop their care programs altogether. That campaign has now escalated further, with the federal government moving to threaten hospitals’ entire Medicaid and Medicare funding if they continue providing transgender youth care. In response, some states and cities are beginning to fight back by establishing their own funding mechanisms for trans healthcare. The latest example comes from Vermont, where lawmakers have introduced a bill to create a trust fund for gender-affirming care designed to be entirely insulated from federal funding threats.
H.576, introduced by Representatives Daisy Berbeco, Tiffany Bluemle, and Troy Headrick, would establish the Affirming Health Care Trust Fund. Administered by the State Treasurer, the fund would provide direct monetary support to healthcare providers and nonprofits offering gender-affirming care in Vermont. It would cover costs for patients who would otherwise go without treatment, fund the establishment of Vermont-based clinics, and pay for malpractice and liability insurance for clinicians who continue offering care. The bill is part of an increasing movement towards private clinics as a mechanism to survive federal threats.
The bill also includes provisions designed to protect patient information from both federal pressure and out-of-state threats, going further than the recent “refuge” or “shield” laws passed in several blue states to protect transgender youth care. It explicitly bars the board and other state actors from disclosing patient-identifiable data, the identities of providers, or the identities of award recipients to the federal government. This is a significant protection given the wave of abusive legislation and attempts to subpoena transgender healthcare records nationwide. While federal preemption may ultimately be litigated, these provisions give clinics a stronger legal footing to resist such demands—particularly as similar subpoenas have been repeatedly quashed in recent court cases.
The bill comes as families scramble to locate alternatives to hospital systems that are abandoning them. With more than 20 hospitals closing their doors to transgender youth care out of fear and preemptive compliance with the Trump administration, many families have been forced to seek alternatives. Just this week, major hospital systems across Colorado, for example, have stopped providing care. Groups like the Trans Youth Emergency Project say they have the capacity to refer displaced patients to private clinics, and in many places those clinics do exist and are absorbing demand. But as hospital-based programs continue to shut down and demand rises, those private providers will need sustained support—and more clinics will need to be created. Bills like this are a targeted way to do exactly that.
If this bill passes, Vermont would be the latest state to protect care in this way—but it would not be the only one. Massachusetts passed a similar measure last year, allocating $1 million toward transgender youth care clinics, though that funding has already come under criticism as insufficient to meet statewide need in the wake of major clinic closures. In New York City, newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged $65 million for transgender healthcare. If that funding is realized, it would position New York City as a major hub for private clinics capable of absorbing demand created by hospital closures across the country. This strategy could prove to be a critical backstop for private providers that are already emerging—and that are likely to come under increasing strain in the years ahead.
The bill allows funding from state appropriations, private donations, grants, and—importantly—federal funds under a future administration that is protective of transgender healthcare. It would take effect immediately upon passage, with the board required to convene by August 1, 2026. There are still hurdles ahead: the bill must advance through committee, pass both chambers, and ultimately receive meaningful funding to function as intended. But its introduction alone signals something important. At a moment when hospitals are retreating and families are being forced into crisis planning, Vermont lawmakers are putting forward a concrete framework to protect access to care rather than surrender it. For Vermonters who want to see their state take a clear stand, residents can find and contact their legislators through the Vermont General Assembly website to make clear where they stand on protecting transgender healthcare.
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