u/onnake

“Four transgender children from lower-income families in New Hampshire filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging a new Medicaid rule that will soon block coverage for the gender-affirming medication their doctors view as medically necessary.

“The patients — who are 11, 13, 15, and 15 years old — and their parents are represented by a coalition of advocacy groups. They allege the Trump administration violated their constitutional rights and broke the law by adopting an arbitrary policy for political reasons.

“This lawsuit isn’t the first to dispute the Medicaid rule change, which goes into effect on Oct. 13. A coalition of more than a dozen states, including Massachusetts, filed suit last month, accusing the federal government of illegally usurping state authority in administering the health programs that insure more than 73 million Americans.

“But while many Democrat-led states have explored ways to counteract the impacts of this Medicaid change, there has been no evidence of comparable conversations underway in New Hampshire, where Republicans hold a trifecta in state government, said Chris Erchull, senior staff attorney for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.”

“New Hampshire is the only state in New England that has banned puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The only kids allowed to undergo such gender-affirming treatments in the state are those who began doing so prior to Jan. 1, 2026.”

“The plaintiffs — who are represented by GLAD Law, the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire — are asking the judge to block enforcement, invalidate the final rule in its entirety, and issue a declaratory judgment finding that the rule was “motivated by discriminator animus against transgender individuals” in violation of the US Constitution.”

“A Vancouver punk band that was set to play in Charlottetown this past weekend cancelled its show after a transgender band member was stopped from using the women's washroom at the venue.

“Rougaroux was in Prince Edward Island as part of a cross-country tour and had a show planned at the Sportsman's Club.”

“CBC News spoke with someone who identified themselves as the manager of Sportsman's Club. They didn't provide their name but said the business tries to accommodate transgender people. They said that doesn't include access to washrooms and the venue does not have gender-neutral facilities.”

“Social media posts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — some of them more than a decade old — are a key part of the state’s defense to maintain a law that bars transgender Kansans from having driver’s licenses or using facilities associated with their identity.

“This strategy includes requests by the state to allow for exhibits of social media posts to show the faces of plaintiffs under pseudonyms.”

“Attorney General Kris Kobach is leading the state’s defense with the goal of asserting that the five plaintiffs in the case haven’t faced any harm. One avenue is poking holes at the plaintiffs’ assertions that the law effectively outs their status by bringing up social media posts.

“Kobach’s cross-examination of Dakota West, an intersex woman who previously lived in Reno County, provided a clear example of the strategy.”

“Kobach asked if she’s concerned about being outed as intersex, ‘Why would you post something that’s had 2 million views?’”

“The other four plaintiffs don’t list themselves as public figures as West has. The plaintiffs testified that while their posts identify their status, they choose not to do so in their daily lives at work or school.”

“Three of the five plaintiffs are under pseudonyms. While the court agreed to keep their names private, the state is seeking to reveal their faces.”

“‘Our plaintiffs’ primary harm in this case is being forcibly outed against their will,’ [American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Harper] Seldin said.

“‘This is again a continuation of the state’s campaign to intimidate transgender Kansans who are trying to advocate for their freedoms without incurring the very harms that taking away those freedoms causes them.’”

“The California attorney general will help oversee healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente’s medical arbitration system to ensure it operates fairly under legislation Gov. Gavin Newsom signed late Sunday.

“Patients, their families and lawyers have complained that Kaiser’s private and confidential system of handling medical malpractice complaints is designed to favor the health plan over those bringing the claims.

“Under legislation known as Assembly Bill 1770, the attorney general will decide what actions justice officials should take to ensure private arbitrations required by any health plan are handled fairly and in line with state law.

“To do that work, the state plans to add as many as four deputy attorneys general, a legal analyst and three legal secretaries, according to a legislative analyst’s report.”

“Legislation that impacts or discriminates against transgender and gender-diverse individuals can cause more psychological distress than personal experiences of discrimination, according to new Virginia Commonwealth University research published in the journal APA PsycNet.

“The study also found that individuals with those identities experienced psychological distress from anti-transgender laws even if they lived in a state with legislation that is friendly toward transgender and gender-diverse individuals.”

“Through quantitative data analysis, the researchers found a strong relationship between psychological distress and anti-transgender legislation anxiety, and a moderate relationship between news anxiety and news exposure. The researchers also found that those with less community connectedness and familial support experienced greater psychological distress.

