A transgender rights activist holds a flag during the Trans Day of Visibility rally on the National Mall on March 31, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
For trans people in the United States, the year is ending much as it began: with a flurry of assaults on their very existence from Donald Trump’s regime. Attacks on trans people, especially trans youth, have been a constant throughout Trump’s second term so far, but the government took advantage of the year-end lull to attempt to push through a series of measures aimed at fully decimating health care provisions for trans youth.
The Department of Health and Human Services in mid-December announced proposals that, if enacted, would be a de facto ban on all gender-affirming medical care for young people in the entire U.S., where this care is already banned or restricted in 27 states. The new rules, which are now in a 60-day comment period, threaten to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to minors — effectively forcing hospitals to stop offering it. Without this funding, practically no hospital can survive.
The same week HHS announced its plans, the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to a dozen manufacturers and retailers of chest binders, warning that the products were in violation of federal law since they were not registered as medical devices.
Heading into 2026, we know we can expect more of the relentless same from Republicans. When it comes to making trans lives unlivable, Trump’s party and its anti-trans zealots will throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. The open question is whether Democratic leaders will learn from their mistakes and actually stand up for the trans kids and adults on the front lines of Trump’s fascist onslaught.
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How to Keep Providing Gender-Affirming Care Despite Anti-Trans Attacks](https://theintercept.com/2025/03/09/abortion-trans-health-care-doctors-trump/)
Indeed, Democrats nationwide have an opportunity right now to show what it looks like to robustly oppose measures deployed by the Trump administration to hack away at essential health care. They can refuse to let HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his quack accomplice, Dr. Mehmet Oz, quietly and unilaterally push through dangerous and blatantly anti-science rules that would affect every hospital in the country. To do this, though, Democratic leaders must unite to support trans youth.
The latest administration moves are devious – using Medicaid and Medicare funding and FDA regulations as cudgels to coerce health care providers and related businesses to stop offering lifesaving services and tools to young people. Journalist and trans rights advocate Erin Reed described the HHS plan as “the single most aggressive attack on transgender healthcare in U.S. history” since “its adoption would likely force every hospital and major clinic that relies on Medicaid to immediately cease providing transgender youth care.”
Even threatening such a policy serves to chill health care providers. The point is to apply constant pressure and add layers of complication and uncertainty so hospitals and health care systems fall in line out of fear. This has been the Republican playbook for years when it comes to hacking away at reproductive and gender-affirming care. Such efforts depend on compliance, and — particularly when it comes to anti-trans policies and laws — have faced all too little serious opposition from Democratic leaders.
It is a good sign that a coalition of 19 states has already sued to challenge the proposed HHS rules. The lawsuit calls the HHS efforts unlawful and based on bunk scientific claims.
“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, in a statement. “No one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices.”
While the lawsuit against HHS signals crucial opposition, this last year has made it all too clear that the courts cannot be relied upon to defend trans people’s basic human rights. After all, the far-right Supreme Court in June upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming health care for trans teenagers.
But legal avenues are limited when the highest court in the land is ruled by a majority of right-wing ideologues. This is a struggle on many fronts. As Reed reported, organizations like the Trans Youth Emergency Project and the Campaign for Southern Equality are “actively assisting families with contingency planning for continuity of care” while the implementation of the proposed new policies is challenged. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and brave trans kids and their loved ones, who have fought every unconstitutional and malicious anti-trans law in court, will continue to need vigorous support and direct funding assistance.
It’s also high time that Democratic leaders treat the assault on trans youth for what it is: the attempted eradication of an entire category of persons, against which committed political opposition should be the baseline.
Democrats’ willingness to align with fascists to criminalize lifesaving health care should have no home in a purported opposition party.
Democratic leaders across the country have so far largely failed to stand up for trans people. California Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed himself to be despicably eager to throw trans people under the bus in service of an ill-thought centrist realpolitik and to buoy his larger political ambitions. Three Democrats joined with Republicans in the House of Representatives to support a bill that would imprison health care providers for providing basic gender-affirming care for anyone under 18. Luckily, the bill is highly unlikely to pass the Senate, but Democrats’ willingness to align with fascists to criminalize lifesaving health care should have no home in a purported opposition party.
As sure as Republicans will continue to push their cruel and deadly agenda, centrist pundits and operatives will urge Democrats to sacrifice targeted communities in an effort to appeal to an imagined group of voters. This pandering only serves the far right by treating its talking points as a legitimate political center as Democrats negotiate against themselves.
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Gavin Newsom’s Cynical Embrace of the Anti-Trans Agenda](https://theintercept.com/2025/03/07/gavin-newsom-trans-democrats/)
The idea that Democrats benefit electorally by bending rightward on key moral issues like trans rights and immigration has by now been thoroughly debunked. With the midterm elections ahead, Democrats would do well to focus on economic issues that serve America’s working class, the material concerns where Trump is roundly failing Americans — which in no way requires throwing trans people and minority rights under the bus.
In reality, it’s quite the opposite: Democrats simply need to push a consistent platform of health care and dignity for all, while refusing to let far-right fearmongering frame the debate. They must start now, using every possible tool at their disposal to block Kennedy’s underhanded health care ban — or risk forever being remembered for slinking back to the wrong side of history.
The post Trump Spent 2025 Making Trans Lives Unlivable. It’s Time for Democrats to Defend Them. appeared first on The Intercept.
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As much as I hate not being able to blame liberals for something, they aren’t the ones who dropped the ball on protecting trans people here.
A third of the electorate sat out of the election. 6 million Biden voters decided to not vote for a woman. Here on Lemmy, during the election, the entire website became leftists posting about how they will not under any circumstances vote for Kamala or any democrat as long as the Palestinian Genocide was happening.
Many of us told them the genocide would expand in Palestine under Trump, and many of us told them we would have a trans Genocide within our own country if they did not hold the line.
The far left overwhelmingly chose trans genocide, and is now telling the people they ensured would be removed from power that it is their job to protect trans lives.
Clearly we are all in this together when it comes to protecting trans lives, but we need to be very clear that the far left and their principles did set trans rights back generations.
Fuck Gavin Newsom, he is not our ally he is the WWE character rival to Trump added to the TV show plot to make it more exciting. Beyond that he has zero substance to his beliefs.
