Texas Senate Bill 14, scheduled to take effect Sept. 1, prohibits health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care to minors for the purpose of “transitioning a child’s biological sex” or affirming a child’s perception of their own sex “if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex.” Biological sex under the law is determined by an individual’s “sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles.”

Specifically, the state’s ban bars physicians and other medical professionals from “knowingly” providing a range of medical treatments used to treat gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries, to minor patients. The provision of those same treatments, however, is still permitted to treat other medical diagnoses, such as precocious puberty.

The new law also subjects providers who violate it to a range of penalties, including the revocation of their medical licenses or “other authorization to practice medicine,” and it strips state funding from any “entity, organization, or individual that provides or facilitates” gender-affirming health care to transgender youths.

The state attorney general under the law is permitted to take certain legal action against an individual if there is “reason to believe that person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit” a violation of the measure.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in June, making Texas the largest state in the nation to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths. In all, 20 states have passed laws restricting access to transgender health care.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Travis County District Court in Texas, parents of transgender children and teenagers between the ages of 9 and 16 argued that enforcing the law would cause “probable, imminent, and irreparable injuries” to their families.

“Because my daughter might need puberty blockers in the next few months, I am temporarily relocating out of state with her and my other child. Her father will stay behind to continue working in Texas,” said Mary Moe, a plaintiff and the mother of Maeve Moe, a 9-year-old transgender girl. “We all intend to return and reunite in our home once it is safe for Maeve to receive this care in the state.”

“I am heartbroken to have to take my children away from their home and their father, even temporarily,” she added. “But I know that Texas is not a safe place for my daughter if this law forbids her access to this care.”

Nathan Noe, a 16-year-old transgender boy and another plaintiff in the lawsuit, said Thursday that, as a young child, “the idea of growing up as a woman felt so indescribably and inexplicably wrong.”

“I was constantly unhappy,” he said. “Being on testosterone has tremendously improved all aspects of my life. I am now able to focus on all of the positives of my life and experience my teenage years to the fullest. I am able to socialize and balance schoolwork without thinking about my gender all the time.”

“I love Texas,” Noe said Thursday in a statement. “This is my community. This is where my family lives. This is the place I grew up and I do not want to leave it because my government has decided to attack people like me.”

Additional plaintiffs in Wednesday’s lawsuit include three medical professionals and two LGBTQ organizations that represent hundreds of families and health professionals across the state. They are represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Texas, the Transgender Law Center and the law firms Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, LLP.

Defendants include the Texas Medical Board and Health and Human Services Commission, as well as John Scott, the state’s acting attorney general. Scott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a Zoom hearing Wednesday, the Department of Revenue failed to convince District Judge Teresa Watson that she should lift the ban she put in place Monday on changes to people’s listed sex on their licenses. The order expires July 24, but Watson is likely to hold another hearing to determine whether to extend the ban.

Nearly 200 transgender people in Kansas recently changed the sex listed on their license in anticipation of a new law, which took effect July 1 and rolled back some LGBTQ rights in the state. The new law does not mention driver’s licenses specifically, but it mandates that a person’s sex be defined as either male or female and that it be based on one’s “biological reproductive system” identified at birth. 

The month of June saw changes to the listed sex for 172 licenses — a third of all changes made in the past four years, when the practice was permitted. Watson cited this spike in changes as key evidence in her decision, saying, “the immediacy is supported by information” provided by the department.

“Licenses are used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, crime victims, wanted persons, missing persons and others,” she wrote. “Compliance with legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern.”

The order comes as part of a lawsuit filed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R), who sued two officials in Gov. Laura Kelly’s (D) administration for what he argued were violations of the new law that went into effect July 1. Ahead of that date, Kelly’s administration had pledged it would continue allowing license changes at Kansas’s motor vehicles division, which is housed in the Department of Revenue. 

Kobach argued the practice violated the new law, which he viewed as prohibiting any new changes and reversing any previous ones made to people’s official sex listed on licenses. 

Attorneys at Kelly’s Department of Revenue made the case that the new law is in direct conflict with a previous law, which requires people to list their gender, not sex identified at birth, when applying for licenses. Ted Smith, a department attorney, reportedly told Watson that the agency is bound by the previous law that relates more specifically to driver’s licenses, rather than “the attorney general’s legal theory.”

In her decision Wednesday, Watson indicated the new law applies to state laws and regulation. Watson has yet to hear from transgender people about how the new law affects them. Five trans Kansas residents have asked to intervene in the lawsuit, but Watson reportedly has not yet ruled on that request. 

With the recent ban, Kansas became one of the few states not to allow trans individuals to change the sex listed on their driver's licenses. Montana and Tennessee prohibit changes to driver’s licenses, while Oklahoma restricts changing birth certificates. 

The order comes as part of a lawsuit filed three days earlier by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R), who sued two members of the Democratic administration for what he claimed were violations of a new law that took effect July 1. 

