Kentucky’s Republican lawmakers have passed a measure to protect conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youths as part of a bill that also would outlaw the use of Medicaid funds to pay for gender-affirming health care for transgender Kentucky residents. Conversion therapy is the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.
GOP lawmakers voted to remove restrictions that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear placed on the practice last year. He banned spending tax dollars to pay for the practice on minors, saying his executive order was needed to protect children. Its lead sponsor, GOP Rep. David Hale, has said families should have access to the mental health care of their choice, and said his bill would protect mental health care professionals, institutions and ordained ministries from discrimination.
Read the full article. The bill passed in both chambers with veto-proof majorities.
An LGBTQ+ asylum-seeker has reportedly been deported from the US because of his tattoos.
Lindsay Toczylowski, the founder and president of Immigrant Defenders Law Centre (ImmDef), claimed that one of her clients, a Venezuelan tattoo artist, had been deported to El Salvador because of misconceptions regarding their body art, reports The Pride LA.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials reportedly used the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a measure instigated to deport people threatening the country’s safety. It was last invoked to intern people of Japanese descent during World War II.
Immigration officers reportedly said the tattoos were related to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organisation. Toczylowski says they were mistaken.
“Our client’s tattoos are not gang-related,” she said. “They are benign and reflect his work in the arts. ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as ‘evidence,’ despite there being no other proof of any criminal affiliation.”
The client reportedly fled Venezuela last year to escape persecution and made it to the US “seeking protection,” but was held in ICE prisons for months before being deported.
Toczylowski was “horrified” by the development, and worried about what “might happen to him now”.
ImmDef grew concerned after ICE did not bring the man to a court hearing. The government lawyer had no idea why he wasn’t there, it is claimed.
After contacting the Texas facility where her client had been held, Toczylowski was told that he was “no longer there” and had “disappeared from [the] online detainee locator”.
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What is the Alien Enemies Act?
The act grants the president full authority to detain or remove individuals from the U.S. based solely on their nationality or suspected ties to enemy organisations. The law does not require concrete evidence before deportation, raising concerns among legal experts and human rights organisations.
The Trump administration was ordered to stop using the 227-year-old law when district judge James Boasberg issued an emergency order.
Trump has claimed that Tren de Aragua was “perpetrating, attempting and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.”
However, the judge ruled that the law did not offer a good basis for deportations, saying the terms “invasion” and “predatory incursion” relate to “hostile acts perpetrated by enemy nations”.
The matter is set to reach the Supreme Court, according to the BBC.
A Lesotho LGBTQ+ rights organisation says that it did not receive eight million dollars in funding from the US, despite Donald Trump’s recent claim.
During his presidential address to Congress on Tuesday (4 March) Trump made a claim about Lesotho’s main LGBTQ+ rights organisation, the People’s Matrix.
“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho”, he said of the organisation, adding that “nobody has ever heard” of the country in Southern Africa.
‘We do not have such moneys’
In response, People’s Matrix spokesperson Tampose Mothopeng alleged that Trump’s claim was baseless. They told AFP: “We are literally not receiving grants from the US.
“We have no idea of the allocation of eight million dollars. We do not know who received or is going to receive that money.
“We do not have such moneys or a contract that would even reach a quarter of half of that money.”
As reported by the Daily Mail, the US government’s foreign assistance websiteindicated that around $120 million had been spent on “health and population” programmes in the country last year, including $43.5 million to tackle HIV/AIDS. The site does not list any financial support for LGBTQ+ rights in Lesotho.
Lesotho’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane also weighed in on the president’s comments, saying it was “shocking” to hear the president “refer to another sovereign state in that manner.”
“To my surprise, ‘the country that nobody has heard of’ is the country where the U.S. has a permanent mission,” Mpotjoane told AFP. “Lesotho is a member of the UN and of a number of other international bodies. And the U.S. has an embassy here and [there are] a number of U.S. organizations we’ve accommodated here in Maseru.”
