Gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people are more likely to use alcohol, e-cigarettes, cannabis, and tobacco than their heterosexual peers, a new study has found. Researchers say that stress from sexual orientation-based discrimination is to blame.
The study — published this autumn in the American Medical Association’s open-access medical journal, JAMA Network Open — looked at data on the habits of 28,291 middle and high school students taken from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
About 4.5% of student respondents self-identified as gay or lesbian, and 11.8% self-identified as bisexual. These percentages represent about 4,611 of the respondents.
Researchers found that 29.3% of non-heterosexual youths had used alcohol in the last 30 days, compared to 21.6% of heterosexual youth. About 25.6% of non-hetero youth self-reported cannabis use over the last 30 days, compared to 14% of heterosexual youth. Approximately 26.2% of non-hetero youth self-reported e-cigarette use, compared to 16.4% of hetero youth. Lastly, 9.1% of non-hetero youth self-reported cannabis use over the last 30 days, compared to 4.6% of heterosexual youth
Researchers found that bisexual youths were especially more likely to have vaped cannabis oil and e-cigarettes than their gay and heterosexual counterparts.
“It is well-documented that minority stress (eg, stress from sexual orientation-based discrimination) is associated with youth substance use, which may be consistent with vaping cannabis,” the study’s authors wrote. “Preliminary evidence from this study may inform future prevention strategies directed at reducing substance use disparities among sexual minority youth.”
The study’s findings reflect similar findings from past studies. A 2018 surveyfrom the Ohio Department of Health showed that LGBTQ+ teens were more likely to have vaped or smoked in the last 30 days compared to their straight counterparts.
A 2017 CDC study found that LGBTQ+ people were twice as likely to smoke than straight and cisgender people. Another study from the same year found that queer youth were more likely to smoke than straight and cis youth. One studyfound that LGBTQ+ people spend about $7.9 billion on cigarettes each year.
The representatives — Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), Kay Granger (R-TX), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) — all voted against the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, a law that requires the federal government to recognize legal same-sex marriages.
“The Republican House is failing the American people again,” Spartz said. “[The House is] like a theater full of actors in the circus…. Our children will be ashamed of another worthless Congress.”
“Right now, Washington, D.C. is broken; it is hard to get anything done,” Lesko said in a statement.
“I always have been disappointed with our inability in Congress to deal with major issues, and I’m also disappointed that the Republican Party continues to rely on this lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” Buck said. “Our nation is on a collision course with reality and a steadfast commitment to truth, even uncomfortable truths, is the only way forward.”
Buck predicted that even more House Republicans will leave “in the near future,” The Hill reported.
These announced departures accompany recent unrest among Republicans following a contentious three-week search for a new House speaker after the previous one, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), was ousted by far-right Republicans for striking a deal with Democrats to pass a stopgap funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown. With another shutdown looming, the new speaker, rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), seems poised to do the exact same thing.
Republicans are also reeling from heavy election night losses in which Democrats took control of the Virginia state legislature, passed abortion protections in Ohio, elected a Democratic governor in red-state Kentucky, and defeated the book-banning “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty in school board races nationwide. Many pundits said that the election results signal a growing backlash to Republicans’ pro-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ culture war that could hurt the party’s chances in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump also seems highly likely to clinch the party’s presidential nomination, putting Republicans nationwide in the uncomfortable position of either supporting Trump’s anti-democratic stances or angering his loyal (and large) voting base. While recent national polls show Trump beating President Joe Biden in key swing states, polls also suggest that large swaths will stop supporting Trump if he’s convicted of any of the 91 federal criminal charges facing him.
It’s likely that the departing Republicans — especially those from conservative-leaning districts — will simply be replaced by Republicans who are similarly anti-LGBTQ+. But the departures signal a widening rift between Trump’s small but influential MAGA wing and the party’s more moderate members.
A nonbinary teacher in Florida was fired for using the gender-neutral title “Mx.” Now they’ve filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that could challenge the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
According to WMNF, AV Vary recently came out as nonbinary and began using the title Mx. They say they informed the principal at Florida Virtual School (FLVS), a statewide online public school where they taught physics, of the change. “I let him know that I was doing it. And he didn’t say anything at first, and then about a month later he told me he needed me to change it,” Vary said.
