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Tag: transgender persons

  • Staff at Florida colleges can now be fired if they use a restroom that doesn’t correspond with their gender assigned at birth, new rules say | CNN

    Staff at Florida colleges can now be fired if they use a restroom that doesn’t correspond with their gender assigned at birth, new rules say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida education officials on Wednesday unanimously approved harsher penalties against state college employees who violate a new law barring them and students from using restrooms or changing facilities for a gender other than the one assigned at birth.

    The move by the state board of education comes as LGBTQ advocates have criticized the law as a larger effort to erase them from Florida schools and society.

    Under the new rules approved Wednesday, staff and faculty at Florida colleges can be fired if they use a restroom for a gender that does not correspond with their gender assigned at birth.

    Employees may also face a verbal and written warning and suspension without pay as penalty for a first offense. Colleges will be forced to fire employees after a second offense, according to the new rule’s text.

    “Institutions must investigate each complaint regarding violations of (the rule) and must have an established procedure for such investigations,” the new rule text says.

    The new rule also requires violations to be documented, including the name of the person who violated the rule as well as the person who asked that person to leave the restroom. The complaint must also include “the circumstances of the event sufficient to establish a violation,” according to the new rule.

    The restrictions also apply to college-run student housing. Additionally, colleges have the option of providing a single-occupancy, unisex restroom or changing facility.

    Florida’s college system consists of 28 public community and state colleges—and it operates as a separate entity from the state’s university system.

    The law the new rule stems from was signed in May by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also cemented new restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for minors, which pronouns can be used in schools and drag shows.

    DeSantis, who is currently fighting to be the Republican front-runner for president among 12 others, has signed contentious bills aimed at curtailing LGBTQ rights.

    One of the bills signed into law by DeSantis prohibits transgender children from receiving gender-affirming treatments, including prescriptions that block puberty hormones or sex-reassignment surgeries. Under the law, a court could intervene to temporarily remove a child from their home if they receive gender-affirming treatments or procedures, and it treats such health care options, which are supported by the American Medical Association, the same as it would a case of child abuse.

    Under a provision DeSantis signed into law, teachers, faculty and students would be restricted from using the pronouns of their choice in public schools. That bill declares that it must be the policy of all schools that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait” and “it is false” to use a pronoun other than the sex on a person’s birth certificate. That bill also affirmed that sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be taught in schools through eighth grade, codifying a state Board of Education decision to block such topics in all K-12 grades.

    The law underpinning the state Board of Education’s policies enacted Wednesday prohibits transgender people from using a bathroom or changing room that matches their gender identity while in government buildings, including in places like public schools and prisons as well as at state universities.

    “A woman should not be in a locker room, having to worry about someone from the opposite sex being in their locker room,” DeSantis said previously.

    The bill defines female as “a person belonging, at birth, to the biological sex which has the specific reproductive role of producing eggs” and male as “a person belonging, at birth, to the biological sex which has the specific reproductive role of producing sperm.”

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  • Florida’s feud with the College Board’s AP Psychology course explained | CNN

    Florida’s feud with the College Board’s AP Psychology course explained | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A long-simmering feud between the College Board, the non-profit that administers Advanced Placement courses, and Florida’s Department of Education became public this week, as officials argued over whether the Advanced Placement Psychology course could be taught in Florida without breaking state laws.

    In Florida, students are prohibited from learning about sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom.

    But the College Board says these lessons are a core component of the AP Psychology course and have refused to change the curriculum.

    On Thursday, the College Board announced that unless AP Psychology is taught in its entirety – including lessons on sexuality and gender – “the “AP Psychology” designation cannot be utilized on student transcripts.”

    The future of the course appeared to be in jeopardy until, late Friday, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr., informed school superintendents that students will be able to take the class “in its entirety” but only if the course is taught “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.”

    The public scuffle over the AP Psychology course is just the latest installment in an ongoing feud between the College Board and Florida education officials over what subjects can be taught in the state’s classrooms. Let’s discuss how we got here.

    In July, a new law came into effect in Florida that banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in pre-K through the 8th grade. For high school students, instruction must be “according to state standards,” the Board of Education said.

    But over the last year, Florida’s education officials have amended state standards to effectively ban all students from learning about sexual orientation and gender identity.

    The changes are in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vow to eradicate so-called “woke” gender ideology from Florida’s classrooms.

    In 2022, the governor signed a bill titled “Parental Rights in Education,” which prohibited discussion of gender and sexuality issues in kindergarten through third grade. The bill also gave parents the right to take legal action if a school violates the law. DeSantis has since amended the law to prohibit instruction on sexuality and gender from pre-K through the eighth grade.

    The governor has said he believes parents should “have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children.”

    Supporters say the bill allows parents to decide when to talk to their children about LGBTQ+ topics instead of the schools. But critics have dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law and say it will further marginalize LGBTQ+ students.

    The College Board’s AP Psychology course is organized into nine units of study. The unit on developmental psychology includes lessons on gender and sexual orientation.

    According to the College Board, the course asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.”

    These lessons are now considered illegal under Florida law.

    In June, Board of Education officials sent a letter to the College Board requesting the non-profit “conduct a thorough review” of all Advanced Placement courses to ensure they were compliant with Florida law.

    In a statement, the College Board equated the request to censorship.

    “(We) will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics. Doing so would break the fundamental promise of AP: colleges wouldn’t broadly accept that course for credit and that course wouldn’t prepare students for careers in the discipline,” the non-profit said.

    Advanced Placement courses are standardized to ensure students who pass the final exam can transfer college credits to participating colleges and universities nationwide. The College Board has said all required topics, including sexual orientation and gender identity, must be included for the course to be designated advanced placement and count toward college credit.

    This isn’t the first time the College Board has sparred with the Florida Board of Education over what can be taught in Advanced Placement classes.

    Earlier this year, DeSantis rejected the non-profit’s AP African American Studies course because it included lessons on reparations, Black queer studies, and the Movement for Black Lives.

    The College Board initially attempted to revise the course framework, but the decision sparked outrage among academics and activists who said students should learn the “full history” of the Black experience in America.

    “We have learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies and know that we must be clear from the outset where we stand,” the non-profit later said in a statement.

    With days to go until students return to school, the College Board announced it would not remove AP Psychology lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation. Instead, the non-profit advised school districts to “not to offer AP Psychology until Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and students to choose to take the full course.”