The new law mandates that a person’s sex be defined as male or female and that it be based on the “biological reproductive system” identified at birth. The state would be required to use these designations when enforcing any law or regulation.

Ahead of July 1, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) announced that Kansas’s motor vehicles division, which is housed in the Department of Revenue, would continue allowing changes to driver's licenses so that trans people’s gender identities can match what is listed on their licenses. 

Kobach argued that that practice would violate the new law, which he saw as prohibiting sex changes listed on licenses and reversing previous changes to licenses made. Kelly’s office said that attorneys at the parent department do not agree with Kobach’s assessment and that the governor’s office was working on a response to the judge’s order.

District Judge Teresa Watson’s order will be in effect for two weeks, but she can then extend the order.

In the order, she said changes to licenses can cause “immediate and irreparable injury” to law enforcement efforts, since driver's licenses are often used to identify criminals. 

“Licenses are used by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, crime victims, wanted persons, missing persons and others,” Watson wrote. “Compliance with state legal requirements for identifying license holders is a public safety concern."

In the last four years while the practice was permitted, 400 Kansans chose to change the sex listed on their licenses, the Associated Press (AP) reported. This year, however, ahead of the law taking effect, four times the monthly number of people have changed their sexes, as advocacy groups warned that it was likely to be more difficult after July 1. 

While laws targeting trans people have been on the rise in states around the country, most states still allow trans people to change their sex on their driver's licenses or birth certificates to be consistent with their gender identities.

The AP reported that Montana and Tennessee have policies against changing those documents, and Oklahoma restricts changing birth certificates. 

- The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

LGBTQ Republicans say they feel misled by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) after the GOP presidential hopeful’s “war room” shared a bizarre video widely seen as inflammatory.

The video bashed former President Donald Trump’s (R) support for the LGBTQ community and leaned into conservative state policies passed under DeSantis this year that were criticized as anti-LGBTQ.

LGBTQ conservatives, reacting to the video, said DeSantis had shown his true colors as an “anti-LGBT champion,” undermining his arguments that his support for the policies were about protecting children and parents’ rights.

“It's like he’s going mask off,” said Brad Polumbo, a Michigan-based libertarian journalist. “The cat’s out of the bag.”

Polumbo said he’d have considered voting for DeSantis at one time.

“I’m somebody who has my fair share of policy disagreements with DeSantis, but I was considering voting for him in the primary before he entered the race officially,” he said. “Since then, he's done thing after thing that really makes me increasingly write off that possibility.”

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has endorsed Trump for president but vocally supported Florida’s “Don't Say Gay” bill on the campaign trail last year, said that in light of Friday’s video, he now feels that he was “used” and misled by DeSantis.

“I used to think he was a great governor,” Santos, the first non-incumbent gay Republican elected to Congress, said of DeSantis. “Now, I'm starting to think differently.”

The video shared Friday — the last day of LGBTQ Pride Month — by the “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account features footage of Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2016 saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”

Trump’s remarks were made in response to a mass shooting that had occurred just weeks earlier at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that was at the time the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It remains the deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQ people in the nation’s history.

The video, originally posted by @ProudElephantUS, a pro-DeSantis Twitter account, also features old clips of Trump saying he would be OK with transgender women competing in the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned when he made the comments in 2012, and would be comfortable with Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete who came out as transgender in 2015, using the restroom of her choice at Trump Tower.

The video then cuts to images of DeSantis overlaid with headlines that the Florida governor signed “the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history” and a “draconian anti-trans bathroom bill.”

The ad also features images of shirtless men and several celebrities, including actor Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in the film “American Psycho,” about a young investment banker who leads a double life as a gruesome serial killer.

DeSantis, like other conservatives who have championed similar policies, has defended his signature on legislation to remove lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity from Florida classrooms and ban transgender women and girls from female sports and restrooms by invoking the protection of children and women’s spaces.

But Friday’s video left some on the right, including Polumbo, wondering if that’s true.

“It’s all about how you frame it,” Polumbo, who is openly gay, said of policies that may be viewed as anti-LGBTQ.

On the one hand, he said, conservative lawmakers may argue that, by supporting policies like Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill — known to its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill for its heavy restrictions on talk of LGBTQ identities in public school classrooms — they are merely working to protect children from being exposed to inappropriate materials at school.

On the other hand, more extreme Republicans may say they endorse such policies because they do not believe in or support LGBTQ people.

“I thought at first he was doing the former,” Polumbo said of DeSantis, “but ads like this make me think he’s the latter.”

Santos, the New York Republican who backed the “Don’t say gay” legislation, also suggested his opinion of DeSantis had turned because of the video.

“I still stand by the bill in its nature, but now it seems that it had a more perverse agenda behind it,” he said, later adding that “I'm starting to see [DeSantis] for what he is. His rhetoric is to diminish and remove rights away from people like myself, and I can't support that.”

Yvonne Dean-Bailey, a former Republican state legislator from New Hampshire, said her plans to back DeSantis as the GOP nominee in 2024 were dashed by Friday’s video, which she said solidified her already-waning support for the Florida governor’s campaign.