On September 15, Vary received a written directive from the school letting them know that Ms., Mrs., or Miss were the only acceptable titles for them to use at work, the Orlando Sentinel reports. In late October, they were fired for refusing to use a title that did not align with their gender identity.
While FLVS spokesperson Laura Neff-Henderson would not comment on the reason for Vary’s termination, she told the Sentinel, “As a Florida public school, FLVS is obligated to follow Florida laws and regulations pertaining to public education.”
Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law an expansion of the state’s infamous Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known to critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. H.B. 1069 includes restrictions on the pronouns and titles both students and public school employees can use.
But Vary notes an inconvenient wrinkle in the law. They told WMNF that they discussed using other gender-neutral titles with FLVS. “I was told that professor was not okay, Dr. was not okay for me because I didn’t have a Ph.D., but there are lots of people at FLVS who do use Dr., which, coincidentally, is also in violation of the same law I got disciplined for,” they said.
H.B. 1069 states that “an employee or contractor of a public K-12 educational institution may not provide to a student his or her preferred personal title or pronouns if such preferred personal title or pronouns do not correspond to his or her sex.” But the law does not address gender-neutral professional titles like Dr., which is used by people of all genders.
Vary has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and hopes to challenge the Florida law. “I can fight this fight. I can be unemployed for a little while,” they told the Sentinel, citing their husband’s income. “I feel very strongly in standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.”
Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D) said that Vary’s situation is exactly the kind of thing opponents of “Don’t Say Gay” feared when the law was passed. She also noted that “it’s pretty ridiculous to terminate teachers over something like this” during the state’s ongoing teacher shortage.
In September, Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar told Fox 13that there were more than 7,000 teacher and support staff vacancies across the state. He said that the Parental Rights in Education and Stop WOKE Acts have contributed to the crisis.
In 2008, Dan Leveille, 35, was studying computer science at the Rochester Institute of Technology when California voters passed Proposition 8, eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state. It was a sucker punch to the queer community, including Leveille, who found himself wanting to bring order to how he thought about LGBTQ+ rights in the US.
His solution was Equaldex, a passion project that visualizes the state of queer rights not only at home but around the world. The site has become a trusted resource for governments, the media, and LGBTQ+ travelers everywhere.
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LGBTQ Nation spoke with Leveille about Equaldex from his home in Los Angeles.
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LGBTQ Nation: What inspired you to come up with an LGBTQ+ rights visualization tool?
Dan Leveille: When the Prop 8 stuff happened, I got pretty interested in it. And then there were a lot of states that were legalizing same-sex marriage, and a lot of laws were changing. And I remember at some point I was like, “Wait, did that state legalize it? When did that happen?” And I’m like, “Wow, I wish there was like some sort of site that showed all of these changes, like, a map.”
I launched it in 2014.
LGBTQ Nation: How did you envision it being used by others as you were building it?
DL: I first imagined it for my own use just tracking all the changes. But the number of countries that criminalize being gay, the number of countries that, you know, jailed people or even have the death penalty, that stuff is really compelling. And maybe the LGBTQ activists know this, but the general public might not. And I think bringing to light those facts is very important. This could kind of put pressure and visibility on the parts of the world that aren’t progressing.
LGBTQ Nation: What are some of the unexpected ways that Equaldex has been used since you put it up?
DL: One thing that is very obvious, probably, but just didn’t occur to me is how it’s used as a travel guide. That wasn’t immediately obvious to me, but it makes perfect sense. There’s been a lot of interest from travel agencies so that travelers will know, “Oh, this country you’re visiting, these laws, you might want to be careful or reconsider.”
General Electric, they use Equaldex data for some of their internal systems for traveling for employees. It makes sense because companies want to be careful about where they’re sending their employees, especially if there are laws against being gay.
LGBTQ Nation: Does General Electric throw you some bucks for using Equaldex?
DL: No, it’s generally not really a big deal to me. If a company wants to apply this data, I don’t have any issue with it. I like keeping the service free, just in principle.
LGBTQ Nation: GE could make a donation for your trouble.
DL: Yeah, for sure.
LGBTQ Nation: What’s the most LGBTQ+-friendly country on the planet?
DL: Currently I have this system on the site called the Equality Index, which ranks legal rights and public opinion. It’s a newer metric that I added. The countries with the highest ranking right now are Iceland, as number one, and Denmark and Norway. Malta, the Netherlands and Canada are up there.