    Florida education officials responded by accusing the non-profit of “hurting Florida students.”

    It is unclear how the state’s directive to teach the course “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate,” will be enforced.

    “AP Psychology is and will remain in the course directory making it available to Florida students,” Diaz said in a statement.

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  • Federal judge restores part of Georgia’s law that had banned gender-affirming care for trans youth | CNN Politics

    Federal judge restores part of Georgia’s law that had banned gender-affirming care for trans youth | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge on Tuesday restored the enforcement of a law in Georgia that banned licensed medical professionals in the state from providing patients under the age of 18 with cross-sex hormone therapy.

    Last month, a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Georgia’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth from going into effect, finding that potential effects to transgender youth, “including risks of depression, anxiety, disordered eating, self-harm, and suicidal ideation – outweigh any harm the State will experience from the injunction.”

    The next day, an appellate court sided with an Alabama state law in a challenge to its gender-affirming care ban, which is similar to Georgia’s, finding that the plaintiffs “have not presented any authority that supports the existence of a constitutional right to treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.”

    In its order on Tuesday, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia cited the Alabama decision in restoring the enforcement of the ban, believing that to intervene in Georgia’s ban while the appeals process unfolds in Alabama could result in an order that conflicts with a potential precedent established by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the two districts where challenges to the bans are playing out.

    “It is undisputed that this Court’s preliminary injunction order rests on legal grounds that have been squarely rejected by the panel in Eknes-Tucker (the Alabama decision), and that this Court’s injunction cannot stand on the bases articulated in the order,” District Judge Sarah Geraghty wrote in her order.

    She also wrote, “The Court deems it prudent to await further developments in Eknes-Tucker before adjudicating the motion to reconsider.”

    Georgia law, Senate Bill 140, bans licensed medical professionals in the state from providing patients under the age of 18 with cross-sex hormone therapy and initially went into effect on July 1. Healthcare providers could face criminal and civil penalties if they do not comply with the law.

    The legal challenge to SB 140 was brought in late June by four transgender youth in the state and their families, as well as an advocacy group whose work includes “connecting families of transgender children to local practitioners who provide gender-affirming medical care,” according to a complaint.

    The law allows minors who started “hormone replacement therapies” before July 1 to continue the treatment. None of the minor plaintiffs have started the therapy, according to the lawsuit, though all of them are planning to in the future. Two of the minors are taking puberty-blocking medication, the suit said.

    Gender-affirming care spans a range of evidence-based treatments and approaches. The types of care vary by the age and goals of the recipient, and are considered the standard of care by many mainstream medical associations.

    Enacting restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth has emerged as a key issue for conservatives, with at least 20 states having limited components of the care in recent years. When Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed SB 140 in March, he argued the law would “ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of Georgia’s children.”

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  • North Carolina’s Democratic governor vetoes 3 bills targeting LGBTQ youth | CNN Politics

    North Carolina’s Democratic governor vetoes 3 bills targeting LGBTQ youth | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday vetoed three bills that target LGBTQ youth, setting up a likely effort by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to override him.

    Cooper’s vetoes were expected as he has been a vocal opponent of legislation targeting LGBTQ youth this session, putting him at odds with state Republicans, who have introduced at least 12 anti-LGBTQ bills this legislative session, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The legislature’s Republican supermajority has the ability to override a potential veto, as they have done several times this year when Cooper has sought to block controversial measures.

    The bills rejected by the governor Wednesday include a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, restrictions on how gender identity can be discussed in schools, and a measure to prohibit transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams. State lawmakers passed the legislation last month, largely along party lines.

    Cooper, in a statement announcing the action, accused GOP lawmakers of “scheming for the next election” by “hurting vulnerable children” and pushing “political culture wars.”

    “A doctor’s office is no place for politicians, and North Carolina should continue to let parents and medical professionals make decisions about the best way to offer gender care for their children,” Cooper said, referring to HB808, which would ban certain gender-affirming care for minors. “Ordering doctors to stop following approved medical protocols sets a troubling precedent and is dangerous for vulnerable youth and their mental health.”

    Republican sponsors of the measures, meanwhile, criticized Cooper’s vetoes.

    State Sen. Joyce Krawiec, who sponsored HB 808, said in a statement that the governor had “turned a blind eye to the protection of children,” adding that the legislature is “taking the safest approach by limiting access to these life-altering medical procedures until a child comes of age.”

    HB 808 would prohibit medical professionals from performing surgical gender transition procedures, prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and providing hormone treatments for those under the age of 18, though there are extremely limited exceptions for certain disorders. If a doctor breaks the law, the bill calls for their medical license to be revoked.

    Cooper also vetoed HB 574, which would ban transgender girls and women from competing on middle school, high school and college sports teams that align with their gender identity. The bill states that a “student’s sex shall be recognized based solely on the student’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” and would require sports teams to be designated as for males, men or boys; females, women or girls; or coed or mixed.

    SB 49, a third bill vetoed by Cooper, requires that parents be notified “prior to any changes in the name or pronoun used for a student in school records or by school personnel,” as well as bans instruction on “gender identity, sexual activity, or sexuality” in kindergarten through fourth grade.

    Cooper said in a statement that the measure “hampers the important and sometimes lifesaving role of educators as trusted advisers when students have nowhere else to turn.”

    Advocacy groups applauded Cooper, with Liz Barber, the senior policy counsel for the ACLU of North Carolina, saying: “Legislators are using their power to bully an already vulnerable community, and Governor Cooper has taken an important step by vetoing these bills.”

    LGBTQ rights have become a major flash point nationwide, with Democratic and Republican lawmakers in many states moving to advance or curb protections, respectively. Last week, Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed a ban on gender-affirming care for most minors in the state – another Democratic governor to push back on a GOP-led legislature’s efforts to restrict transgender youth’s access to such treatments.

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  • Stanley Tucci says he thinks straight actors should be able to play gay characters | CNN

    Stanley Tucci says he thinks straight actors should be able to play gay characters | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Stanley Tucci weighed in on the debate about straight actors portraying gay characters in a new interview with BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs on Saturday.

    Tucci, who is married to actress Felicity Blunt, said he believes that as an actor, “you’re supposed to play different people.”

    “You just are. That’s the whole point of it,” he told the program.

    Tucci has portrayed gay characters in 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada” and in the 2020 film “Supernova” alongside Oscar-winner Colin Firth. He went on to say, “Obviously, I believe that’s fine.”