“This was the final nail in the coffin,” said Dean-Bailey. “At this point, I can't see myself voting for DeSantis.” She said she is likely to vote for a third-party candidate in 2024.

Dean-Bailey, who is openly gay, said she was initially drawn to DeSantis’s candidacy by his criticism of pandemic-era lockdowns and mask mandates and his plans for the economy.

“He really set himself apart as like, this future of the Republican Party,” she said. “This is somebody who can really kind of cross the political divide and work on those issues that are important.”

“He’s since led this conversation on the culture war that is so unattractive to me,” Dean-Bailey added. “I don't even want to call myself a conservative anymore. I don't identify with these people.”

If the intent of Friday’s video was to make Trump seem less palatable to Republicans, it very likely backfired, said Jennifer Williams, a Republican who in January became the first transgender woman elected to a municipal council in New Jersey.

“Ultimately, it's going to help a lot of moderate Republicans,” said Williams, who added that she personally did not feel misled by the DeSantis video.

Williams added that she’s been disappointed by the extreme and harmful rhetoric surrounding LGBTQ issues — and transgender issues, in particular — coming from DeSantis and other GOP 2024 frontrunners, including Trump.

“I never would have expected that going into 2024 transgender people, in particular transgender women, would be a more important issue than defeating China on the world stage … or fulfilling all the many promises that were made at the beginning of COVID.”

“None of those are major issues they’re discussing,” Williams added. “They're worried about what's in someone's pants, and how someone wants to be happy in their life. And I have to ask, how American is that? And how Republican is that?”

This story was updated at 10:06 a.m.

Rachel Levine remained optimistic about the LGBTQ+ community’s future in the U.S. at an event about health inequity.

During Thursday’s event, hosted by The Washington Post, associate editor Jonathan Capehart and the nation's assistant secretary for health discussed the recent slew of bills in state legislatures that target the LGBTQ+ community.

These bills aimed to ban gender-affirming care, restrict drag performances and encourage the misgendering of children, among other measures.

As the highest ranking government official who is openly transgender, Levine said anti-LGBTQ+ bills create obstacles to achieving health equity.

“These politically and ideologically motivated laws and actions are harming youth, particularly transgender youth, their families, and even their providers who are under siege in many parts of the country,” Levine said to Capehart.

But she asserted her belief that anti-LGBTQ+ legislation will not be the final word on the current discourse.

“I think that these laws and actions will not stand,” Levine said.

In May, The Human Rights Campaign reported that more than 520 such bills have been introduced across the nation, and 70 of them were signed into law.

“It’s not where the government belongs,” Levine added.

Notably, Levine did not seem to be discouraged by this rising political movement. Reflecting on Pride month, she saw this year’s celebration as a step in the direction of transforming the narrative around LGBTQ+ people.

“I think things are changing,” Levine said, referring to the public discourse around the topic. “I think that since Transgender Day of Visibility and, now, the momentum we’ve developed at Pride, I think that the conversation is changing.”

As June came to an end, she said she believed the country will continue to have these discussions and, by doing so, move past this tumultuous time for the community.

“We should have pride all summer,” Levine said, encouraging the public to keep the LGBTQ+ conversation going.

Levine cited her experience meeting individuals affected by the anti-gay and trans laws as a reason for her positive outlook.

“At the same time, I see these young people and their families. And I meet their doctors who are having such struggles,” Levine said when Capehart asked about her optimism. “But I sense a positive change that I think is going to continue, despite the challenges that we face.”

She also praised the Biden administration’s leadership for showing support of the LGBTQ+ community, and the initiatives in states and municipalities for “changing hearts and minds.”

The ruling, which states that Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates Smith’s First Amendment rights by requiring her to create wedding websites for same-sex couples – unions she believes to be “false” – leaves a question mark for the future of LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections in the U.S.

It’s not clear how exactly Friday’s ruling will impact the rights of LGBTQ Americans moving forward, but LGBTQ activists and legal scholars have some ideas.

“This is a disappointing decision that invites further discrimination against the LGBTQ community,” said Janson Wu, the executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), a nonprofit legal rights group. “It’s also highly fact-specific and authorizes only a narrow exception to Colorado's nondiscrimination law.”

That means the ruling, which is now binding precedent, does not apply to other businesses or other sections of Colorado’s nondiscrimination law. It also doesn’t automatically weaken anti-discrimination laws or statutes in other states, although the ruling is likely to be cited in future cases challenging them on similar grounds.

“Whether you’re an LGBT graphic designer, a Jewish calligrapher, an Atheist speechwriter, or a pro-life photographer, the government shouldn’t force any of us to say something we don’t believe,” Smith said Friday in a statement released by her attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization.

The group’s President, CEO and general counsel, Kristen Waggoner, who argued before the court on behalf of Smith and 303 Creative, on Friday said the court in siding with Smith reiterated that it is “unconstitutional for the state to eliminate from the public square ideas it dislikes, including the belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife.”