USAID has been under heavy attack since Trump’s inauguration. In February, Trump attacked the aid agency’s leadership saying they were a “bunch of radical lunatics.” Elon Musk also took to X to describe the agency as “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”
Musk also tweeted a baseless claim that USAID “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”
During his two hour Congress address on Tuesday, Trump also stood by a series of anti-trans executive orders, ranted about “transgender mice,” and faced a protest staged by Democrats, who waved “Musk Steals” and “Save Medicaid” signs as he spoke before walking out mid-speech in a bid to protest his actions.
City Council members voted 12-1 Wednesday to make Boston a sanctuary cityfor members of the transgender community.
Councilor-at-Large Julia Mejia and District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon called on Boston to adopt the measure supporting transgender people, pointing to what they see as harmful rhetoric coming from President Donald Trump and the White House.
“Boston is not going to back down,” Mejia said Wednesday. “We’re seeing attacks on our trans loved ones, and here on the local level, a lot of folks are feeling helpless.”
Breadon, the first openly gay woman elected to the council, said the country faces “unprecedented times” when “many of our neighbors are feeling unsafe and insecure for various reasons.”
“This resolution addresses a particular concern that we need to elevate and raise up,” she said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “During the election and since, there’s been an incredible escalation in anti-trans rhetoric and violence that has caused incredible stress and anxiety to our LGBTQI+ community, and especially to our trans brothers and sisters.”
The resolution says, in part, that Boston has “a specific commitment to protecting transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Taxpayer-funded agencies shall not comply with federal efforts to strip resources that safeguard their rights. Boston will not cooperate with federal or state policies that harm transgender and gender-diverse people and remains committed to ensuring their access to healthcare, housing, education, and employment without fear or discrimination.”
Mejia and Breadon acknowledged that the resolution is symbolic and nonbinding, but Mejia said it is a critical first step and an “opportunity to set the groundwork for the legislation.”
Councilor Ed Flynn was the only member to vote against the measure.
“I would like to learn more about what this resolution does,” Flynn said, according to the Boston Herald. “I don’t want to be disrespectful to anybody, but it’s just something I would like to have before I vote.”
Sam Whiting of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a group that describes itself as recognizing “the male and female sexes as a real and enduring part of a person’s created nature, not an imaginary social construct,” pushed back against the councilors’ framing of the Trump administration’s actions regarding transgender people.
Boston’s declaration that it’s a “sanctuary city for transgender persons” and other members of the LGBTQ community follows similar actions in the Massachusetts cities of Worcester and Cambridge.
An older Wisconsin man apologized to the transgender community during a hearing on a proposed anti-trans bill in his state’s legislature.
The man, identified as Larry Jones of Milwaukee by the Wisconsin Examiner, said he originally came to the hearing to voice his support for state Assembly Bill 104, which seeks to ban all forms of gender-affirming care for anyone under 18 and threatens to revoke the medical licenses of any doctors who provide it. But after hearing directly from trans people, Jones changed his mind.
“I was invited here to give my support for [the bill]. I have very little knowledge of gay people and things like that. So, when I came here, my eyes were opened,” he said during his testimony.
A video of the apology, shared by the ACLU of Wisconsin, explains that Larry waited for over six hours in an overflow room to testify in favor of the bill. While talking to others during the wait, he realized how much he didn’t know.
“I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decision there was only two genders,” he said. “So I got an education that was unbelievable, and I don’t know just exactly how to say this, but my perspective for people have changed… I’d like to apologize for being here, and I learned a very lot about this group of people.”
“He could’ve just left,” one person commented on TikTok. “But he still chose to speak and publicly admit he had been ignorant on something and had since changed his mind. What a great man. The world needs more Larrys.”
“This made me cry,” said another. “He showed up. He listened. He learned. He changed his perspective. And then he spoke publicly . That is truly remarkable in this climate. Bravo Larry! I’d love to buy you a beer.”
A third simple wrote: “Hope. There is hope. There is hope.”
Despite Larry’s change of heart, as well as the fact that a reported 79 people appeared to speak against the bill compared to only 18 who spoke in favor (including the bill’s authors), the GOP chose to advance the legislation in a 10-5 vote along party lines. Regardless of what happens next, the bill is unlikely to become law because Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) has vowed to veto anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
But State Rep. Lisa Subeck (D) told the Wisconsin Examiner she still believes the emotional hearing was indicative of progress.
