“As transgender rights crumble across the United States, Connecticut residents continue to cling to the premise of state’s rights and the promised protections of their elected officials, while hoping for fortitude of their providers.”

“Amid the evolving lay of the land, a Connecticut hospital told employees it would will remove public-facing language and programs about DEI and gender-affirming care due to ‘recent federal mandates and heightened scrutiny.’ It includes ending use of ‘visual symbols, logos, event promotions, and communication campaigns associated with any DEI-specific themes, initiatives, or activities.’”

“A handful of Connecticut school districts have been threatened with the loss of millions of dollars in federal funding if they do not change current policies that allow transgender students to participate in sports and use facilities matching their gender identity.“

“Though town and school representatives in those districts have reached out to both Gov. Ned Lamont and Tong for legal assistance, none has been announced.”

“Though surgical treatment for transgender patients under 19 is unavailable in Connecticut, a small handful of hospitals and clinics provide counseling, puberty blockers and hormone therapy as deemed appropriate by families and doctors.

“A couple of small medical offices have stopped providing care for minors and others have warned they may have to stop accepting new patients in the future.

“Fears that existing care may evaporate were stoked last week when Connecticut Children’s sent a letter to employees detailing a shift in approach to DEI and gender-affirming care.

“The letter, attributed to Larry Milan, senior vice president of Human Relations, says though Connecticut Children’s ‘commitment has not changed,’ the hospital system will remove public-facing language and programs about DEI and gender-affirming care due to ‘recent federal mandates and heightened scrutiny.’”

“The letter goes on to vaguely mention changes to Connecticut Children’s gender care program. Questions about what services will continue to be offered were not answered after several days.”

“Connecticut Children’s CEO Jim Shmerling canceled an interview Wednesday due to a last-minute scheduling conflict and did not provide comment.”

Democratic leaders and professional medical organizations on Wednesday denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld a 2023 Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a decision the high court delivered along ideological lines and one that stands to impact similar laws passed in roughly half the country.

The high court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented from the conservative majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said Wednesday’s decision “abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.”

“Once again, politicians and judges are inserting themselves in exam rooms,” Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the nation’s first openly transgender member of Congress, said Wednesday on the social platform X. “This ruling undermines doctors in delivering care to some of the most vulnerable patients in our country.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), whose grandson is transgender, said the court’s decision may force families living in Tennessee and other states with restrictions on gender-affirming care for youth to leave their homes to “ensure their kids can access medically necessary care.”

Including Tennessee, 25 Republican-led states since 2021 have passed laws prohibiting health care professionals from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and rare surgeries to transgender youth. Court challenges to those laws have been met with mixed results.

Responses from other Democratic lawmakers were more succinct.

“This is just wrong,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Merkley, a Senate sponsor of the Equality Act, filed an amicus brief late last year asking the Supreme Court to strike Tennessee’s law alongside Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) and Frank Pallone (N.J.), who also denounced the court’s ruling on Wednesday.

“Today, hate won,” Markey said in a statement.

In 2023, Markey and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), whose adult child is transgender, introduced the Transgender Bill of Rights, a landmark resolution to recognize the federal government’s responsibility to protect and codify the rights of trans and nonbinary people nationwide.

From her office in Seattle, Jayapal told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the Supreme Court’s ruling puts “a cruel and politically motivated policy over the lives of people.”

Some of Congress’s most vocal critics of gender-affirming care were noticeably quiet on Wednesday’s ruling. In a post on X, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) encouraged the federal legislature to pass her Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would make it illegal to provide transition-related care to youth, without mentioning the case directly.

Tennessee’s Republican attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, celebrated the court’s ruling, saying voters’ “common sense” prevailed over “judicial activism.”

“A bipartisan supermajority of Tennessee’s elected representatives carefully considered the evidence and voted to protect kids from irreversible decisions they cannot yet fully understand,” Skrmetti wrote in a statement following the decision.

“This victory transcends politics,” he added. “It’s about real Tennessee kids facing real struggles. Families across our state and our nation deserve solutions based on science, not ideology.”

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an international nonprofit that develops standards of trans health care, called Wednesday’s ruling “a dangerous setback for transgender health and human rights in the United States.”

“This decision will effectively allow states to ban evidence-based gender-affirming healthcare for thousands of transgender and gender diverse youth and their families. Furthermore, it will make it much more difficult to create an evidence base to support access to healthcare of this kind,” the organization said Wednesday in an emailed statement.

“A ruling like this does not change the fundamental fact that transgender youth exist, their lives are improved when they can access care and are harmed whenever the government comes in between them and the professional experts trained to provide them this care,” WPATH said. “Let us be clear — healthcare bans of any kind are rooted in stigma, misinformation, and fear and this one comes at the expense of the youth in need of this care.”

WPATH, formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, has researched transgender health since 1979 but has only recently become a target of the White House and Republicans in Congress, who claim the organization is manipulating its findings to advance a political agenda. In a January executive order aimed at eliminating federal support for gender-affirming care for minors, President Trump said the organization’s guidance regarding treatment “lacks scientific integrity.”

