While it may be tempting to put all the blame on Trump or the Republicans or Project 2025 (and they deserve the lionâs share), to do so would be to ignore decades of choices, missed opportunities, and betrayals within the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement that, read together, show how and why transgender people find themselves so vulnerable to political scapegoating and attacks today.
[âŠ]
Jessica Xavierâfounder of the transgender lobbying group Itâs Time, America!âproposed addressing these tensions in relation to conversion therapy by focusing on how the tie that truly binds LGBTQ+ people together is not sexuality but gender variance. âWe talk about gender variance when men take jobs as nurses [and] when men have long hair,â she said, to explain why the pivot away from morality toward gender variance was necessary. If you extend this view, you quickly realize that engaging in same-sex sexual relationships is in itself a defiance of gender norms, much like career and grooming choices. Xavier elaborated her perspective: âIf we frame this as a larger societal pressure that reaches to straight people ⊠If we all realize that weâre fighting the same enemy in different ways, that language has more implications for society: Itâs gender.â Gender and sexuality are impossible to tease apart, and those connections affect everybody who has ever worried that maybe they arenât âman enoughâ or âa good woman.â Attacks on transgender people are toothless in a social world where everybody is freed from strict gender norms. But such freedom also makes it harder to control populations, which might explain why political power grabs usually feature some aspect of suppressing gender expression.
[âŠ]
Over time, focusing on sexuality, relationships, and families headed by same-sex partners meant that gender essentially fell off the âLGBTâ agendaâuntil suddenly it became the rightâs primary target. As a result, transgender people are now vulnerable to political attacks for many reasons, not least of which is the missed opportunity over those many decades to educate the public about gender norms and gender variance. Itâs safe to say that this history might also be why those in power can behave as though the group doesnât have the backing of a critical mass of supporters or influential alliesâbecause of this legacy of negligence by the larger movement, frankly, they donât.
Clearly, the resistance to addressing gender head-on earlier in our history has had a broader impact on how LGBTQ+ politics are understood today. In particular, the failure to center gender and the ideas about masculinity and femininity that affect us all (not just LGBTQ+ people) has meant that coalitions with other groups were over before they began. These include most obviously organizations fighting for reproductive rights and gender equity, as well as others focused on bodily autonomy, such as activists looking to preserve the right to asylum, provide food and shelter to poor and homeless people, and end mass incarceration.
Reproductive rights
Why Are Trans People Such an Easy Political Target? This Crisis Was Decades in the Making.
in SlateLouisiana Indicts New York Abortion Provider, Arrests Mother
Dr. Maggie Carpenter was indicted today on charges of âcriminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs,â a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. If Dr. Carpenterâs name sounds familiar, itâs because she was also recently targeted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
[âŠ]
But Louisiana district attorney Tony Clayton didnât just bring charges against Carpenterâhe also arrested and indicted the patientâs mother, who obtained the pills. Clayton claims the woman coerced her daughter into having an abortion, but as the Louisiana Illuminator points out, âcoerced abortionâ was not cited in the indictment.
[âŠ]
This case really does have precisely what conservatives have been looking forâand everything Iâve warned about since Roe was overturned. I started raising the alarm over anti-abortion messaging around âcoercion,â for example, in 2023. Thatâs when the Charlotte Lozier Institute started to suggest Republicans use âcoercionâ in their policies and cases because âno one is openly in favor of coerced abortions.â The tactic has only grown since.
Similarly, Republicans have been especially eager to restrict teenagersâ access to abortion: Both Tennessee and Idaho passed laws recently that made it a crime to help a teen obtain an abortion in any way. And when three Republican AGs brought their most recent case against the FDA over mifepristone, they focused in on revoking access for teens, out of supposed fear for their âdeveloping reproductive systems.â
Finally, Republican AGs have been on the lookout for a case with an unsympathetic defendant. A mother who coerced her daughter into an abortion is a perfect victim for conservativesâ anti-abortion agenda. (Whether she actually coerced the teen or not.) We also saw this tactic in Idaho, when the state brought its first âabortion traffickingâ charges against a mother and son who had coerced the sonâs girlfriend into an out-of-state abortion.
In short: The Louisiana AG clearly thinks she has found a winner of a case that she can bring to the Supreme Court to target out-of-state abortion providers. And I think if we do a little bit of digging, weâll find that it isnât just Murrill behind this moveâbut a national anti-abortion strategy backed by extremist billionaire dollars.
Biologists Rip Trumpâs 'Non-Sensical' Executive Order Declaring Only 2 Sexes
in HuffPostRepublicans for years have tried to legislate their personal beliefs about life beginning at conception. Theyâve introduced versions of a bill called the Life at Conception Act 13 times since 2011. These efforts have almost certainly influenced the âconceptionâ language in Trumpâs latest executive action.