“Notably, the study found that familial support and community support had equally strong relationships to an individual’s level of psychological distress, suggesting that non-familial friendships and connections can be just as strong as familial bonds in supporting a transgender person’s mental wellness.”

“[The researchers] found that many participants had experienced or feared that they would experience difficulty accessing gender-affirming care, or difficulty living openly as a transgender person. Many also noted increasing discrimination and violence associated with the rise in anti-transgender legislation, and an increase in fear for their safety and well-being, regardless of whether they lived in a state with anti-transgender legislation.”

“‘In a lot of ways, our participants who were talking about fear and expressing fear were viewing a lot of the anti-trans legislation as an existential threat,’ [assistant professor of psychology and the study’s lead author Catherine] Wall said. ‘So, a threat to their very existence, threats to their very lives and threats to the lives of all trans people around them.’”

“When a federal appeals court ruled Thursday on the placement of transgender women in Oregon state prisons, the results were not surprising from a panel of judges appointed by President Donald Trump: that the inmates should remain in men’s prisons, reversing a lower-court order allowing them to be transferred.

“What was eye-catching, and perhaps unprecedented, was the way it was written.

“Writing for a three-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Eric Tung referred to transgender prisoners seven times in the 18-page decision, and six times he put ‘transgender’ in quotes, apparently suggesting that he considered the status to be invented.

“Tung made that even clearer in the first sentence of his opinion, when he described Oregon’s ‘more than a hundred “transgender women” prison inmates’ as ‘male inmates who claim to be female.’

“His wording apparently went too far for the state’s lawyers on the winning side of the case.

“While the court ‘agreed with our core legal arguments’ that Oregon carefully evaluates the needs and proper placement of transgender inmates, ‘we strongly disagree with the court’s harmful language,’ said Jenny Hansson, spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office. ‘It does not reflect our brief or our values.’”

“Tung was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch, worked in the Justice Department during Trump’s first presidential term and was practicing business law with a firm in Los Angeles when he was nominated by the president to the San Francisco-based appeals court and confirmed by the Senate last November.

“He was joined in Thursday’s ruling by Judges Daniel Collins and Lawrence VanDyke, both appointed by Trump during his first term. The panel was chosen by random draw on a court with an overall majority of Democratic appointees, and lawyers for the inmates could ask the full appeals court for a new hearing before an 11-judge panel.”

“[John] Burgess, the inmates’ lawyer, said prison officials have refused their requests for housing protection and have put some of them in danger.

“One transgender inmate was placed in a cell with a known gang member and protested to a staff member, who told her the only alternative was an isolation cell, Burgess said in a court filing. Soon afterward, Burgess said, she was raped. The attorney said male officers repeatedly strip-searched another trans inmate in view of male prisoners and staff, ‘while making comments about her genitals.’”

“Protesters hurled invective at one another Friday over transgender athletes in women’s sports near The Sports Bra, a bar dedicated to women’s sports, prompting Portland officers to respond but make no arrests.

“Police said they responded to the 2500 block of Northeast Broadway around 5:45 p.m. Conservative livestreamer Thomas Allen was streaming alongside others at the sidewalk and parking lot across the street from the Sports Bra, where activists had gathered with signs in support of transgender people, before the two groups converged.”

“Friday’s demonstrations came after bar employees earlier this week asked a group to leave the establishment, according to reporting in the Portland Mercury. The patrons were reportedly wearing shirts from XX-XY Athletics, a reference to chromosome pairs amid the debate about transgender athletes in women’s sports. In a statement, the bar said the people declined to “cover their trans-exclusionary messaging, and when asked several times to leave, they resisted.”

“Davis anti-transgender activist and school board candidate Beth Bourne, who drew headlines by disrobing at a 2025 Davis City Council meeting while questioning schools’ transgender policies, faces an October court date on a misdemeanor charge that she violated a court order with social media posts, Davis police said.”

“The case stemmed from a June 21 report to the Davis Police Department alleging that the Yolo County activist had violated the terms of a court order, Lt. John Evans, a Davis police spokesperson, told The Sacramento Bee on Thursday.”

“Yolo prosecutors decided to file the allegation — a misdemeanor charge of willfully failing to obey a court order — and directed Bourne to report to Davis police. She was booked Monday and released, Evans said. Bourne is scheduled to appear Oct. 19 in Yolo Superior Court in Woodland.”