    “I am always very flattered when gay men come up to me and talk to me about ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ or they talk about ‘Supernova,’ and they say that, ‘It was just so beautiful,’ you know, ‘You did it the right way,’” he said. “Because often, it’s not done the right way.”

    For decades, Hollywood has cast actors in heterosexual relationships for gay roles.

    Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal played lovers in “Brokeback Mountain,” and Cate Blanchett fell in love with a shopgirl in “Carol.” Benedict Cumberbatch recently played a sexually repressed cowboy in Netflix’s 2021 Oscar contender “The Power of the Dog,” and previously played Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game.”

    While Ledger, Gyllenhaal, Blanchett and Cumberbatch were all nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, former late night host James Corden, who is married to a woman, was criticized for his performance as a flamboyant faded Broadway star in “The Prom,” with critics calling his performance “insulting” and “offensively miscast.”

    Minority actors have long spoken out about their struggles to get cast in Hollywood, even as producers say they can’t find the right actors for projects.

    Conversations around inclusivity in casting transgender actors in transgender roles have also become pertinent, and casting cisgender actors for those roles has recently fallen out of popular practice.

    CNN previously reported that LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD says casting this way “perpetuates this belief that trans people aren’t real.”

    Straight actors playing gay roles, however, isn’t considered to be as “brave” in recent years as it’s been in the past, according to critic Guy Lodge, who told The Guardian in a 2021 interview: “The idea of being ‘brave’ for playing gay is going away.”

    “I think that in itself is seen as fairly unremarkable now,” he added.

    For the most part, Tucci and Firth received positive reviews for their performances in “Supernova,” where they played a longtime couple grappling with the dire challenge of early-onset dementia.

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  • Trump repeatedly celebrated the inclusion of transgender women in his beauty pageant | CNN Politics

    Trump repeatedly celebrated the inclusion of transgender women in his beauty pageant | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Years before he said he was running for president to “defeat the cult of gender ideology,” Donald Trump welcomed and praised the inclusion of transgender women in the Miss Universe pageant.

    In since unreported radio and television interviews from spring and summer 2012, Trump celebrated the interest in a 23-year-old transgender woman named Jenna Talackova participating in a Canadian pageant. He then later effusively praised the winner of the Miss USA pageant, Olivia Culpo, for saying that transgender women should be allowed to compete.

    Trump, then the owner of the Miss Universe pageant, would go on to cite the possible participation of transgender women in Olympic sports to justify his decision to end a ban on transgender pageant participants.

    But a decade later, as he geared up to run for a second White House term, Trump promised to “ban men from participating in women’s sports,” when speaking about transgender athletes – a reflection of how restricting trans rights has become a powerful talking point among conservatives and a potential a litmus test for Republican candidates.

    Since launching his 2024 campaign Trump has also referred to gender-affirming surgery for minors as “child sexual mutilation,” said he’d seek to make such surgeries illegal if he returned to the White House, said he’d sign executive orders instructing federal agencies not to promote transitioning at any age, and ask Congress to pass a bill requiring the government to only recognize only genders assigned at birth.

    That’s a departure from how he approached the inclusion of transgender people in society more than a decade ago.

    For example, at the Miss USA pageant in June 2012, Culpo said she welcomed the participation of transgender women in the competition – a comment that Trump supported.

    “I do think that that would be fair, but I can understand that people would be a little apprehensive to take that road because there is a tradition of natural-born women,” Culpo said when asked if transgender participants should be allowed. “But today where there are so many surgeries and so many people out there who have a need to change for a happier life, I do accept that because I believe it’s a free country.”

    That seemed to go over well with Trump.

    Donald Trump poses with Miss USA 2012, Olivia Culpo, at a news conference after she was named the new Miss Universe during the 2012 Miss Universe Pageant at PH Live at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on December 19, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    “She gave a great answer, a very tough question – on transgender – just the question everybody wants to hear, and she gave a great answer and she really did a great job,” Trump said praising Culpo on Fox and Friends in June 2012.

    “It was a very cool answer,” added Trump. “Great, [she] gave a great answer.”

    “Her answer was a very intelligent answer and that’s one of the reasons I assume the judges picked her,” Trump said in another June interview on Fox and Friends.

    In 2012, Talackova was allowed to compete after threatening legal action over the Miss Universe organization ban on transgender contestants, which had come under scrutiny.

    Trump claimed to CNN at the time he personally made the decision to end the ban before even knowing about the legal threats from Talackova’s attorney, Gloria Allred.

    A statement released by the Trump Organization at the time said the change was to modernize the pageant.

    “Pageant rules have been modernized to ensure this type of issue does not occur again,” read the statement, issued on Trump’s behalf by his then-attorney Michael Cohen.

    Cohen told CNN on Thursday the decision was made to follow Olympic guidelines on transgender athletes. At the time, the Olympics allowed the participation of transgender athletes who had sex reassignment surgery and two years of hormone therapy.

    In an April 2012 appearance on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Trump celebrated the buzz associated with Talackova’s entry into the pageant.

    “Well it became a big, big deal up in Canada,” Trump said. “And you have the Miss Canada, which is essentially the Miss Universe. It’s the pre-Miss Universe, it’s the screening for Miss Universe – and a woman, transgender was in.”

    “But there’s many, many, many contestants and they agreed to let her, based on the laws of Canada and the laws in the United States, they agreed to let her participate,” he added. “So I will say there’s, there’s great interest and if you look at it from a show business standpoint, that’s wonderful. But there is certainly great interest.”

    In an interview on Fox News also in April of 2012, Trump defended his decision to let Talackova compete.

    Miss California USA Carrie Prejean (R) and Shanna Moakler, co-executive director of the Miss California USA pageant (L), listen to Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss Universe Organization, announce during a news conference that Prejean would retain her title in New York May 12, 2009.

    “It has become a hot subject. It is being talked about all over the world right now,” Trump said. “This is a young woman, who, according to the laws of Canada and according to the laws of the United States, is allowed to enter the pageant system.”

    In the same interview, Trump cited the Olympics as part of his rationale.

    “We didn’t have a rule. This is sort of new territory. We are going by at some point, the Olympic rules because the Olympics are having a very big question about this – should this be allowed,” Trump said. “I said we have 58 contestants in Canada, I said let her run and maybe she will win and if she wins, she will go to Miss Universe. And I think I made the right decision, I feel fine with the decision.”