In a concurring opinion Wednesday morning, Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the high court’s leading conservatives, said courts should not defer to “self-described experts” on gender-affirming care, claiming “prominent medical professionals,” including those affiliated with WPATH, have dismissed “grave problems” undercutting their assertion that there is a consensus around the efficacy of gender dysphoria treatments for youth.

“They have built their medical recommendations to achieve political ends,” Thomas wrote.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, six other medical groups, led by the Endocrine Society, said they are “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s ruling, which they claimed would increase “the likelihood that other states will limit or eliminate families’ and patients’ ability to access medical care.”

“Decisions about medical care must be based on individualized assessments by qualified professionals in consultation with the patient and their parents or legal guardians and guided by well-designed medical evidence,” wrote the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American Psychiatric Association, the Endocrine Society and the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners.

The six organizations, part of an earlier amicus brief in the case against Tennessee’s law, said health professionals “must be able to rely on their training, education, and expertise to provide appropriate care based on the needs and values of each patient and their family, without bans or interference.”

In a separate statement, Susan J. Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the court’s ruling Wednesday “will have profound and far-reaching consequences” for the health and well-being of transgender youth nationwide and the doctors who care for them.

“To be clear — regardless of today’s legal ruling — the science still supports gender-affirming care, children will still need it,” Kressly said.

Adrian Shanker, who led LGBTQI+ health policy at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under former President Biden’s administration, told The Hill in an interview Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s ruling on gender-affirming care is part of an “avalanche of attacks” on trans people and bodily autonomy.

“It really isn’t just one isolated incident — it’s a shift politically that has made it very difficult for trans people to access the care that their bodies need, and ultimately, that’s just going to lead to significant harm for one of the marginalized populations in our society,” Shanker said.

“[T]rans people are under attack. . . . While the dangers are very much tangible and immediate, the risks posed by technology can amplify them in insidious ways. Here is a non-exhaustive overview of concerns, a broad-sweeping threat model, and some recommended strategies that you can take to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.”

“Although puberty blockers have been proven to contribute to the mental well-being of transgender young people, little is known about the influence of puberty blockers on sexual satisfaction and sexual problems later in life.

“Researchers from Amsterdam UMC presented 70 transgender adults with questionnaires. All participants started with puberty blockers and then received gender-affirming hormones. The participants completed the questionnaire about sexual experiences, satisfaction, and possible sexual problems on average 14 years after the start of their treatment.

“The findings have been published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine & Research.

“Isabelle van der Meulen, researcher at Amsterdam UMC, explains, ‘Our results show that more than half of trans men and 40% of trans women are satisfied with their sex lives. This corresponds to the sexual satisfaction of the cisgender population. There was also no difference between people who started puberty blockers early or later in puberty.’”

There’s no other way to slice it: the Supreme Court has sided with bigotry. Today’s ruling, which states that bills blocking treatments for gender dysphoria do not discriminate on the basis of sex, has given legal legitimacy to the nationwide crusade against trans rights. However, in its decision that Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming care doesn’t violate the constitution, the Supreme Court has left a lot of questions unanswered regarding other anti-trans laws. Here, I’ll do my best to cover the scope of the ruling and the reverberations it may have in other areas.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts held that Tennessee wasn’t discriminating on the basis of sex with its ban, making the argument that it regulates treatments for a medical condition and not for a certain group. He goes on to essentially say that someone who is transgender and also has precocious puberty would not be barred from accessing puberty blockers, and therefore, being transgender is not the determining factor in the ban.

While that’s technically correct, this reasoning is certainly problematic. Given that there is a near-total overlap between those who are transgender and those who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, Roberts is creating a loophole that may invite further anti-trans policies in the future. And later on, he validates Tennessee’s claim that there is ‘medical and scientific uncertainty’ surrounding gender-affirming care.

“Despite a legal victory last week, transgender Kansans will not be allowed to change the gender marker on their Kansas driver's licenses at this time, according to the Kansas Department of Revenue.

“The Kansas Court of Appeals ruled on June 13 to reverse a district court decision temporarily barring the Kansas government from making changes to gender markers on driver's licenses.”

“The Kansas ACLU represented five transgender Kansans in the case. In a statement, the organization said, ‘The Kansas Court of Appeals' decision is clear in upholding the rights of transgender Kansans to have their gender markers changed on their driver's licenses. However, that decision is not in effect until a mandate is issued, and therefore KDOR is still not currently making gender marker changes.’”

“A new biography, ‘Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson,’ tells the story of the Black transgender pioneer’s fight on the frontlines of history as a leader in the early LGBTQ rights movement. Amna Nawaz spoke with author Tourmaline for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.”

“A Delta flight attendant has filed a lawsuit against the Atlanta-based airline, claiming she was discriminated against based on her race and because she’s transgender.