“Bourne, the mother of a nonbinary teen, chairs the Yolo County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a self-described parental rights advocacy group, and is among the state’s most prominent voices opposing transgender rights.”

“Fuming transgender rights activists descended upon East Harlem’s Mount Sinai Hospital Tuesday evening after the medical center announced it would no longer be providing gender-affirming care for youth. 

“According to Sam, a 17-year-old female-to-male transgender boy, access to this kind of medical treatment gave him hope for his life and prevented him from spiraling into a dangerous depression. 

“‘If 12-year-old me didn’t have the hope of one day being able to receive gender affirming care as a youth through Mount Sinai’s gender-affirming care program, I wouldn’t be standing here telling you my story today. Gender-affirming care saves lives, it saved my life,’ Sam said. ‘Please, Mount Sinai, do what’s right and protect trans youth. Please don’t take our lifeline away.’”

“According to several other trans youth members, the hospital had been quietly discontinuing care for young trans individuals for more than a year. The teens say they had been attempting to set up medical appointments since 2015 but instead hit a brick wall of either being ignored outright or promised a callback that never came.”

“Parents also expressed concern for their children’s well-being. Angelica Jadunandan moved to the Big Apple from Florida several years ago and says her daughter came out as trans when she was four years old. Although she said she hoped that her daughter would not need gender affirming care, she said she would do anything to make her happy. 

“‘I was raised in a conservative Christian house. I did not know a lot about transgender people, so I did what I always do. I read, and I bought the books, and I joined the groups. And what I learned was so simple: That trans kids have better outcomes when they are loved and supported,’ Jadunandan said. ‘To Mount Sinai and all of the spineless cowards who have bent the knee to the clowns in charge, the boot you lick today will stomp on you tomorrow.’”

“M. Gessen, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, has written about autocracy in Russia and beyond. But in an August New York Times opinion piece titled ‘What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All,’ they turned their eye to America’s heartland.

“A Kansas law that took effect earlier this year suddenly invalidated the driver’s licenses and birth certificates of transgender people who had changed their gender markers. It also banned people from using public bathrooms that don’t match their sex assigned at birth — and lets people sue others they believe are violating the law.

“Gessen detailed how these changes have sown confusion and fear among transgender residents, and upended many of their lives. Many transgender people in Kansas are now apprehensive about an everyday activity like using the bathroom, like Lawrence resident Siobhan Kirchstein, who was reported to state authoritiesfor using the women’s bathroom at work and could face fines or a lawsuit.”

“Gessen likens the current situation in Kansas to Nazi Germany, when Jews were required to add a middle name to their documents to identify that they were Jewish: Israel for men and Sara for women.”

“‘The purpose of that was so that anybody who saw your ID would immediately know that you were Jewish. It’s kind of the precursor to the yellow star,’ Gessen told KCUR’s Kansas City Today. ‘Focusing on people's driver's licenses and either taking them away, which basically makes it impossible to live in Kansas, or forcing people essentially to come out to anybody who sees their driver's license — routine traffic stop, a building with security, buying alcohol, picking up your kids from school — you have this gender marker that's discordant with the way that you present, and that reminded me of that Nazi move.’”

“The military is searching protected medical records to find transgender troops who have tried to continue serving amid the Trump administration’s ban on trans Americans in uniform, multiple sources tell Federal News Network.

“Commanders around the world have started receiving notices that members of their units are violating Pentagon policy, and are being instructed to begin the separation process. The sweep is believed to have outed several hundred active-duty and reserve troops, including service academy and Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets, over the past two months, according to the trans advocacy nonprofit SPARTA Pride and Priya Rashid, an attorney with the National Institute of Military Justice.

“The Pentagon is moving to separate troops as multiple lawsuits challenging the ban move through the federal court system. In August, the administration petitioned the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether the policy is unconstitutional before a key case goes to trial in January.

“The situation has spurred a military-wide scramble to cover the work of troops placed on leave, connect them with legal help and, in some cases, find money and lodging for those facing homelessness.”

“Five sources, including two transgender service members facing separation after their gender dysphoria-related diagnoses were flagged to their commands, described what they called a “witch hunt” for honorably serving troops. Three were granted anonymity because they fear retaliation. 