    Trump’s decision was praised by the LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD at the time.

    “For more than two weeks, the Miss Universe Organization and Mr. Trump made it clear to GLAAD that they were open to making a policy change to include women who are transgender. We appreciate that he and his team responded swiftly and appropriately,” they said in a statement.

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  • Takeaways from CNN’s town hall with Mike Pence | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from CNN’s town hall with Mike Pence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former Vice President Mike Pence staked out a series of clear differences with boss-turned-2024 rival Donald Trump, and needled other Republican contenders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a CNN town hall in Iowa on Wednesday night.

    Hours after he launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Pence broke with the former president on immigration policy, entitlement spending, US support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and more.

    He said he would not reinstate the policy of separating migrant families at the border – a widely criticized practice that Trump didn’t rule out reviving in his own CNN town hall last month.

    Pence also said that other Republican rivals were wrong to put changes to Social Security off the table, telling the crowd at Grand View University in Des Moines that seriously reducing federal spending will require changes to entitlement programs.

    He sharply rebuked Trump for describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “genius” for his invasion of Ukraine, while casting DeSantis as naive on the issue. And he continued to criticize the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    Pence said he and Trump don’t just disagree about the past; the two have “a different vision for our party.”

    “I’m somebody who believes in American leadership in the world. Our party needs to lead on fiscal responsibility and stand without apology for life. We’ll have those debates,” he said.

    Still, Pence said, he will “support the Republican nominee in 2024,” a pledge he said he felt comfortable making because he doubted Trump would win the primary.

    “Different times call for different leadership,” Pence said. “The American people don’t look backwards; they look forward. … I don’t think my old running mate is going to be the Republican nominee for president.”

    Here are six takeaways from Pence’s CNN town hall:

    Pence urged the Justice Department not to indict his onetime boss, saying such an indictment would fuel division inside the country and “send a terrible message to the wider world.”

    While Pence said that “no one is above the law,” he said the DOJ could resolve its investigation into Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents without resorting to an indictment, just as the department informed Pence’s attorney last week that there would be no charges brought in the case of the classified documents discovered in his home.

    But in Pence’s case, the former vice president immediately contacted the National Archives and the FBI to return his documents, while Trump resisted handing over his classified material and failed to return all classified documents after receiving a subpoena last May.

    Pence’s response underscores the tightrope the former vice president is walking when it comes to the numerous probes into his former boss. CNN reported Wednesday that the Justice Department had informed Trump he’s a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents and possible obstruction, a sign that prosecutors may be moving closer to indicting the former president.

    While Pence criticized Trump for his actions on January 6 at his campaign kickoff Wednesday and at the town hall, he sought to distinguish those actions from the documents probe, protesting that there were “dozens” of better ways that the FBI could have handled Trump’s case before resorting to an unprecedented search the former president’s residence.

    So far, Pence’s sharpest criticism of Trump came when he was asked about the United States’ role in helping Ukraine in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.

    After arguing that the US should accelerate its support for the Ukrainian military, Pence pointed to Trump’s description of Putin in a February 2022 radio interview as a “genius” for his invasion of Ukraine.

    “I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal, and I know who needs to win the war in Ukraine,” Pence said. “And it’s the people fighting for their freedom and fighting to restore their national sovereignty in Ukraine. And America – it’s not our war, but freedom is our fight. And we need to give the people of Ukraine the ability to fight and defend their freedom.”

    Pence’s comments align him with Nikki Haley, Trump’s United Nations ambassador and a 2024 rival, and against their former boss and DeSantis, who entered the GOP race last month. The former vice president echoed Haley’s veiled shot at DeSantis – who described the war as a “territorial dispute” – casting such characterizations as naive.

    “Anybody that thinks Vladimir Putin will stop if he overruns Ukraine has what we say back in Indiana, another thing coming,” Pence said. “He has no intention of stopping. He’s made it clear that he wants to recreate that old Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.”

    Pence participates in a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall on Wednesday.

    Pence repeatedly highlighted his support for “parents’ rights,” especially when it comes to schools. But he said the judgment of those same parents should not apply to situations when a minor is seeking gender transition care.

    “I strongly support state legislation, including, as we did in Indiana, that bans all gender transition, chemical or surgical procedures, under the age of 18,” he said – even when parents support their child’s decision to go forward.

    Republican presidential candidates have all railed against what Pence on Wednesday described as “radical gender ideology,” language that by definition falsely suggests there is a movement of people seeking to convince young people to change their gender identities.

    “However adults want to live, they can live,” Pence said. “But for children, we’re going to protect kids from the radical gender ideology and say no chemical or surgical transition before you’re 18.”

    Pressed on the age question, Pence compared gender transition to body art, saying, “There’s a reason why you don’t let kids get a tattoo before they’re 18.”

    When Bash asked what he would say to children and families who feel targeted by his position and those of his ideological allies, Pence offered an olive branch of sorts.

    “I’d put my arm around them and tell them I love ‘em,” he said, “but (tell them) ‘Just wait.’”

    Pence speaks during a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN's Dana Bash at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 7.

    Pence has been a fierce anti-abortion advocate his entire adult life. On Wednesday night, he made clear he would not deviate from that position.

    “I couldn’t be more proud to be vice president in an administration that appointed three of the justices that sent Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history,” Pence said, “and gave America a new beginning for life.”

    On the question of a federal ban on the procedure, Pence said he supported exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. But he did not tap dance around the fundamental question, even as voters around the country – in the midterms and in referendums – have registered their anger over the Supreme Court’s decision and the subsequent passage of state laws to sharply restrict abortion rights.

    “We will not rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the country,” Pence said.

    Still, the former vice president acknowledged that his side had a “long way to go to win the hearts and minds of the American people” and encouraged his allies to show both “principle and compassion.”

    To that end, he offered qualified support for social spending programs to help support newborns and new parents.

    “We have to care as much about newborns and mothers as we do about the unborn,” Pence said. But he stopped short of specifically endorsing paid family leave for all Americans or subsidized child care.

    Pence said he would “take a step back” from the approach of the Trump-era landmark sentencing reform law, known as the First Step Act.

    “We need to get serious and tough on violent crime, and we need to give our cities and our states the resources to restore law and order to our streets. And I promise you, we’ll do that, if I’m your president,” Pence told Bash.