“Disagreement isn’t discrimination, and the government can’t mislabel speech as discrimination to censor it,” she said.

In 27 states and Washington, D.C., public accommodations laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state-level policies impacting LGBTQ people. One state – Wisconsin – prohibits discrimination based only on sexual orientation.

“We have no doubt that our opponents will try to use this decision to justify discrimination in other contexts that are very different from the 303 Creative case,” said Wu. "We expect to see a flood of litigation in the coming years seeking to apply the holding of this case where it should not apply, given the very specific facts upon which this decision is based.”

But while it’s expected that others will use the case to bolster their own arguments against nondiscrimination protections, “we believe, going forward, our opponents will have a high hurdle in court to prove that their business is similar to the very specific, original content that 303 Creative creates,” Wu said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch on Friday noted the narrow scope of the case, writing in Friday’s decision that “there are no doubt innumerable goods and services that no one could argue implicate the First Amendment.” The government also has a “compelling interest” in eliminating discrimination in places of public accommodation, he wrote.

But Gorsuch and the court’s conservative majority, by siding with Smith, effectively weakened the state of Colorado’s ability to do just that, according to Sarah Warbelow, the legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights group.

“The state can no longer as robustly enforce its nondiscrimination laws as it once could,” Warbelow said, “and while these exemptions are narrow, they do exist.”

Still, Warbelow said, “there’s no reason to believe that Justice Gorsuch wants to see widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people.”

“The court, despite the fact that I believe the ruling is incorrect and not an appropriate interpretation of the Constitution, does at least sort of contemplate that there is an intentional narrowness to the decision that shouldn't be applied broadly,” she said.

“Justice Gorsuch makes clear that there is nothing stopping states from adopting nondiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people,” Warbelow added, “but we also know that there are organizations that want to undermine all nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ folks, and they’re gonna continue to bring litigation in an effort to use this decision to justify more and more discrimination against LGBTQ people.”

Some, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a biting dissent on Friday, have warned that the Supreme Court’s decision to protect Smith’s and 303 Creative’s right to refuse services to LGBTQ couples won’t just impact LGBTQ people, and could very well open the door for discrimination against other protected groups.

“It’s hard to see, based on the logic of that decision, how that same company couldn’t also, for instance, refuse to do a wedding website for an interfaith couple if they disagreed with interfaith marriages,” said Praveen Fernandes, vice president for the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive legal think tank in Washington. Religion is also protected under Colorado’s public accommodations statute.

“The court's decision by its logic extends an exception, potentially, to individuals who are protected by other parts of that statute – who are protected classes,” Fernandes said.

That said, just because a business is permitted to discriminate against a certain group of people, doesn’t mean that it will, Fernandes said, and most American adults support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people.

“Companies that choose to have discriminatory policies will still have to grapple with the societal progress that we've made in accepting the LGBTQ population and the very real reality that the public might reject providers that want to discriminate against our friends, or neighbors or family members,” he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent in the 303 Creative case before the Supreme Court, a ruling issued Friday.

"Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. The Supreme Court of the United States declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. The Court does so for the first time in its history," she wrote.

Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined in the dissent.

Read the full dissent here:

The Supreme Court on Friday decided 6-3 in favor of a web designer in Colorado who wanted to have the choice to not design websites for clients "celebrating marriage she does not endorse."

The court on Friday found that the state’s anti-discrimination law violates Lorie Smith’s free speech rights under the First Amendment by demanding that she create same-sex wedding websites if she wants to do so for opposite-sex unions.

Read the decision here:

Today, 20 states and counting have passed laws that heavily restrict or ban gender-affirming medical care, including 17 that have done so this year. Most of these laws regulate the administration of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to transgender minors, but measures adopted in some states, including Florida and Missouri, threaten to limit access to care for adults, too.

More than 132,000 — or 44 percent — of the nation’s transgender 13- to 17-year-olds now live in a state that has banned gender-affirming care for youth or is at risk of doing so, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ rights group.

Faced with an onslaught of legislation targeting health care that is considered medically necessary by major medical organizations, LGBTQ and health advocates wonder whether the administration has done enough to make good on its promises to the community.

“I think a lot of us would really like to see the administration doing more, acknowledging that it's hard,” said Kellan Baker, the executive director of Whitman-Walker Health in Washington, D.C., a health center specializing in LGBTQ care.

Baker acknowledged that several policies enacted under the Biden administration have been integral to advancing and protecting LGBTQ rights — and transgender rights, in particular. But additional health care protections are still needed.

That includes a long-awaited update to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) nondiscrimination clause, known as Section 1557, he said.

The final rule would broaden the law’s definition of sex discrimination to include discrimination that is based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It would also prohibit categorical bans on gender-affirming health care.

“It can’t come soon enough,” Baker said of the rule, which has been in the works for roughly a year.

A spokesperson for HHS said in an email the department is continuing to work on the rule but did not indicate when it might be finalized.