“Documents obtained by Federal News Network indicate that, in some cases, the information is coming from the Pentagon’s highest echelon.”

“Rob Stein had been interim school superintendent in Jefferson County, Colo., for 22 days when he sued the Trump administration this summer over demands to change their transgender-inclusive policies.

“Dr. Stein and other district officials say they had no choice. The cash-strapped district, Jeffco Public Schools, risked losing all $50 million of its federal funding for school meals and special education if they refused. But if they acquiesced, they concluded, they would violate state laws that protect transgender students from discrimination.

“‘This has been just an enormous distraction,’ Dr. Stein said in an interview from the district’s foothill-framed headquarters. ‘It has added a lot of stress to the system and to the kids who are being targeted here.’

“What the district cast as a practical decision is viewed as a rare counterstrike from public schools, universities and hospitals in support of a transgender rights movement that has been on its heels under President Trump after a decade of hard-fought successes in school board rooms and courts.”

Rush tickets yesterday showed light blue on the orchestra-level map but that color was not in the legend (all the other colors were).
 
Tapping on a light-blue seat invoked an empty frame where the row, seat number, price would be. Gray is seat unavailable, tapping on one has no result.
 
The light-blue seats were scattered in ones and groups of twos, threes, fours in generally the better parts of the orchestra.
 
Guessing light blue indicates seats unavailable for a different reason. Under what price/offering I’d like to know. I might want to pay that for a seat.

Phoned the box office yesterday, they were as mystified as me.

Anyone else run into this?

“Possible clues to how six children, from 1 to 9 years old, ended up alone, hungry and barely clothed in a decrepit East Baltimore house this week emerge from a trail of evictions and a city housing program that Mayor Brandon Scott says failed to provide required oversight.

“Four months before police found the children Monday in the house without electricity, or readily available food or drinking water, Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development had helped their mother, Teonna Monae Brown, move the family there through a crisis assistance program.

“Brown, 34, had recently been evicted from another East Baltimore house — her second eviction in little more than a year, court records show.

“Court records also show Brown was convicted in a notorious attack 15 years ago on a transgender woman at a Rosedale McDonald’s.

“In the 2011 case, Brown, then 19, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and a hate crime in the beating of Chrissy Lee Polis, 22. Video of the attack went viral and drew national attention. Brown was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five years suspended, plus three years of supervised probation.”

“The Minnesota Supreme Court recently held oral arguments in the case of a transgender librarian who was allegedly not rehired because she let her employer know that she was transitioning. The court will weigh religious autonomy doctrine and assertion of civil rights violation in this case.

“Reyzl MoChridhe, a Jewish, transgender woman, was hired as a media specialist/librarian at the Academy of Holy Angels, a Catholic school in Richfield, for the 2021–22 school year. In her job, she focused on administering the library, promoting information literacy, and supporting the school’s educational mission.

“In March 2022, employees were asked whether they intended to return the following year. MoChridhe met with the principal, expressed interest in returning, and was told the school wanted her back. She then disclosed that she had come out as transgender and was beginning her transition. The principal responded that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis would not support her transition and that she could not remain employed if she lived as a woman.”

“Before the Minnesota Supreme Court is [the] question of church autonomy doctrine, also known as ecclesiastical abstention doctrine. The court will decide whether religious employers can invoke this doctrine when an employee working in a secular role is asserting a state civil rights’ violation.”

“‘The Court of Appeals left no room to balance protections for religious liberty with Minnesota’s compelling interest in eradicating discrimination,’ argued Greta Wiessner, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice. ‘If it were, then a religious institution could invoke its beliefs about race to fire a maintenance worker who enters an interracial marriage, fire a cafeteria worker who’s leaving an abusive marriage because of beliefs about divorce, or evade mandatory reporting laws because the church’s religious beliefs require child victims to forgive their abusers.’”

“Sion Jewell was packing the car to drive to their top surgery when they got a call from Welsh Gender Services with news so shocking their partner thought it was a joke. The surgery they had waited five years for was cancelled.”

“‘I did everything that was asked of me,’ continues the 29-year-old, referring to five years of personalised mental health treatment, handling previous postponements, and getting a formal diagnosis of ‘non-binary and transgenderism’. ‘I did it, and then to be cancelled 24 hours before I was supposed to be in surgery. Right now, I’m angry more than anything. Had enough crying. I’ve cried enough in the last five days.’