    Under the First Step Act, thousands of federal inmates, most of them serving sentences for drug offense and weapons charges, were released from prison early, either for good behavior or through participation in rehabilitation programs. The law also eased mandatory minimum sentencing for certain drug offenders.

    Asked about DeSantis’ promise to repeal the First Step Act if elected president, Pence again conceded that he would take a different approach than the First Step Act.

    “We ought to be thinking about how we make penalties tougher on people that are victimizing families in this country,” he said.

    Pence repeated the criticism he has leveled at his former boss for more than a year, insisting that Trump was wrong to ask his second-in-command to overturn some states’ 2020 Electoral College votes in his ceremonial role presiding over Congress as it counted those votes on January 6, 2021.

    Pence said he “frankly hoped the president would come around” since early 2021. Though he said he agreed that some states inappropriately changed their election procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

    “But at the end of the day, I think the Republican Party has to be the party of the Constitution,” he said.

    Pence also broke with Trump over the legal fates of those who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6 – and have since faced criminal charges and convictions. Trump said he would consider pardoning many of those rioters, who he said were being treated “very unfairly.”

    Pence, though, said the United States “cannot ever allow what happened on January 6 to happen again in the heart of our democracy.”

    “I have no interest or no intention of pardoning those that assaulted police officers or vandalized our Capitol. They need to answer to the law,” he said.

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  • A transgender girl misses her high school graduation after Mississippi judge denies emergency plea to permit her to go in a dress and heels | CNN

    A transgender girl misses her high school graduation after Mississippi judge denies emergency plea to permit her to go in a dress and heels | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A transgender teen in Mississippi missed her high school graduation after a federal judge denied a motion requesting she be allowed to wear a dress and heels under her robe.

    The 17-year-old, identified in court documents by her initials “L.B.,” did not attend her Gulfport high school graduation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi. She opted to miss the ceremony when she was told she had to wear boy’s clothes to attend, telling CNN she would “rather stand up for what’s right than be humiliated.”

    The family has asked for the teen’s full name to be withheld for privacy and safety reasons.

    On May 9, less than two weeks before graduation, L.B. says she was pulled into Harrison Central High School Principal Kelly Fuller’s office and asked what she was going to wear for graduation.

    “I told her I was going to wear a white dress, then she told me I was not going to be allowed to wear a dress, and I would have to wear boy clothes,” L.B. said. “And she stated that the Superintendent called her asking about what students would wear to graduation.”

    As far as she knows, no other students were asked the same question.

    L.B. says she has attended Harrison Central High School as a girl for the past four years. She attended prom wearing a blue sparkly dress without any objection from the school. “I was being me, and I felt very accepted at the time,” she said. “I felt very understood. I felt that I had a great support system at that school.”

    L.B. and her parents, Samantha Brown and Henry Brown, filed the federal lawsuit Thursday, demanding Harrison County School District allow the teen to wear what she wishes during Saturday’s graduation ceremony from Harrison Central High School.

    Attorneys with the ACLU of Mississippi are representing the family.

    The Browns cited a violation of their child’s civil rights, accusing the school district of discrimination on the basis of sex and gender and violating the teen’s First Amendment rights, according to the complaint.

    On Friday, the day before graduation, a federal judge in Gulfport, Mississippi, denied a motion filed by L.B.’s family requesting she be allowed to wear her dress and heels at the high school graduation.

    The teen had picked out a dress and heels to wear with the traditional cap and gown in accordance with the school’s dress code for female students, according to a media release from the ACLU.

    “Our client is being shamed and humiliated for explicitly discriminatory reasons, and her family is being denied a once-in-a-lifetime milestone in their daughter’s life,” ACLU spokesperson Gillian Branstetter told CNN in an email. “No one should be forced to miss their graduation simply because of who they are.”

    Samantha Brown, L.B.’s mother, explained that after the conversation with the principal, they learned the dress code policy throughout the school year was different from the policy for graduation.

    A commencement participation agreement is included within the court documents. It shows L.B. and her mother signed the document on March 14, 2023, agreeing to follow conditions required for participating in the graduation ceremony.

    The Harrison County School District’s policy on graduation states: “Students are expected to wear dress shoes, dress clothes (dresses or dressy pant-suit for girls and dress pants, shirt, and tie for the boys).” The policy does not mention dress code rules for LGBTQ students or specify students must dress according to their sex assigned at birth.

    “Graduation school dress policy is girls have to wear white dresses and boys wear a white button up shirt with a tie and black pants and socks with black dress shoes,” Brown said. “This has never been an issue before. We felt like we were abiding by the dress code according to what she identifies as.”

    CNN has reached out to the Harrison County School District and Harrison Central High School for comment.

    L.B. called the news “unexpected and shocking,” saying, “I couldn’t understand why they would change it so suddenly.”

    “You’ve been allowing me to be this way, be myself, and express myself this way for so long. And it wasn’t even a thought in my mind that they would do this to me,” she told CNN.

    “This is a celebration of my high school, this is a celebration of my finish line,” L.B. said. “For me to be forced into something that I’m not, it wouldn’t have been fun for me at all…this kind of injustice is not okay.”

    “We have to do better as a community, as a country, as a state, as a city, as a county, we have to do better,” the teenager added.

    Brown said the ruling from the judge on Friday was hurtful and caused humiliation for her daughter, stating her opinion that it would have been more of a “distraction and shock to her peers and other teachers to show up like that, other than the way she usually dresses.”

    “She’s a good student, she made it to the finish line … that should be more of the things the children should be worried about rather than whether they will be targeted by what they identify as,” Brown said.

    Brown said they will be evaluating their legal options moving forward. “We’re going to continue to speak on this and continue to fight for what we feel is right,” she added.

    According to court documents, the school policy states that “a high school graduation ceremony is a sacred and inspirational ritual which is intended to be surrounded with decorum of dignity, grace, solemnity, reverence, pomp and circumstance.”

    “Students whose attire does not meet the minimum dress requirements may not be allowed to participate in the graduation exercises,” the policy states.

    “My graduation is supposed to be a moment of pride and celebration and school officials want to turn it into a moment of humiliation and shame,” L.B. said in the ACLU release. “The clothing I’ve chosen is fully appropriate for the ceremony and the superintendent’s objections to it are entirely unfair to myself, my family, and all transgender students like me. I have the right to celebrate my graduation as who I am, not who anyone else wants me to be.”