State Rep. Adam Neylon (R) stated during the hearing that his support for the bill is not “judgment on trans people” but rather his desire for a “conservative approach to medical care that may be irreversible.”
“If you’re accusing us of wanting to be conservative when it comes to the medical care of minors, then that is true…,” Neylon said. “That doesn’t mean we want them [deceased], right? That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize their right to exist.”
The bill, he added, “might not be hitting directly where it should and it might come across political, and I understand the pain and I wanted to stay [at the hearing] to make sure that people had an opportunity to share their things… I would be angry if I was young too, but it’s not coming from a place of saying, like trying to other them or saying, like, you don’t belong in our society.”
Subeck said the comments from lawmakers during the hearing “was a little bit closer to the conversations that we often have when we are sitting one-on-one, talking to each other.”
“In private, legislators have a lot of conversations that don’t reflect the votes that are taken on the floor,” Subeck said. “It makes me a little bit hopeful, because while my Republican colleagues continue down the path of voting their party line — even when they have said they have things to learn and it gives them pause — the fact that they were willing to even sit in that room, in sort of a public sphere, and have a conversation means that there is room for change.”
Not everyone was as open as Neylon, though. Committee Chair state Rep. Clint Moses (R) angered Democrats and trans advocates for allowing most of those in favor of the bill to speak first, rather than alternating between viewpoints, as is typical.
“We sit here for all this time, all these people, you’re allowing the anti-trans voices to go first. It feels like the world is stacked against us and we’re getting tired of it,” testified Cory Neeley. “My voice is cracking because I’m literally fuming at the fact that I’ve sat here all day long listening to people call me a groomer. People calling me a person who doesn’t care about their children… I’m a good parent.”
In a significant step toward affirming the rights of transgender people in Poland, the country’s Supreme Court has issued a landmark ruling that eliminates the requirement for trans people to involve their parents in gender recognition proceedings.
Until now, transgender individuals – whether child or adult – seeking to change their gender marker on official documents were required to sue their parents. This was due to a convoluted legal claim that there needs to be two opposing parties in any civil action, which seeking to change a gender marker is classified as. This added unnecessary distress and legal complexities, including for trans people whose parents have died.
The ruling, welcomed by Polish civil society organizations including Campaign against Homophobiaand Trans-Fuzja Foundation, underscores the need for Poland to streamline gender recognition procedures, aligning them more closely with international human rights standards. Indeed, uncertainties remain, including whether married transgender people must divorce in order to obtain legal gender recognition, since Polish law, despite human rights obligations otherwise, does not recognize same-sex marriages.
This ruling comes at a time when trans rights in Poland remain a contentious issue. Far-right rhetoricdenigrates gender identity recognition and broader lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Poland, rejecting international and European standards, as well as evolving medical consensus. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has long advocated for simplified gender recognition procedures, warning that onerous barriers can “harm physical and mental health.”
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Poland is a party, guarantees the rights to privacy and to equal recognition before the law, which incorporate the right to legal gender recognition, free from harmful or disproportionate obstacles.
The European Court of Human Rights, has in multiple judgements stated that states have “a positive obligation to provide quick, transparent and accessible procedures” for changing registered sex markers and failure to do so violates the right to private life. The European Union’s LGBTIQ Equality Strategy (2020-2025) similarly promotes “accessible legal gender recognition based on self-determination and without age restriction.”
While Poland’s progress is commendable, the battle for trans rights is far from over. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who promisedduring his campaign to introduce a simplified gender recognition process, now has an opportunity to follow through in consultation with Polish trans people. His government should act swiftly to introduce legislation upholding trans people’s full right to self-identification, free from onerous requirements.
On Friday night, a gay bar in Indianapolis was the scene of a heated exchange between Donald Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats and bar staff who say they abused them.
The bar staff threw them out.
“A group of individuals visited Chatterbox and intentionally misgendered and harassed a Chatterbox employee, resulting in them being asked to leave by our staff,” bar management posted to Instagram over the weekend. “They then continued verbally assaulting patrons and staff, threatened our establishment, and returned to record a video which has now been posted on multiple social media platforms.”