LGBTQ Nation: And what’s the country you identify as the most hostile to LGBTQ+ identity?
DL: If you’re looking at the Equality Index, the Middle East and Africa are generally the worst in terms of both the laws and the public opinion there.
Dan Levielle The LGBT Equality Index on Equaldex
LGBTQ Nation: You’re looking at the data pretty much every day. What are some of the trends that you can point out?
DL: That’s a good question. Outside of the Middle East and Africa, there’s definitely a lot of progress being made overall. I focus a lot on the US, and polling has shown overwhelmingly that, you know, things are moving positively in terms of the public opinion. Even Republicans and religious groups, they’re moving to being more open.
LGBTQ Nation: In the US, do you see the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in red states as an anomaly, or is there anything in the data that indicates maybe those right-wing Republicans are on to something?
DL: Some of the US polls have shown that while it is becoming more accepted, it also is starting to polarize the more people are being exposed to it. So they have a lot of opinions on it. You know, you see things like drag queen bans and all those book bans and stuff, so people might form an opinion, whereas before, maybe they didn’t have an opinion. It’s interesting. We’re seeing a lot of progress in the US, but there are definitely some laws that are going backward. Hopefully it doesn’t continue that way.
LGBTQ Nation: The site would be a big undertaking for anyone, let alone somebody who’s just doing it as a passion project. Did you ever think, “I’m way over my head on this?”
DL: Yeah, definitely. Especially with big publications and even some governments and organizations that reference Equaldex. So when I see, like, the UN referencing it in one of their reports, I’m like, God, it’s a lot of pressure. Fortunately, I built Equaldex in a way where I don’t need to change everything myself, with such a big community of users who are contributing.
LGBTQ Nation: Tell us about those volunteers.
DL: When I first started Equaldex, there were a lot of people who were very interested in the project, and I got a handful of people who were just super passionate about it. They were super crucial in the first six months to a year of the site. Like, we had all these countries with no data, and people were just going in, adding all the laws. We’ve added a Discord community, as well, that has been really great at attracting editors and moderators.
LGBTQ Nation: Who pays for all of this?
DL: I pay for it myself. It’s not super expensive to run. And I share the cost with a pretty successful gaming app I run called Dododex, which is a companion app for the game ARK. And that helps to pay for software and Chat GPT to help program and stuff.
LGBTQ Nation: What’s the participation rate in some of those red countries for people who help out with the site?
DL: It’s very low. It’s challenging, especially when there are language barriers, too. But in really red countries, those users probably don’t want to publicly join a service like Equaldex, for reasons you can imagine. Fortunately, there are a lot of international organizations, research organizations who dig into the laws and maybe expose some of the things that are happening there, and we do have a handful of contributors who are from countries more familiar with those places.
LGBTQ Nation: Who are some of your go-to’s for the information you’re putting up?
DL: When we’re sourcing laws we try to get to the actual government site that shows what the law is. Unfortunately, sometimes what the government is saying is different than what they’re actually doing. We reference some big LGBT organizations like ILGA. The UN has some great resources exposing things in these homophobic countries. And of course, you know, reputable sources, the BBC, CNN, sites like yours who are reporting.
In terms of like, public opinion, there are a lot of really great organizations like Gallup that are always our go-to’s in terms of public opinion data.
LGBTQ Nation: What’s new on the site?
DL: I am working on a new feature that will — I hate to call it, like, a Yelp for LGBTQ rights, but it’s kind of that same idea where you’ll be able to share your opinion of the state or the province or the country that you lived in and share how comfortable you were about being open in public. What are politicians like? Are there out celebrities? Things like that. If you’ve lived there you have more experience, and it helps people who are traveling, so they can be like, “Okay, definitely don’t hold hands with my partner in public.” And even like, hotel reservations. In some countries you shouldn’t reserve a single bed with your partner in the same room. Stuff like that is good to know, and you might not think of it.
LGBTQ Nation: What’s been the most satisfying part of Equaldex for you so far?
DL: I think seeing the big publications and organizations use the site. There are a bunch of Ivy League schools that reference Equaldex for their students when they’re traveling. The UN, the UK Government, the US government, they’ve all read it and reference it. It makes me really proud, like, “Wow, this is something that people are very interested in.” So it kind of validates the work I’ve been doing for many years.