“HHS is committed to protecting access to health care for all, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, and will continue to advance and protect access to care,” the spokesperson said.

Sean Cahill, the director of health policy research at The Fenway Institute, an LGBTQ health care center in Boston, said although the increasing number of state laws restricting transgender health care is “extremely unfortunate,” there is only so much the administration can do to step in.

“I don't blame President Biden,” he said. “I blame the people who are promoting those laws and the governors who sign those laws.”

Cahill added that the LGBTQ and health care communities have welcomed actions taken by the Department of Justice over the past year to challenge gender-affirming health care bans in court.

The department in April, for instance, filed a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on care for minors, arguing the law “denies necessary medical care to youth based solely on who they are.”

In May, Justice Department officials submitted a statement of interest in a case challenging a similar law in Kentucky, advising the court that “by denying transgender minors — and only transgender minors — access to medically necessary and appropriate care, SB 150 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Like Cahill, Baker commended the Justice Department’s involvement in cases against transgender health care bans but said there “should be more full-throated condemnation, from the highest levels of the Department of Justice, that this is an abuse of the law.”

“It is a weaponization of the arms of the state, and it needs to stop,” he said.

More than 490 bills targeting LGBTQ rights have been introduced in 44 states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). At least 77 have become law, most of them targeting transgender young people.

One lawmaker introduced a resolution last month to recognize and celebrate diverse family units as a way to push back against some of the anti-LGBTQ proposals.

Still, the pathway to full equality is steep.

House Republicans passed the nation’s first federal ban on transgender athletes this year, in addition to legislation that would require parents to be notified if their child is sharing a school restroom or changing room with a student who is transgender.

Bills to restrict access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youths and adults have also been introduced

None of those bills has progressed in the Democratic-controlled Senate, underscoring the stakes for the 2024 Senate elections.

Here are five lawmakers to watch in the fight for LGBTQ equality.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.)

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) speaks June 6 during a Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs hearing at the Capitol. (Tierney L. Cross)

Garcia — the first LGBTQ immigrant elected to Congress — was labeled “America’s gayest congressman” by The Advocate this month, a title he whole-heartedly endorses.

“I can confirm that’s a hundred percent true,” he told The Hill this week.

The first-year lawmaker has emerged as a leading proponent of LGBTQ rights on Capitol Hill, co-sponsoring several pieces of legislation to advance LGBTQ equality.

Garcia last month introduced a resolution to formally recognize and celebrate diverse family units — including LGBTQ families and families who adopt — after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested non-biological parents are not legitimate parents.

And on the House floor this month, Garcia honored “American phenomenon” and drag queen RuPaul Charles, part of a pledge to protect drag performers amid rising pushback from GOP leaders.

“I think for me — you have the first LGBTQ+ immigrant ever elected — I think that, you know, gives me a unique perspective. I certainly think representation is important and so, being like a strong voice … is a responsibility that I take very seriously,” Garcia said.

One of his more well-known legislative efforts was a push to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), another openly gay lawmaker who has come under controversy for questions about his background and finances.

Garcia led a group of LGBTQ first-term lawmakers in introducing a resolution to expel Santos in February, noting the New York Republican’s controversial claim that he “lost four employees” in the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. The House ultimately voted to refer the resolution to the Ethics Committee.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks during a House Progressive Caucus press conference on the threat of defaulting at the Capitol on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. (Tierney L. Cross)

A co-chairwoman of the Congressional Equality Caucus’s Transgender Equality Task Force, Jayapal has fought to protect and advance the rights of transgender Americans since her election to the House in 2017.

Jayapal in March, on the International Day of Transgender Visibility, reintroduced the Transgender Bill of Rights, a sweeping resolution that would strengthen civil rights protections for transgender and nonbinary people in the U.S.

Transgender equality is perhaps more personal to Jayapal than most: Her daughter, Kashika, is transgender. Jayapal shared her daughter’s identity publicly during a 2019 House hearing on the Equality Act, a bill that would add LGBTQ people to federal nondiscrimination laws.

“My beautiful, now 22-year-old child told me last year that they were gender nonconforming,” she said at the time. “The only thought I wake up with every day is: My child is free. My child is free to be who they are, and in that freedom comes a responsibility for us as legislators to protect that freedom.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) addresses reporters during a press conference on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. (Annabelle Gordon)

Baldwin made history when she was elected to the Senate in 2012, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the upper chamber. She’s been chipping away at glass ceilings since 1999, when she became the first openly gay woman elected to the House.

In 2008, Baldwin co-founded the Equality Caucus, then the LGBT Equality Caucus, with former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay. It was the nation’s first congressional caucus dedicated solely to advancing LGBTQ rights.

More recently, Baldwin helped shepherd the Respect for Marriage Act through the last Congress’s 50-50 Senate.

Baldwin has also been a strong advocate for transgender equality in Congress.