The video was recorded and posted to Facebook by Indianapolis resident Elise Hensley, who told News 8 that she’d visited the popular jazz bar several times, but this time, she and her friends wore MAGA hats.
In Hensley’s telling, “We went up to the bar and before we could even get a word out or order a drink, he just looked at me and said, ‘No,’” Hensley said. “I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He said, ‘Your hat. You need to leave right now.’”
After getting ejected, Hensley returned, phone in hand, to confront the bar’s employees.
“I have a question,” Hensley told a bartender in the video.
“No, no, we’re not answering questions,” they responded. “Get out of the bar.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a Trump supporter.”
“I know, but don’t you guys want our money?”
“No. Actually, we don’t. Get out of my bar right now.”
A patron interjected: “You’re not welcome!”
“I’m not f**king around,” the bartender continued. “Get out of my bar.”
“Are you serious?” asked Hensley.
“I’m dead serious. Out.”
“Because I’m wearing a Trump hat.”
“Yes.”
“That’s wild.”
“I don’t care. Get out,” the bartender demanded again.
“We can call the police or you can just leave,” a colleague added.
“You know this is discrimination, right?” said Hensley.
Laughter erupted.
“Boo hoo! Boo-f**king-hoo” the bartender exclaimed. “Get out of my bar.”
A patron still laughing at Hensley’s claim added, “That’s funny.”
Hensley’s post earned tens of thousands of likes and was shared across right-wing media, including by Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith (R).
Beckwith, a pastor and self-described Christian nationalist, has said public school students in Indiana are taught “gay” and “oral sex” and are “indoctrinated with Marxist ideology.”
Bar management was unrepentant about throwing the MAGA fans out.
“The Chatterbox is home to a diverse group of staff and patrons,” their post read. “We do not tolerate dehumanizing or disrespectful language or symbolism in our establishment. We have a right by law to refuse service to anyone who disrupts our business. We look forward to continue being a home for people who love music and appreciate our community.”
“I wore that hat because I do love our President of the United States,” Hensley said Sunday, oblivious — intentionally or not — to Trump’s views about the people she was confronting.
“He is our president. I do appreciate that and I don’t think I find anything wrong with me wanting to wear a Trump hat because he is our president.”
Hensley also attempted to defend herself by saying one of her friends with her at the bar that night was Black: “They probably have every right to kick me out,” she told News 8. “If you don’t want me at your bar, that is what it is. But also, the man that was with me was an African American male. He was wearing a Trump hat.”
Each March, we have the opportunity to examine the contributions of women throughout history and honor those who inspire us. As an advocate working to get more LGBTQ+ people elected to public office, I have the privilege of supporting many incredible leaders in their campaigns and beyond, including many inspiring women.
As we look back on the milestones in our movement for equitable representation, LGBTQ+ women have much to celebrate.
The first successful out LGBTQ+ candidate in American (and possibly world) history was Kathy Kozachenko, who won local office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a third-party candidate in 1974. The first out LGBTQ+ state legislator was a woman, Elaine Noble, who won her seat in the Massachusetts House in 1974 as well. All three out LGBTQ+ people who have served in the U.S. Senate have been women. As executives, lesbians and bi women have served as governors of three states and have been elected mayor in cities like Chicago, Houston, Madison, Tampa and Seattle. And in recent years, we’ve made even more progress in Congress, with the first out trans representative, the first Native, Black and Latina women in the House, and many more state-level “firsts”– all LGBTQ+ women.
Running for office as an out queer woman brings many challenges, and we must all do our part to give extra support to the women leaders in our communities. Based on survey research conducted by LGBTQ+ Victory Institute and Loyola Marymount University, LGBTQ+ women are more likely to be discouraged from running for office than their gay and bi men counterparts – even more so for transgender women candidates. The research also found that LGBTQ+ women seeking public office faced attacks on their appearance and clothing at an alarming rate and that women are more likely to be undermined by the media.
LGBTQ+ women making history this year
Many people are unaware that various jurisdictions in the U.S. hold elections every year and that nearly every month there is an election taking place. Working for an organization that endorses candidates for offices large and small and in states, territories and tribal governments across the country, I see firsthand the impact our candidates have when they win their elections and take office. These women are often our community’s fiercest champions, and we need even more of them to win and fight for us. Even though we’re only three months into this election year, there are already dozens of women candidates for state and local office who have been endorsed by LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and deserve our support.