At a more personal level, hearing that people use it and it’s super helpful is super validating. When people say, like, “Oh, I always use it. Make sure to check Equaldex before you travel,” it’s really rewarding to hear it’s helpful to people in that way.
“The experiences of non-binary youth in organized team sports in Canada have been drastically understudied,” said researcher Martha Gumprich.
A new study has determined that a vast majority of non-binary youths in Canada now avoid joining sports teams over discrimination fears. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“Our report found that many youths avoid team sports due to abuse and discrimination but there are some solutions that would make sport more inclusive for non-binary participants and benefit everyone.”
Two-thirds of non-binary youths surveyed said that their reasoning for not joining an organised sports team boiled down to rules that would force them to play on a binary-gendered (men’s or women’s) team.
Meanwhile, four out of five non-binary youths said that they had avoided joining an organised team sport because of the layout of changing rooms or locker rooms.
Half of those surveyed said that they had avoided organised sports teams because of the teammates and coaches. Similarly, half opted not to take part because of discriminatory comments they had witnessed.
Half opted not to take part because of discriminatory comments they had witnessed. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Finally, one in six non-binary youths avoided organised sport because they had witnessed someone being physically harassed because of their gender.
Compared to their US neighbours, Canada hasn’t been too strict with restricting trans or non-binary people from their chosen sport – though there is plenty of grey area for athletes and teams to navigate.
A star player on Canada’s Women’s World Cup 2023 team was a non-binary athlete.
Footballer Quinn has also made history as the first out trans, non-binary athlete to win an Olympic medal, after taking home the gold for Canada at the Tokyo Games.
Meanwhile, in the US, 23 states have passed laws that restrict transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming athletes’ participation in organised sports – particularly school sports – in the past three years alone.
This can have serious repercussions on gender non-conforming youth, who are excluded – voluntarily or not – from team sports that help to build, not just a players’ athletic abilities, but their social skills, team-building abilities, and leadership and problem-solving skills.
Quinn is using their platform and football talent to help the next generation of footballers. (Getty)
Alongside their findings, TransConnect and Simon Fraser University researchers offer a number of possible solutions to these concerns that would encourage non-binary athletes to participate in sports again.
Those solutions include: allowing non-binary participants to choose the gendered team they’d like to play on, offering co-ed team options or dividing teams by competitiveness, creating gender-neutral changing areas with single stalls, and offering better education on diverse genders and sexualities.
“Participation in physical activities, particularly activities with the sociality of team sports, is a key part of preventative health measures,” said Simon Fraser University’s health sciences assistant professor Travis Salway.
“Non-binary youth deserve the same opportunity to participate in team sports as everyone else.”
But when Americans were asked about their views on Johnson’s Christian Nationalist positions, the overwhelming majority opposed everything he stands for.
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In a recently released Data for Progress poll, most respondents admitted that they didn’t know how to feel about him because they still had no idea who he was.
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But when pollsters asked about his specific positions, the change was dramatic. A substantial majority of voters, including independents, oppose many of Speaker Johnson’s past actions and policy stances, particularly those related to abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and defending former President Trump.
Seventy-eight percent oppose his position that states should be allowed to imprison people for having gay sex. Sixty-one percent oppose his attempts to force Amazon to sell anti-LGBTQ+ books, and the same amount are against his attempts to allow states to ban same-sex marriage.
The poll also found that a majority of voters oppose cutting funding for Social Security and Medicare, banning abortion in all 50 states, and voting to overturn the 2020 presidential election — all of which are policy stances and actions that Johnson has taken in the past.
Data for Progress
From October 27 to 30, 2023, Data for Progress surveyed 1,283 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to represent likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.
The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the Supreme Court to block a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors.
On Wednesday, the ACLU, along with the ACLU of Tennessee and Lambda Legal, petitioned the court to review a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing the state’s anti-trans law to go into effect. As The Hill notes, if the court accepts the case, it would be the first time the Supreme Court hears a case involving gender-affirming care.
Tennessee Republicans passed the state’s S.B. 1 in February, and it was signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee (R) in early March. In addition to banning Tennessee doctors from providing gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to anyone under the age of 18, it also requires trans young people who are already receiving gender-affirming care to end their treatment by March 31, 2024, effectively forcing them to detransition.
Every major medical organization in the U.S. has recognized that gender-affirming healthcare — which can include puberty blockers and hormone therapy — is evidence-based, safe, effective, and can be medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria in young people.