In March, she joined 23 Senate Democrats in introducing a resolution to celebrate the International Day of Transgender Visibility and recognize the achievements and contributions of transgender people worldwide. This month, she reintroduced the LGBTQ+ Data Inclusion Act, which calls for federal mental health surveys to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to improve resources and services available to LGBTQ people.

“Our government works best when it reflects the people we serve. In order to create inclusive, fair policies that help all people lead healthy, safe, and successful lives, we must have diverse voices at the decision-making table,” Baldwin told The Hill in a statement.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.)

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) addresses reporters during a press conference on Wednesday, August 10, 2022. (Greg Nash)

Takano, who is one of 12 openly LGBTQ members of Congress, in 2012 became the first out gay person of color elected to Congress and the first openly LGBTQ lawmaker of Asian descent.

He’s used his platform to elevate LGBTQ voices and issues at home and abroad.

In March, Takano challenged a provision of the House Republican Parents Bill of Rights that requires teachers to obtain permission from parents before referring to a student by a different name or pronouns, warning that the measure would disproportionately impact transgender and nonbinary students. It could also put LGBTQ kids in danger of being forcibly outed to unsupportive families, he argued.

“This bill forces good teachers to do bad things,” Takano, a former high school teacher, said on the House floor in March. “It is a fundamental invasion of privacy that puts children in danger.”

Takano earlier this month reintroduced the Equality Act, which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.)

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) is seen during the first day of the 118th session of Congress on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. (Greg Nash)

For Jacobs, defending transgender rights on Capitol Hill is essential to the fight for LGBTQ rights. It is a lesson she learned from her two siblings, who are transgender and gender-nonconforming.

“Eventually, my siblings pulled me aside and they were like, ‘Look, we don’t always want to have to be the ones explaining ourselves. We want you to use your position to educate people so that every time we walk into a room, we aren’t the ones with the burden,’” Jacobs told The Hill last week.

“And for me, that was an important lesson and why I’ve really felt like it’s my job to step out and make sure that we’re doing everything we can to respond to the spate of horrible anti-trans legislation we’re seeing come from state legislatures and from this body, and why I’m gonna keep working to make sure that every kid in America can be their true authentic self,” she added.

Jacobs — a co-chairwoman of the Transgender Equality Task Force and the vice chairwoman of the Congressional Equality Caucus — officiated her transgender brother Dylan’s wedding last year, calling it “one of the proudest moments of my life” in a speech on the House floor.

In March, she introduced legislation to prohibit discrimination in the military and protect transgender service members. It would prevent the enforcement of any future policies targeting transgender health care in the military, including former President Trump’s transgender military service ban, which some GOP lawmakers have sought to reinstate.

Jacobs this year also co-sponsored the International Human Rights Defense Act, which would reaffirm the nation’s role in protecting and promoting LGBTQ rights across the globe.

Political figures on the right who have fought against gender affirming care for minors have increasingly cited the overlap of autistic and LGBTQ-identified people, particularly trans people, to imply that autistic people are being manipulated into identifying as LGBTQ.   

At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed that “many” minors given gender-affirming care have diagnoses of “autism [and] mental illness.”   

An April order by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) went further, ordering both adults and youth to undergo a screening for autism before obtaining access to gender-affirming care. Bailey withdrew the order the following month.

Gavin Grimm, a trans Virginia man who was the plaintiff in a landmark civil rights lawsuit, says such claims and orders assume autistic people can’t determine their own sexuality.   

“The obvious angle is assuming we’re not cognitively capable of understanding the same things neurotypicals are,” said Grimm, who is also autistic.  

Grimm and others say that while several studies have found a disproportionate number of autistic people identifying as LGBTQ, this is likely a sign of autistic people having a more nuanced understanding of their own identity rather than manipulation by others.   

Research from the University of Cambridge published in 2021 in the journal Autism Research found autistic men were 3.5 times more likely to identify as bisexual than nonautistic peers, while autistic women were three times likelier to identify as gay than nonautistic peers.   

Another study indicated that 15 percent to 35 percent of autistic people without intellectual disabilities identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.   

A 2016 study from New York University's Child Study Center indicated autistic children and adolescents are seven times more likely to exhibit gender variance.   

“There is strong evidence that there is a proportional over-occurrence of autism among gender diverse and transgender people. There is also emerging evidence that LGBTQ identities may be more common among autistic people, especially by adulthood,” John Strang, pediatric neuropsychologist at Children's National Hospital and the director of the Gender and Autism Program, told The Hill in an email.   

Strang sharply disputed the idea that autistic people are being manipulated into identifying with an LGBTQ identity, however.   

He said that the implication that autistic people have been manipulated into LGBTQ identities is to deny their status as full, autonomous participants in society, and a variation on the principle behind discredited practices such as conversion therapy.   

“Freedom of self-determination is one of our society’s core values. Yet, for autistic people in our society, there is a painful history of rights for self-determination being denied,” he said. “Sexual orientation and gender identity are highly personal experiences that can only be known by the individual. And it can take time for people to come to know who they are in terms of their sexuality and gender — this is true for autistic and non-autistic people, alike.”   