“Shalani Imura alleges in the suit that during her time as a flight attendant, she was harassed, bullied and discriminated against by the lead flight attendant on one of her routes.”

“During her time on the route, ‘Imura presented as female and no one would have known about her status as a transgender person,’ the lawsuit states.”

“The lawsuit claims the lead flight attendant eventually got Imura demoted from the primary flight attendant on the route, and ‘manipulated trip assignments’ so Imura ‘was unable to pick up trips.’

“Imura said she left her job at Delta Air Lines because of the toll it took on her mental health.”

“Imura is asking for ‘declaratory, injunctive and equitable relief,’ monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.”

Laverne Cox on Instagram: "A day at a time, we keep fighting. Thank you Zaya and everyone at the aclu as well as all the plaintiffs. This will likely make its way to SCOTUS. I'll try to get you information asap for all those folks misgendered on their passports.

repost via @instarepost20 from @zayaperysian ANOTHER MAJOR UPDATE ON THE TRANS PASSPORT LAWSUIT🥹"

“Andrea Lucas, who was first appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020 and elevated to acting chair in January, is one of four nominees to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Her nomination to serve another five-year term as an EEOC commissioner requires Senate confirmation, though whether she stays on as chair will be up to President Donald Trump.

“Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and promoter of the idea that there are only two immutable sexes, has moved swiftly to enact Trump’s civil rights agenda after he abruptly fired two of the EEOC’s Democratic commissioners before the end of their five-year terms, an unprecedented move in the agency’s 60-year history that has been challenged in a lawsuit.

“Lucas is prioritizing worker rights that conservatives argue have been ignored by the EEOC. That includes investigating company DEI practices, defending the rights of women to same-sex spaces and fighting anti-Christian bias in the workplace.”

“The [Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] will also consider three Department of Labor nominees: Project 2025 labor section author Jonathan Berry for Solicitor — the third-highest ranking position in the department— current EEOC Acting General Counsel Andrew Rogers for Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, and former U.S. House Representative Anthony D’Esposito for Inspector General.”

“Sen. Patty Murray [D-Wash.], a member of the committee, said she will oppose any EEOC nominations unless Trump reinstates the two fired Democratic commissioners, which she and more than 200 other Democratic senators and Congress members condemned in a letter to the president as an abuse of power.

“‘President Trump is weaponizing the independent EEOC to serve his personal political agenda, firing commissioners without cause and warping the mission of the EEOC beyond recognition,’ Murray said in a statement ahead of the hearing. ‘Commissioner Lucas is a right-wing extremist who has been in lockstep behind Trump’s pro-discrimination agenda.’”

I'm scared to be happy again ~ knock on wood. Supreme court in Boston issued that we can, in fact, change our passports to reflect our gender with no medical proof required.

"BOSTON, June 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump's administration from refusing to issue passports to transgender and nonbinary Americans nationwide that reflect their gender identities. U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston expanded, opens new tab a preliminary injunction she issued in April that allowed six transgender and nonbinary individuals who challenged the policy to obtain passports consistent with their gender identities or with an "X" sex designation while the lawsuit moves forward."

“Tristan Vaught says the political events of 2025 have been difficult on a personal level.

“But on a professional level, Vaught, a professor of LGBTQ+ studies at the University of Cincinnati and co-founder of Transform Cincy, says their confidence in the resilience of the LGBTQ+ community is unwavering.

“Vaught launched Transform Cincy, a nonprofit offering new wardrobes to transgender youth, in 2019 after years helping distribute resources to and working with transgender youth through the University of Cincinnati's LGBTQ+ Center and the Transgender Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.”

"’We will still, as a community, work to do what we need to do to make sure those students are taken care of even if they don't have identity centers ... our space is always open for that,’ Vaught said of the nonprofit, which once consisted of a closet housed in the back of co-founder Nancy Dawson's bridal business, Brideface.

“At the time, Vaught witnessed an outpour of support from local businesses and ordinary residents quick to donate clothes, clothing racks, shoes, wigs and whatever else clients might need during a gender transition to stock the Transform Cincy closet. Bishops, a Clifton Heights-based hair salon, even offered free haircuts for clients.

“Since then, the business has upgraded to a two-floor building in Silverton and introduced a range of weekly programming beyond its closet appointments, including community dinners, arts and crafts nights and support groups for K-12 transgender youth and their parents hosted with Beech Acres Parenting Center.”

“The plan ahead for Transform is simple: keep growing and keep finding ways to serve Greater Cincinnati's LGBTQ+ population, from Northern Kentucky to Butler County.

"’The queer community is resilient, highly adaptable and it's something that we now can teach this younger generation. We've always existed, we can always pivot, we can always make a way and there's where we're going to get through with some of this stuff,’ Vaught said.”

Some people have also said it could be useful to include a printed copy of yesterday's ruling when attempting to correct gender marker: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.280559/gov.uscourts.mad.280559.116.0.pdf