In April, the ACLU and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Nashville on behalf of three families with transgender children and a Memphis doctor who provides gender-affirming care to block the law, arguing that that S.B. 1 unlawfully discriminates against transgender people based on their sex in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. A district court judge blocked the law from going into effect in June, but in July, the Sixth Circuit voted 2–1 to allow S.B. 1 to go into effect while the court challenged proceeded. Similarly, the Sixth Circuit ruled in August that Kentucky could enforce its own law banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Legal challenges brought by the ACLU of Kentucky and Tennessee, along with other organizations, in both cases were consolidated in July for consideration at the Sixth Circuit, which hears appeals from both states. In September, the court again voted 2–1 to uphold both laws.
In Wednesday’s legal filing, attorneys for the ACLU and Lambda Legal wrote that conflicting court decisions around laws banning gender-affirming care for minors are “creating chaos across the country for adolescents, families, and doctors.”
In addition to the Sixth Circuit decision regarding the Tennessee and Kentucky laws, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction against Alabama’s gender-affirming care ban in August. Meanwhile, similar laws in Florida, Montana, and Indiana have been blocked, and Arkansas’s ban was struck downin June.
“Neither the wave of state bans on gender-affirming medication nor the lawsuits challenging them are likely to abate in the near future,” the ACLU’s petition states. “Given the division among the courts of appeals on the appropriate level of scrutiny in these and related cases, any delay in this Court’s review only risks subjecting transgender adolescents, their parents, and their doctors to a patchwork of inconsistent laws and legal standards that obstruct their medical care.”
As The Hill notes, while the Supreme Court has not yet taken up a case involving bans on gender-affirming healthcare, conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas appear eager to address transgender rights. According to HuffPost, both the Sixth Circuit’s decision in the Tennessee and Kentucky case and the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in upholding Alabama’s law cited the Supreme Court’s reasoning that the federal right to abortion is not “deeply root” in the “history and tradition” of the U.S. in its 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Vermont’s largest school district, the Champlain Valley School District, has passed a set of policies that affirm transgender and nonbinary students’ identities. The policies require schools to let trans students access school facilities, play on sports teams, and use pronouns and names that match their gender identity without informing potentially unsupportive parents.
The policies, which closely follow the trans- and nonbinary-inclusive guidelines issued by the state Agency of Education in 2017, were developed using “feedback from principals, school counselors, and nurses, students, and parents, along with staff from the Vermont Department of Health and Outright Vermont,” the independent state publication Seven Days reported. The school board unanimously voted in favor of the policies, which underwent two rounds of legal review and will affect the district’s over 4,000 students.
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The three-page policy set allows trans students to determine how much information about their identities they want to share with others, including their parents. It also allows students to decide which names and pronouns they want teachers to use — and to retroactively change this information on past student records — without requiring a court order or legal name change.
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While students must be allowed to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and other facilities matching their gender identities, students who request increased privacy “will be provided with reasonable alternative arrangements,” such as a private area, a different changing schedule or a single-stall restroom, the aforementioned publication noted.
The district’s policies are more decisive in their wording than the state education agency’s. For example, while agency policies say trans students “should be” allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, Champlain Valley School District’s says that trans students “must be permitted” to use them.
School board chair Angela Arsenault, who served on the committee that created the policies, said the policy could be challenged in court by transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+ groups like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). ADF regularly files lawsuits against any expansion of LGBTQ+ civil rights.
“We really do feel that we’ve covered our bases on the legal front, and are confident that the policy would hold up to any legal challenge,” she said.
Dana Kaplan, executive director of LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization Outright Vermont, praised the new policies, noting that many school districts across the nation have sought to restrict trans and nonbinary students’ rights.
“[This is] an exciting moment where a district is coming out and saying, in no uncertain terms, ‘We want all of our students to be safe,’” Kaplan said. “Having really clear guidance in this day and age, when rhetoric is flying around and [there’s a] concerted effort to squelch the rights of young people… is incredibly important. I hope other districts will follow suit.”
The Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics also praised the school district’s policies, noting “[Our state] is not immune to attacks on transgender and gender diverse Vermonters… When students feel safe to express their identities across the gender spectrum, they will be more prepared to learn and thrive in school.”