    Fact check: Why state lawmakers around the country keep citing junk science

    The student has been openly transgender since she began attending the school as a freshman, according to the complaint, and her identity has been known to her classmates, teachers, and administrators.

    Mitchell King, the superintendent of Harrison County School District, testified in court documents that the district relies on birth certificates to record whether students are male or female.

    The complaint describes a phone conversation between Samantha Brown and King, in which King says L.B. “is still a boy,” therefore “he needs to wear pants, socks, and shoes, like a boy.”

    The complaint also notes L.B. attended the school’s prom last year wearing a formal dress and high-heeled shoes, without any issues or repercussions.

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  • 7 arrested in protest supporting Montana state lawmaker who argued against anti-trans bill | CNN Politics

    7 arrested in protest supporting Montana state lawmaker who argued against anti-trans bill | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Seven people were arrested Monday after protesting in support of a Montana lawmaker who argued against a bill that would ban medical care for transgender minors.

    Tense moments were captured on video during Montana’s House floor session with supporters of Democratic state Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who is transgender, chanting, “Let her speak.”

    “Today—when the Speaker continued to not recognize me as a duly elected official—my constituents & community protested on behalf of their democratic right to be heard. I raised my mic and stood in solidarity with them. I am devoted to those who rise in defense of democracy,” Zephyr said in a tweet Monday.

    Zephyr added, “When my constituents and community members witnessed my microphone being disabled, they courageously came forward to defend their democratic right to be heard – and some were arrested in the process. I stood by them in solidarity and will continue to do so.”

    During the session, after a vote was announced, protesters were heard saying, “Let her speak.”

    As the chanting continued, the state House speaker is heard asking the sergeant of arms to clear out the guests in the gallery.

    The audio of the live stream of the session later cuts off and is replaced with music, with Zephyr seen in the video with an arm raised, holding up a microphone, looking in the direction of the protesters that were in the gallery. During that time, some protesters are seen being escorted out by law enforcement.

    As the upstairs gallery is cleared of protesters and observers, the speaker is heard in the video saying that the House will come back to order.

    The seven protesters were arrested with criminal trespass, a misdemeanor, according to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff-Coroner Leo C. Dutton.

    “As I’ve been watching this session, there is an assumption by Republicans who have a super majority in both chambers that they could simply silence or, or, speak over the voices that they do not agree with. And I think that what yesterday demonstrated was a pretty tremendous display of solidarity and support for Montana’s transgender community,” Paul Kim, one of the protesters who was arrested, told CNN’s Lucy Kafanov.

    Last week, a number of Republican lawmakers from the Montana Freedom Caucus demanded Zephyr be censured by the state House for “using inappropriate and uncalled-for language” during a floor debate over amendments concerning a bill that would ban medical care for transgender minors.

    Montana House Republicans tweeted a joint statement Monday from state Reps. Matt Regier, Rhonda Knudsen and Sue Vinton. “House Republicans condemn violence and will always stand for civil debate and respect for our processes of government. Today’s riot by far-left agitators damages our discourse and endangered legislators and staff. Their actions did not represent Montana values.”

    Montana House Minority Leader Kim Abbott, in statement released by the Montana House of Democrats Tuesday, said, “To me, it’s an incredible statement in support of the trans, nonbinary, and Two Spirit community – and against the Republican agenda that would strip our neighbors of their basic rights, dignity, and humanity.”

    CORRECTION: A previous version of this story’s headline incorrectly said Zephyr had been censured. She only has been threatened with censure.

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  • Indiana and Idaho enact bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth | CNN Politics

    Indiana and Idaho enact bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill Wednesday to ban gender affirming care for minors in the state, following a growing trend of GOP-led states restricting transgender youth’s access to such treatments after Idaho enacted similar legislation earlier in the week.

    “Permanent gender-changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult, not as a minor,” Holcomb said in a statement upon signing Senate Bill 480 into law.

    The legislation, which takes effect July 1, states that physicians or practitioners who provide minors with such care, including puberty blocking medication, hormone therapy and surgery intended to help transition genders, will be subject to discipline by their regulatory board.

    Transgender youths’ access to gender-affirming care – medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from the gender they were designated at birth to the gender by which they want to be known – has become a flashpoint in red states across the country.

    Some Republicans have expressed concern over long-term outcomes and whether children should be able to make such consequential decisions, even with parental consent. But major medical associations say that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria – a psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

    Indiana’s new legislation was met with immediate backlash by LGBTQ advocates.

    The American Civil Liberties Union and local ACLU of Indiana sued the state Wednesday on behalf of four transgender youth and their families, as well as a doctor and healthcare clinic, alleging the new law violates their constitutional rights.

    “Gender-affirming care is life-saving care for our clients,” Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said in a statement. “No child should be cut off from the medical care they need or denied their fundamental right to be themselves — but this law would do both.”

    Holcomb’s signing of SB 480 came a day after Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little enacted similar legislation.

    Under the Idaho law, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, physicians or practitioners who provide gender affirming care, including puberty blocking medications as well as surgeries, could face a $5,000 fine and a felony charge.

    “In signing this bill, I recognize our society plays a role in protecting minors from surgeries or treatments that can irreversibly damage their healthy bodies. However, as policymakers we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children,” Little said in a statement to lawmakers.

    Following Little’s signing of the bill, the ACLU of Idaho said it planned to challenge the law.

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  • Abortion foes take aim at ballot initiatives in next phase of post-Dobbs political fights | CNN Politics

    Abortion foes take aim at ballot initiatives in next phase of post-Dobbs political fights | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    After a string of recent ballot-box victories for abortion rights groups, opponents of the procedure are redoubling their efforts – including, in some places, pushing to make it harder to use citizen-approved ballot measures to guarantee abortion access.

    An anti-abortion coalition in Ohio, for instance, recently unleashed a $5 million ad buy targeting an effort to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution through a ballot initiative – just as the initiative’s organizers won approval to collect signatures to put the question to voters in November. Meanwhile, legislators in Ohio and other states are weighing bills that would make it more difficult to pass citizen-initiated changes to state constitutions.

    The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year left abortion laws up to the states, and abortion rights groups quickly scored wins on ballot measures in six of them – including in the battleground state of Michigan, where voters protected abortion access, and in the Republican strongholds of Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, where voters defeated efforts to restrict abortions.