While Grimm was in high school, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Gloucester County (Va.) School Board in 2015 on his behalf so that he could use the boys restroom in his school.   

After a years-long court battle, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 refused to review a district court ruling in Grimm’s favor.     

Grimm said that far from making him more suggestible, being autistic gave him a unique drive to question ideas and concepts that others may take for granted, including those around gender.

“I grew up in a world based on a social contract that I was not pre-briefed on, and I just realized these rules made no sense,” Grimm told The Hill. “It just seems to me as an autistic person that neurotypical [nonautistic] worldviews accept premises without reason, like pink is for girls, blue is for boys. … I just realized these rules made no sense.”   

Despite concerns around increased rates of autism diagnoses over the past few decades, experts believe the rise is due less to environmental factors and more to more expansive diagnostic criteria and fewer autistic people being institutionalized and removed from view.   

Grimm believes that younger people, particularly those on the autism spectrum, have a less rigid view of gender and sexuality.   

“I think we’re seeing all sorts of reflections of … a breakdown of how seriously some of these things are taken,” he said.   

Strand said autistic LGBTQ people face greater mental health risks than other populations, underscoring the need for a deeper understanding.    

“Several studies suggest that autistic LGBTQ individuals may face greater mental health risks and healthcare disparities than independently autistic or LGBTQ populations,” Strang said. “This is not surprising as individuals at the intersection of more than one minoritized identity often face greater disparities.”   

Grimm said that within the trans community, “It’s known that a lot of us are autistic,” and is not seen as a big deal. But arguments that autistic people are being manipulated into thinking they are trans or gay are offensive, Grimm said.   

“It’s not a secret … the demographic most likely to understand gender is being told we couldn’t possibly understand gender,” he said. 

New York’s new “safe haven” law bars state courts from enforcing the laws of other states that authorize a minor to be removed from their home if their parents or legal guardians allow them to receive gender-affirming health care.

The measure, which took effect immediately after it was signed Sunday by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, additionally prevents state law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state agencies regarding “the provision of lawful gender-affirming care” in New York.

The law also prohibits New York courts from considering gender-affirming care for minors as child abuse, “unless such conduct would constitute abuse under the laws of this state.” 

“As other states target LGBTQ+ people with bigotry and fear mongering, New York is fighting back,” Hochul said Sunday in a news release. “These new laws will enshrine our state as a beacon of hope, a safe haven for trans youth and their families, and ensure we continue to lead the nation on LGBTQ+ rights."

Including New York, at least a dozen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted “shield laws” that protect access to gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, their families and their doctors. Meanwhile, 20 states have passed legislation that bans or heavily restricts transgender health care, including 17 that have done so this year.

In five states — Alabama, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Florida — it is a felony to administer gender-affirming medical care to a minor. The Alabama and Florida laws are blocked by court orders. In May, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) signed a binding agreement not to enforce the state's ban, pending further legal challenges.

A federal judge this month struck down Arkansas’s ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, the nation’s first such measure.

Congressional Democrats on Monday reignited an effort to pass federal legislation outlawing the discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” which is a scientifically discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, introduced Monday in the House by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) would make it unlawful to provide conversion therapy to “any individual” or promote efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill, which has 62 Democratic co-sponsors, would also make it illegal to “knowingly assist or facilitate” in the administration of conversion therapy for financial gain. A companion bill in the Senate, introduced Monday by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), has 32 Democratic co-sponsors.

Both measures have been endorsed by LGBTQ rights groups and mental health organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and the American Psychological Association. The Congressional Equality Caucus has also endorsed the bill in both chambers.

Conversion therapy — sometimes called “reparative therapy” — refers to a broad range of interventions designed to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, but most often involves spiritual counseling or talk therapy. It has been denounced by major medical organizations as unscientific, in part because it is underpinned by the false belief that LGBTQ identities are pathologies that need to be cured.

“Professional consensus rejects pathologizing sexual and gender identities,” the American Medical Association wrote last year in an issue brief. “In addition, empirical evidence has demonstrated a diversity of sexual and gender identities that are normal variations of human identity and expression, and not inherently linked to mental illness.”

Those who experience conversion therapy also report higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidality, multiple studies have found.

A 2020 report from the Williams Institute, a public policy think tank, found that lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the U.S. were nearly twice as likely to report having suicidal thoughts when they were exposed to conversion therapy. The same study found that 7 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults had received conversion therapy, including one-third who said treatment was administered by a licensed health care provider.

A 2022 study from The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization, found that about 17 percent of LGBTQ 13- to 24-year-olds had been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy.

Lieu in a Monday statement slammed conversion therapy as a “harmful sham” that hurts LGBTQ young people and “turns a profit for scammers posing as mental health professionals.”

“Numerous major medical organizations have concluded that the practice has no validity and is based entirely on fake science,” said Lieu, who has introduced iterations of the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act in each of the last four Congresses. “I’m pleased that many states have joined our movement and enacted conversion therapy bans. Now it’s time to end this scam once and for all and pass a federal ban.”

Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws that ban conversion therapy for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state-level policies impacting LGBTQ Americans, and five states have enacted partial bans.

Three states — Alabama, Georgia and Florida — are unable to enforce bans on conversion therapy because of an injunction in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that prevents them from doing so.

Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride, who in 2020 became the nation’s first openly transgender state senator, is setting out to make history again — this time as the first out transgender person elected to Congress.

“My commitment is to the people in Delaware who aren't seen,” McBride said Monday in a campaign video announcing her bid for Delaware’s sole House seat. “Everyone deserves a member of Congress who sees them and who respects them.”

Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who has represented Delaware in the House since 2017, last week announced her run for a Delaware Senate seat left open by retiring Sen. Tom Carper (D), leaving the state’s only House seat open.

Although McBride, 32, is not the first openly transgender person to run for Congress — more than a dozen others have tried — she could be the first with a fighting chance. She’s been widely viewed as the front-runner in the race for Delaware’s at-large congressional district, which Rochester won last year with more than 55 percent of the vote.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the House race as “solid Democrat.”

In an interview Monday with The News Journal, McBride said she’s cognizant of the uniqueness of her candidacy, “but ultimately, I'm not running to be a trans member of Congress.”

It’s a callback to her 2020 state Senate campaign, the outlet noted, during which McBride ran as a “senator who happens to be transgender.” She was elected that year with more than 70 percent of the general election vote and ran unopposed the following election.

McBride came out publicly as transgender at age 21, while entering her senior year at American University in Washington, where she studied political science. In an op-ed published in the university’s student newspaper titled “The Real Me,” McBride, then the university’s outgoing student body president, wrote that she had spent her “entire life” struggling with her gender identity.

“At an early age, I also developed my love of politics. I wrestled with the idea that my dream and my identity seemed mutually exclusive; I had to pick,” McBride wrote in the op-ed. “So I picked what I thought was easier and wouldn’t disappoint people.”

“I now know that my dreams and my identity are only mutually exclusive if I don’t try,” she wrote.

A native of Wilmington, Del., McBride previously served on the board of directors of Equality Delaware, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, and helped lead a successful effort to add gender identity and expression to the state’s nondiscrimination laws.

Before her election to the state legislature in 2020, McBride was a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights group. She also worked at the Center for American Progress and interned at the White House, the first openly transgender woman to do so.

As a teenager, McBride worked on Delaware campaigns for former Democratic Gov. Jack Markell and the late state Attorney General Beau Biden (D), President Biden’s eldest son.

She published her memoir, "Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality,” in 2018, with a forward from President Biden.

McBride’s candidacy comes at a pivotal moment for transgender rights in the U.S. — close to 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed this year in state legislatures nationwide, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, most of them targeting transgender young people.

In Congress, House Republicans this session passed legislation to prevent transgender women and girls from participating on female sports teams. Bills that would heavily restrict access to gender-affirming health care for transgender minors are also being considered.

The legislation was previously approved by the state Senate. While Cooper is expected to veto the measure, he is likely to be overridden by the legislature.

Republicans have large enough majorities to override a veto by Cooper. Votes on the measures in each chamber have generally been along party lines. Just one Democrat in the House joined Republicans in voting for the measure, according to The Associated Press.

The legislation affects students at middle and high schools as well as colleges.

Under the legislation, student athletes must compete on teams corresponding with their gender as assigned at birth. The law only applies to trans women and not to trans men.

The bill is one of several pieces of legislation targeting trans student athletes approved by legislatures around the country. The issue has also been raised on the GOP campaign trail by a number of presidential candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R).

The North Carolina legislature is also considering bans on gender-affirming care for transgender young people.

Democrats in the state criticized the measure as discriminatory.

“We're sending a very strong message to a very vulnerable group of young people that says you are different, you're not allowed to participate," state Rep. Deb Butler (D) told The Associated Press. “It's cruel.”

Utah overrode a veto from Gov. Spencer Cox (R) earlier this year on a similar measure after Cox noted it would only impact four athletes in the entire state.

“Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few,” Cox said of his state’s law.

Experts have estimated that less than 40 transgender women compete in college sports nationwide.

LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit the Human Rights Campaign said efforts to ban trans athletes in schools is a continuance of anti-LGBTQ trends seen nationwide in the last decade.

“These bills represent a cruel effort to further stigmatize and discriminate against LGBTQ+ people across the country, specifically trans youth who simply want to live as their true selves and grow into who they are,” according to the nonprofit's site.

“After failing to prohibit trans and non-binary people’s access to restrooms, legislators have pivoted to using misinformation about sports as the next way to score political points.”

Supporters of the North Carolina bill argue the legislation is necessary to provide fairness in sports.

“Women and girls who train for countless hours and years in their sports will have a level playing field, and their opportunities will be protected if this legislation becomes law,” Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the socially conservative North Carolina Values Coalition, told The Associated Press.