An estimated 4% of the state’s high school students identify as trans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
An LGBTQ+ rights group in Afghanistan is calling the international community’s acceptance of Taliban rule a “betrayal of humanity” and is demanding justice for queer people from the United Nations, human rights organizations, and countries that “claim to support human rights.”
Rainbow Afghanistan details a litany of abuses against the queer community by the Taliban, which returned to power two years ago as American forces withdrew from the country 20 years after the 9/11/2001 attacks.
“For homosexuals,” a Taliban judge said at the time, “there can only be two punishments: either stoning, or he must stand behind a wall that will fall down on him.”
Since then, members of the LGBTQ+ community have been mysteriously killed or disappeared, arrested, “tortured and sexually assaulted in prisons, and many were stoned to death in distant provinces and, in the worst case, sexually exploited,” the letter details, while “a large number of members of the LGBT community lost their lives due to suicide,” including lesbians and transgender women who have been “forced into marriage” against their will.
“The world has remained silent” in the face of “widespread and systematic crime against humanity,” the letter from Rainbow Afghanistan declares. “The eyes and ears of the world are not willing to see and hear.”
The group documents the abduction of at least ten members of their own organization at the hands of the Taliban, and describes the existence of “private prisons for members of the LGBT community in large provinces in parts of Afghanistan.”
“According to our findings, at least two transgender individuals under the age of 19 were transferred to one of these prisons after being identified by the Taliban in Herat, where they were tortured and raped.”
The group also describes a dangerous exodus of LGBTQ+ people from Afghanistan into neighboring countries like Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, where they’re subject to similar abuse at the hands of authorities.
“The suffocating political conditions and the criminalization of non-binary tendencies and identities in these countries have exposed them to the threat of deportation” back to Afghanistan.
The group is demanding action from the United Nations and others.
“We want the countless crimes of the Taliban against the LGBTQ community in Afghanistan to be investigated and documented, and its perpetrators should be held accountable in independent courts, and human rights, as stated in its charter, should not be limited to geographic boundaries, gender identities, and certain social groups,” the organization wrote of the U.N.
“We, the activists, ask the United Nations, human rights organizations, and countries of the world to break this annoying silence towards the LGBT community. We want to end the silence of the international community regarding these tragedies as soon as possible. We want justice for the LGBT community of Afghanistan to be raised and realized.”
Eighteen state attorneys general signed a brief asking a federal judge in Florida to allow states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people from being covered under state Medicaid programs, using inflammatory language to explain why trans people shouldn’t have equal access to health care.
Last year, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) finalized a rule banning healthcare providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program for trans people’s gender-affirming care, a rule that covered puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and surgical procedures for adults. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program providing healthcare coverage for low-income people.
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Four trans people and their families sued in federal court for access to needed health care and U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle invalidated AHCA’s rule this past June with a scathing 54-page opinion. “Gender identity is real,” Hinkle wrote, accusing AHCA of making the rule “for political reasons.”
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“Pushing individuals away from their transgender identity is not a legitimate state interest,” Hinkle wrote.
Florida is appealing the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Eighteen Republican attorneys general from other states signed a briefsupporting Florida, arguing that doctors are greedily pushing gender-affirming care on people to make money, including the doctors who work for national medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, which all support access to gender-affirming care for transgender people. The brief’s point was that Judge Hinkle relied on the research of the medical organizations and heeded their opinions more than the odd doctors Florida was able to find to say that trans people don’t need gender-affirming care.
“Medical interest groups, composed of physicians self-interested in Medicaid coverage, are not neutral arbiters of ‘medical opinion,’” the Republicans wrote, accusing the organizations of stifling debate.
The argument is similar to one that AHCA made in the original case that Hinkle rejected, calling it “fanciful to believe that all the many medical associations who have endorsed gender-affirming care… have so readily sold their patients down the river.”
In June, Hinkle ruled that AHCA’s rule violates the federal Medicaid statute, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Affordable Care Act. He also ordered the state to cover gender-affirming care for transgender people on the state’s Medicaid program.
“I am extremely relieved,” said August Dekker, a 29-year-old transgender man and the lead plaintiff in the case. “Florida’s policy effectively denied me the treatment my doctors recommended,” he said. “Now access to that lifesaving, critical care can continue.”
Advocacy groups estimate that 9,000 transgender people in Florida use Medicaid to fund their treatments.
The states that signed the brief are Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