From major cities to small villages, LGBTQ+ women are running for mayor – a role that touches the daily lives of each of their constituents. In San Antonio, Texas, former Air Force official Gina Ortiz Jones is running to bring down the cost of housing and increase opportunities for workers in her hometown. In Downington, Pennsylvania, scientist and businesswoman Erica Deuso – who has broad community support in her race – could make history as the first out trans person elected to executive office in state history.
Elsewhere across the country, women are stepping up to lead in their communities. Environmental justice advocate Charlene Wang is running for Oakland City Council to ensure growth and sustainability go hand-in-hand. Downstate in San Diego County, Imperial Beach Mayor Poloma Aguirre is running to represent the concerns of over 700,000 constituents as a county supervisor for District 1. In Madison, Wisconsin – where lesbian Satya Rhodes-Conway serves as mayor – Carmella Glenn is running to add important LGBTQ+ representation to the city council, where she’ll fight for more opportunities for constituents affected by bias in the criminal justice system.
As culture wars continue to rage over schools and libraries, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund candidates are answering the call to fight disinformation and work to create inclusive school districts and library systems all around the country. Candidates like Vanessa Abundiz, Emily Gilbert, Alena Hansen, Elana Jacobs and Ali Muldrow all are running for key seats on school or library district boards and deserve our support.
Now more than ever, we must double down on our efforts to elect LGBTQ+ candidates – and especially queer and trans women – to offices big and small. It’s often said that if you’re not at the table, then you’re on the menu. With hostility against our community growing in statehouses around the country and now the White House, I urge you to join the fight to ensure our voices are heard in the halls of power.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of Washington, D.C., ruled that the ban violates the equal protection clause because it discriminates based on transgender status and sex.
Reyes said the ban “is soaked in animus.”
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” she wrote.
She added, “Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them.”
Reyes delayed the effect of her preliminary injunction until Friday to give the administration time to appeal it. She added in her order that the government “could have crafted a policy that balances the Nation’s need for a prepared military and Americans’ right to equal protection.”
“They still can,” she said. “The Military Ban, however, is not that policy. The Court therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice called Reyes’ order “the latest example of an activist judge attempting to seize power at the expense of the American people who overwhelmingly voted to elect President Trump.”
“The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Defending Women Executive Order, and will continue to do so,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Cadets arrive at Michie Stadium before the arrival of President Joe Biden during commencement exercises at West Point on May 25, 2024 in West Point, New York. Spencer Platt / Getty Images
“The ban’s harmful impact and rushed implementation show that it was motivated by prejudice,” Minter said in a statement. “Our plaintiffs include lifelong military personnel who served in combat in Afghanistan, come from multi-generation military families, and have received honors like the Bronze Star. This ban is unjustifiable and attacks brave servicemembers, recruits, and families who sacrifice so much for our country.”
Trump’s order goes much further than a similar policy he issued during his first term, which prohibited trans people from enlisting and allowed those already serving to continue doing so in a manner consistent with their gender identities and continue receiving transition-related medical care if they came out before the ban. Service members who came out after it were not allowed to receive such medical care and had to continue serving in a manner consistent with their assigned sexes at birth.
The new policy prohibits trans people from enlisting and requires the military to identify all trans service members who have “a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria,” which is the medical term for the severe emotional distress caused by the misalignment between one’s gender identity and birth sex, according to a memo the Defense Department filed in the lawsuit last week.
Those identified by the Pentagon will be disqualified from service and must be removed from their jobs. They will receive honorable separations unless their records reflect otherwise, according to the memo.
In January, two national LGBTQ legal organizations, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and the the National Center for Lesbian Rights, filed suit against Trump’s executive order on behalf of six active-duty trans service members and two trans people seeking to enlist. They argued that the ban discriminates against trans people and “reflects animosity toward transgender people because of their transgender status.”