Dr. Richard Bribiescas, an anthropology professor at Yale University and the president of the Human Biology Association, said the orderâs definitions of âsexâ and âgenderâ ignore all kinds of variations that take place in human development.
âWoman/man, boy/girl are gender identities that do not necessarily align with biological characteristics of sex,â he said in an email. âGenders are components of human variation that are influenced by culture, identity, and many other non-biological factors. To illustrate the difference between sex and gender, we can talk about male/female chimpanzees (our closest evolutionary relative) but it would be non-sensical to discuss chimpanzee women, men, boys or girls.â
Trumpâs definitions of âfemaleâ and âmaleâ are also flawed, said Bribiescas, because he is tying them to something called âanisogamyâ in biology, or the observation that females of some species, including humans, tend to produce larger gametes (the reproductive cells that come from germ cells) compared to males.
Anisogamy is not a universal rule in biology, he said. But Trumpâs executive order defines females as people belonging to the sex that produces âthe large reproductive cellâ and males belonging to the sex that produces âthe small reproductive cell.â
The size of a personâs gametes is âjust one characteristic among many (ie., genetic, hormonal, developmental, physical) that is used to describe sex,â Bribiescas said. âClearly, this order is not fully informed by current biological science.â
"Screws up female brains": MAGA leaders are conditioning Republicans to back birth control bans
in SalonCharlie Kirk, the head of the MAGA propaganda behemoth Turning Point USA, recently unveiled a novel theory as to why young women tend to vote for Democrats. Unwilling to admit that women can think for themselves, Kirk floated the theory that birth control pills cause brain damage.
"Birth control like really screws up female brains," he falsely claimed before a crowd at a recent church event streamed on the far-right site Rumble. Claiming the pill "increases depression, anxiety [and] suicidal ideation," he then blamed women's voting patterns on hormonal contraception. "It creates very angry and bitter young ladies and young women," Kirk argued. "Then that bitterness then manifests into a political party that is the bitter party. I mean, the Democrat Party is all about 'bring us your bitterness and, you know, weâll give you free stuff.'â
[âŠ]
As the Washington Post reported last month, right-wing activists have been flooding social media with the same lies that Kirk was echoing in this video. It's a well-financed disinformation campaign, getting a major boost from MAGA billionaire Peter Thiel, who has aggressively financed teams of messengers to falsely claim that hormonal birth control "tricked our bodies into dysfunction and pain." Doctors report that the tidal wave of misinformation about birth control is creating a health care crisis, including women who "come in for abortions after believing what they see on social media about the dangers of hormonal birth control."
Texas GOP platform calls for ban on same-sex parenting because being gay is âabnormalâ
in LGBTQ NationThis is straight out of the Project 2025 template.
A completed draft Texas Republican Party platform refers to homosexuality as âan abnormal lifestyle choice,â gender-affirming care as âchild abuse,â and Drag Queen Story Hour as âpredatory sexual behavior.â The platform has been voted on by state party delegates and will be formally adopted on Wednesday after a final vote count.
The list of state party priorities calls for an end to legal same-sex marriages, same-sex parenting, all LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination laws, all transgender rights â including gender-affirming care for children and adults â a ban on LGBTQ+ content in schools and libraries, the defunding of all diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and legal protections for anyone who discriminates against queer people based on âreligious or moral beliefs.â
Furthermore, the Texas GOP platform calls for a complete end to all of the following: pornography, federal welfare programs, minimum wage laws, mandatory sick or family leave policies, net neutrality, removal of Confederate monuments, pro-immigrant sanctuary cities, public education of undocumented children, no-fault divorce, non-abstinence sex education, abortion, birthright citizenship, professorial tenure in colleges and universities, cannabis legalization, anti-climate change legislation, contact tracing for the tracking of communicable diseases, federal regulations ensuring safe farm food production, and U.S. participation in the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
British police testing women for abortion drugs
in Tortoise MediaOther reports include requests for âdata related to menstruation tracking applicationsâ as part of the policeâs investigations.
Itâs understood these requests have been taking place for at least the past three years. Dr Jonathan Lord, co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and an NHS consultant gynaecologist, called searching womenâs phones for menstrual data âchilling and deeply intrusiveâ.
âWe already know that police routinely remove phones and computers from women suspected of having an [illegal] abortion and itâs even happening following miscarriage and pregnancy loss,â Lord said. âThis is damaging enough as it leaves women frightened and isolated immediately after suffering a substantial trauma.â
Lord told Tortoise he was aware of cases of blood tests being taken with the womanâs consent by NHS staff at the request of police, including, he said, âwhen women knew they were innocent after suffering an unexpected premature deliveryâ.
Even when the test finds no trace of abortion medication women can continue to remain under suspicion âas a negative test does not exclude earlier use of drugsâ, he said. In that event, he argued, âthe only motivation for testing is entrapmentâ.