“Jewell is one of hundreds of patients and their loved ones left blindsided when the Welsh Gender Service (WGS) was told to pause all gender-affirming surgery referrals for people aged 18 and over and all scheduled surgeries set to take place on or after August 28. While the phrasing used by the WGS and the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (NWJCC) is that referrals and surgeries are ‘paused’, Jewell tells Dazed that the language used for their surgery was ‘cancelled. Not postponed, straight up cancelled.’”

“This review was initiated due to the work of one investigative journalist, Nick Wallis, whose review of FOI data from the Welsh Gender Service reportedly shows that the clinic had referred adult patients at “‘three to four times other UK clinics,’according to his publication, Gender Blog.”

“Shash, a trans activist and co-founder of Trans Aid Cymru, tells Dazed that the reason why these numbers are ‘out of whack’ is because ‘Wales just seems to be better at doing their job than the English gender service.’

“The average wait time from referral to gender-affirming surgery in Wales is two years compared to five years and seven months in England.

“‘[Even in Wales] these surgeries happen at such a snail’s pace,’ says Shash.

“‘The process is, you get referred to the Welsh Gender Service, and then after months of being on HRT, you finally go back and they say, ‘OK, you can be approved for surgery’, and they give you your first sign-off.

“‘Then you have to see another psychiatrist outside the Welsh Gender Service… which could be months because that is also a waiting list, and then after that sign off, only then do you get referred to a surgeon [in England]. And then once you reach that surgeon’s waiting list you get the pre-assessment, then you wait for the next time they can actually book the [surgery]. It’s years of waiting, years of assessments for it to then suddenly be paused.’”

“When our gender aligns with the sex listed on our birth certificate, it’s rarely ever questioned. Instead, it’s treated as a biological reality.

“However, when it comes to trans people, an alternate explanation is frequently floated: that trans identities and gender diversity are the result of environmental influences, such as social trendsor peer pressure.

“This framing treats a trans identity as a choice that can – and, implicitly, should – be unlearned.”

“Our study of twins challenges this idea and shows the likelihood of being trans is influenced by your genes.”

“Twin studies are a powerful tool in research. Identical twins share 100% of their genes, whereas non-identical twins share 50% on average – the same as non-twin siblings.”

“If genes are involved, we expect identical twins to share traits (for example, both identifying as trans) more often than non-identical twins, simply due to their higher degree of genetic similarity.”

“Our research examined data from 463 twin pairs where at least one was trans – the most comprehensive analysis on this topic to date.

“After determining whether twin pairs were identical or non-identical, we measured how often both twins were trans, compared to instances where only one was trans.

“Our results showed that among identical twins, if one was trans, the likelihood that the other was also trans was 21.2%.

“For non-identical twins, this rate was significantly lower, at 8.7% – though this was still well above the 1–2% prevalence of trans identities in the general population.

“It’s also important to highlight another finding in our data – that most twin pairs, even among those who are identical, are not both trans.”

“Almost all human traits, such as personality characteristics, height, and sexuality, are shaped by both genetic and environmental factors.

“It’s likely that gender identity is the same.”

“Two men charged in connection with an alleged attack on a transgender woman at UW-Madison’s Memorial Union appeared in court Tuesday, where Dane County Court Commissioner Brian Asmus set cash bonds of $75,000 and $100,000.

“Yorfred Marcano Gutierrez and Arturo Santos Albujas each face charges of attempted second-degree sexual assault as a party to a crime, strangulation and suffocation as a party to a crime, false imprisonment as a party to a crime and misdemeanor battery.”

“The victim is transgender and told investigators she believed that was why she was attacked. The complaint does not say the defendants explicitly told her that was their motive.”

“Prosecutors asked for $100,000 cash bond for each defendant.

“In Marcano Gutierrez’s hearing, the state described the allegations as especially serious.

“‘And there’s additional allegations that it wasn’t just an attempted sexual assault, but also a strangulation, effectively a battery, a beating to try and accomplish the goal. The victim in this case had visible injuries and had to be treated at the hospital.’”

“If either man posts bond, both are subject to GPS and alcohol monitoring and are prohibited from contacting the victim or each other. They are also barred from UW-Madison property and the State Street and Langdon Street area.

“Both men are scheduled for preliminary hearings Sept. 8 at 2:30 p.m.”