The order, the lawsuit said, declared that being trans fundamentally “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
The order said, “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Reyes pushed Justice Department attorney Jason C. Lynch on that language during preliminary hearings last month, asking repeatedly whether he believed it showed animus against the trans community.
“Would it be fair to say that excluding a group of people from military service based on unsupported assertions that they are liars, immodest, lack integrity, are undisciplined and are dishonorable, would you agree with me that — particularly where there’s no support for any of those assertions — that that is animated by animus?” Reyes asked Lynch, who declined to answer.
Multiple Defense Department memos also say enlisted service members will be required to use pronouns and salutations, such as “sir” and “ma’am,” that align with their birth sexes. Reyes pressed Lynch about how pronoun usage affects military readiness.
“I don’t —” Lynch said, before the judge interrupted him.
“Because it doesn’t,” Reyes said. “Because any commonsense rational human being understands that it doesn’t.”
Transgender veterans will no longer be provided hormone therapy through the Department of Veterans Affairs, unless they were already receiving such care through the department or the military, the VA announced Monday.
The reversal of the decade-old policy comes just days after the VA rescinded a 2018 directive that required the department to treat trans veterans “with respect and dignity.” The directive required coverage of mental health care, hormone therapy, pre-surgery evaluation and care after surgery as medically necessary. The VA has never covered gender-affirming surgery for veterans.
The rescinded directive also required health care providers to address veterans by their gender identity, which included using their requested pronouns and preferred name.
According to Monday’s announcement, trans veterans who weren’t already receiving treatment for gender dysphoria, which is the medical term for the severe emotional distress caused by the misalignment between one’s gender identity and birth sex, will not be able to access it through the VA.
“I mean no disrespect to anyone, but VA should not be focused on helping Veterans attempt to change their sex,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement Monday, adding that the “vast majority” of veterans and Americans agree, though he did not point to any data that supports that claim.
“All eligible Veterans — including trans-identified Veterans — will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law,” Collins said. “But if Veterans want to attempt to change their sex, they can do so on their own dime.”
Any money saved by curtailing treatments for gender dysphoria “will be redirected to help severely injured VA beneficiaries — such as paralyzed Veterans and amputees — regain their independence,” the VA said.
In addition to ending coverage of hormone therapy for veterans who weren’t already receiving it, the VA will also no longer provide gender-affirming prosthetics, wigs or letters of support for veterans to access transition-related surgery outside of the VA.
Veterans who receive care in VA facilities will also be required to use “intimate spaces,” such as bathrooms and locker rooms, in accordance with their birth sex, the VA announced.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, condemned the VA’s announcement.
“Transgender veterans share the same commitment and the same love of country as all other veterans,” she said in a statement. “They made the same sacrifices and are owed the same respect and care after their service. Despite this, the VA has decided to turn its back on transgender veterans who committed their lives to serving in our armed forces—complying with an Administration hellbent on harming and scapegoating the transgender community.”
The policy change was brought on by President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that there are only two, unchangeable sexes, the VA said. The executive order has resulted in sweeping changes regarding trans people across the federal government, from government web pages that mention trans people to passport policies.
The VA has been providing treatment for gender dysphoria for more than a decade, according to the department’s announcement, which added that the Veterans Health Administration estimates indicate that less than one-tenth of 1% of the 9.1 million veterans enrolled in VA health care are trans, which would be about 9,100 veterans. That number is far lower than previous research has found. The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law estimated in 2014 that about 134,300 trans people are veterans or are retired from the Guard or Reserve, though it’s unclear if they would all be eligible for VA health care.
Trump also issued an executive order prohibiting trans people from serving or enlisting in the military. The policy requires all trans people who are currently serving to be separated from the military by next month. Several trans service members and trans people who planned to enlist filed a lawsuit in January to block the policy, and a judge is expected to issue a decision in the case this week.
A majority of Americans, 58%, favor allowing openly trans people to serve in the military, though support has declined, from 66% in 2021 and 71% in 2019, according to Gallup data released last month. The drop was driven primarily by Republican survey respondents, Gallup found.
In recent years, Republicans have increasingly supported policies that target transgender people, particularly trans youth, by prohibiting trans students from playing school sports on the teams that align with their gender identities and barring them from accessing transition-related health care.