    “What we saw in the midterms last year was a wake-up call,” said Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She said helping local groups defeat abortion-related ballot measures is one of the top three priorities for the group’s state affairs team.

    Groups on both sides of the abortion divide have poured big sums into an upcoming state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that has seen record spending and offers a key test of the potency of the abortion issue among voters in a battleground state. Whether a conservative or liberal candidate wins a swing seat Tuesday on the seven-member high court there could determine the fate of abortion rights in the state. A Wisconsin law, enacted in 1849, that bans nearly all abortions is being challenged in court and is likely to land before the state Supreme Court.

    More fights over ballot initiatives on abortion are stirring to life around the country. In addition to Ohio – where a state law banning abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy has been put on hold by a judge – abortion rights proponents have begun to push ballot proposals in South Dakota and Missouri. Most abortions are now illegal in those two states.

    And groups in at least more six states are considering citizen initiatives as a way to guarantee or expand access to abortions, said Marsha Donat, capacity building director at The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which helps progressive groups advance ballot measures.

    Ohio, however, looms as the next big abortion battleground on the 2023 calendar – with skirmishes already underway in the courts, the state legislature and on the airwaves.

    A state “fetal heartbeat” law that prohibits many abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy took effect when the US Supreme Court struck down Roe with its decision last June in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But the law has been put on hold by a judge in Cincinnati in a case that’s expected to end up before the state’s high court.

    Abortion rights supporters recently won approval to begin collecting signatures to put a measure on the November ballot that would guarantee Ohioans’ access to abortion. If approved by voters, state officials could not prohibit abortion until after fetal viability, the point at which doctors say the fetus can survive outside the womb.

    The initiative says that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions” on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.

    It also would bar the state from interfering with an individual’s “voluntary exercise of this right” or that of a “person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right.”

    A conservative group called Protect Women Ohio immediately launched an ad campaign – putting $4 million on the air and $1 million into digital advertising – to cast the amendment as one that would strip parents of their authority to prevent a child from having an abortion or undergoing gender reassignment surgery, although the proposed constitutional amendment makes no mention of transgender care.

    Officials with Protect Women Ohio argue that the initiative’s language is broad enough to be interpreted as extending to gender reassignment surgery, an assertion initiative proponents say is false.

    In the campaign aimed at defeating the amendment, “we’ll make sure they have to own every last word of this radical initiative,” said Aaron Baer, the president of Center for Christian Virtue and a Protect Women Ohio board member, told CNN. “They chose this language for a reason, and we’re not going to let them off the hook.”

    Lauren Blauvelt – who chairs Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, the group promoting the initiative – said the ad “is completely wrong” and called it an “unfortunate talking point from the other side.”

    “Our amendment … creates the fundamental right that an individual can make their own reproductive health care decisions” and does not touch on other topics, she said.

    But the ad campaign highlights the effort to link abortion to the transgender and parental rights issues currently animating conservative activists.

    Susan B. Anthony’s Pritchard said she believes that her side can win on the issue of limiting abortions but “we believe also that we broaden our coalition and broaden awareness of what these things actually do when we highlight the parental rights issue that is very real.”

    The initiative’s supporters need to collect more than 413,000 signatures from Ohioans by July 5 to qualify for the November ballot. Under current Ohio law, changes to the state’s constitution can be approved via ballot initiative by a simple majority of voters.

    A bill introduced by Republican state Rep. Brian Stewart would increase that threshold to 60% and would mandate that the signatures needed to put an amendment on the ballot come from all 88 counties in the state, instead of 44, as currently required.

    Ohio state Senate President Matt Huffman backs raising the threshold and also supports holding an August special election to change the ballot initiative rules. If successful, the higher threshold would be in effect before November’s election when voters could consider adding abortion rights to the state constitution.

    Neither Huffman nor Stewart responded to interview requests from CNN.

    Ohio lawmakers recently voted to end August special elections, citing their expense and low participation. But Huffman recently told reporters in Ohio that a special election – with a potential price tag of $20 million – would be worth the expense if it helped torpedo the abortion initiative.

    “If we save 30,000 lives as a result of spending $20 million, I think that’s a great thing,” he said, according to Cleveland.com.

    The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is tracking 109 measures across 35 states that could affect initiatives put to voters in 2024. Some would increase the threshold for an initiative to pass. Others would increase the minimum number of signatures – or require that they come from a broader geographic area – before an initiative could qualify for the ballot in the first place, Donat said.

    Many of the bills that seek to make it more difficult to pass ballot initiatives do not specifically target abortion issues. But they come as progressive groups increasingly turn to the initiative process as a way to bypass Republican-controlled legislatures and put a raft of issues – from legalizing marijuana to expanding Medicaid eligibility and boosting the minimum wage – directly to voters.

    “Attacks, through state legislatures, on the ballot measure process have been pretty consistent and pretty aggressive for the last several (election) cycles,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which has helped pass progressive measures in red states.

    Hall said the abortion issue, while not the sole focus of current efforts to curb ballot initiatives, has put “additional fuel on an already burning fire.”

    In Missouri, a state law banning most abortions – including in cases of rape and incest – took effect last year after Roe was overturned. A group called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom has filed petition language that proposes adding abortion protections to the state constitution via ballot initiative. In recent cycles, voters in Missouri have expanded Medicaid eligibility and legalized recreational marijuana use through such initiatives.

    This year, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature is weighing making it harder for those initiatives to succeed. In February, the state House voted to raise the bar for amending the state constitution from a simple majority to 60%. Voters would have to approve the higher threshold.

    “I believe the Missouri Constitution is a living document but not an ever-expanding document,” Republican state Rep. Mike Henderson, the measure’s sponsor, said during House floor debate. “And right now, it has become an ever-expanding document.”

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  • Florida House passes bill extending ban on sexual orientation and gender identity instruction to 8th grade | CNN Politics

    Florida House passes bill extending ban on sexual orientation and gender identity instruction to 8th grade | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Florida House voted Friday to extend a prohibition on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity to eighth grade, reviving a debate from last year that sparked widespread condemnation from Democrats and copycat legislation in Republican statehouses around the country.

    The bill, which passed 77-35 in the Republican-controlled House, would go further than current Florida law to restrict the rights of transgender individuals in the state and limit what schools can discuss and teach about sex.

    The bill would force K-12 public schools to define sex as “an immutable biological trait” and says it is “false” to use a pronoun that doesn’t correspond to that sex. It would ban teachers from using their preferred pronouns when talking to a student, and it also says that schools cannot require teachers or students to refer to another person by their preferred pronouns if they differ from that person’s sex at birth.

    Under the bill, any materials used by schools as part of sex education curriculum would have to be approved by the state Department of Education.

    The existing law, signed last year by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, restricts instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom through third grade or in an age-appropriate manner for older grades. Democrats, LGBTQ groups and some businesses, most notably Disney, objected to the measure, which opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    DeSantis argued at the time that young children should not be exposed to concepts such as gender identity. However, his administration this month proposed extending the prohibition through high school.

    A Senate version of the House bill passed received a favorable recommendation from a committee on March 20 and is awaiting further action.

    The bill that passed Friday would also give parents and citizens more power to challenge classroom materials they consider pornographic or believe contain sexual conduct. Schools would have five days to remove any book that is challenged. Schools must hold public meetings to determine whether the material should be allowed. If a parent disagrees with the decision, the school will have to pay for a special magistrate picked by the state Department of Education to review the material and make a determination.

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  • Idaho governor signs bill that restricts transgender students’ bathroom use in schools | CNN Politics

    Idaho governor signs bill that restricts transgender students’ bathroom use in schools | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a bill this week that prohibits transgender students in the state from using public school bathrooms that do not align with their gender assigned at birth.

    Senate Bill 1100, which takes effect July 1, requires public schools to provide separate male and female bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, dressing areas and overnight accommodations for students in the state. The restrictions do not apply to single-occupancy restrooms. The bill also requires reasonable accommodations to be made for students who are unwilling or unable to use multi-occupancy restrooms or changing facilities.

    “Requiring students to share restrooms and changing facilities with members of the opposite biological sex generates potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students,” the bill states.

    Under the law, students can take legal action against the schools in instances where they encounter people of the opposite sex using gendered facilities if the schools gave those people permission to use the facilities or failed to “take reasonable steps” to prevent the person from using those facilities.

    Students who are successful in their private lawsuits will receive $5,000 from the public school systems for each time they saw “a person of the opposite sex” in those gendered facilities or sleeping quarters and can receive monetary damages from schools for psychological, emotional or physical harm.

    Advocates have for years worked to combat bathroom bills like the one passed in Idaho, blasting them as an unnecessary and harmful attack on transgender students’ humanity.

    Democratic state Sen. Rick Just told CNN on Saturday that he had voted against the bill largely because it allows people to file private lawsuits against school systems. “I don’t believe it’s helpful to encourage citizens to seek damages whenever they feel aggrieved in the slightest way,” he told CNN in an email.

    Republican state Rep. Ted Hill, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the legislation would ultimately “bring peace” among the schools, school boards and parents, and that it would help them focus on students’ education instead.

    “The most important part of this legislation was to recognize the rights of everyone,” Hill told CNN in an email. “Recognized the rights for young girls to be safe and secure in a place where they are most vulnerable, same for the boys to be safe and secure where they are most vulnerable, and the rights for everyone else to be safe, secure and comfortable in a place where they are most vulnerable.”

    Little did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill Saturday.

    Following the legislation’s passage, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the US, slammed Little and said, “LGBTQ+ people in Idaho deserve the opportunity to live their lives with dignity and respect.”

    “Unfortunately, the bills that Gov. Little is signing into law will make life harder on LGBTQ+ folks across the state,” the group’s state legislative director and senior counsel, Cathryn Oakley, said in a statement. “These bills will not accomplish anything other than to further alienate and stigmatize those already on the margins of life in this state.”

    The Human Rights Campaign said that more “bathroom bills” have been filed across the country so far in 2023 than in any previous year.

    The Idaho legislation follows similar bills Republican governors in Arkansas and Iowa signed this past week.

    On Tuesday, Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill that prevents transgender people from using restrooms that do not match the sex they have listed on their birth certificates. And in Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill prohibiting transgender people from using school restrooms that do not correspond to their sex assigned at birth.

    Transgender Americans make up a tiny fraction of kids in the US – the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated less than 2% of high school students identify as transgender.

    Health care professionals have said the types of bills Republicans are pushing are likely to further ostracize transgender kids, a group that already struggles with higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide.

    The political debate around which bathrooms trans people are allowed to use exploded in 2016, when North Carolina enacted a law that required people at government-run facilities to use bathrooms and locker rooms that corresponded to the gender on their birth certificates, if the rooms in question were multiple-occupancy. The measure drew intense criticism from businesses and advocates, and it was later repealed.

    Alongside the transgender legislation, Little signed House Bill 186, which allows for executions by firing squad in Idaho if the state cannot obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection. Several states have struggled to source the drugs required for lethal injection, causing them to pause executions.

    This story has been updated with further reaction.

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  • World Athletics regulations on transgender women athletes risk human rights violations, rights groups say | CNN

    World Athletics regulations on transgender women athletes risk human rights violations, rights groups say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Trans rights advocates have warned sports governing bodies that “blanket bans” on transgender women from competing in women’s categories risk “violating fundamental human rights principles.”

    This follows World Athletics (WA) President Sebastian Coe’s announcement of new regulations around transgender women athletes on Thursday, which come into force on March 31 and prohibit athletes who have gone through what WA called “male puberty” from participating in female world rankings competitions. WA said the exclusion would apply to “male-to-female transgender athletes.”

    “Such policies risk violating international human rights principles of non-discrimination, which require such policies to start from a place of inclusion unless an exclusion can be justified as proportionate to any risks identified,” Anna Brown, CEO of Equality Australia, said in a statement.

    “World Athletics has failed to meet that standard.”

    Meanwhile, retired Australian transgender athlete Ricki Coughlan said she was “disappointed” by what she feels is a “fundamentally discriminatory” decision.

    “When leaders make decisions which divide and exclude us, we see this reflected in community,” Coughlan wrote on Twitter.

    “The voices of hate are amplified on one side and fear on the other. Our communities become divided and we miss the opportunity to achieve what we can only achieve when we come together, each of us working in a spirit where we can all strive to reach our full potentials.”

    Coe said the decision had been made to “maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations.”

    He explained that WA – the global governing body for track and field – would set up a working group to evaluate the issue of transgender inclusion over the next 12 months.

    “We’re not saying no forever,” Coe said.

    In a statement to CNN on Friday, WA said: “The science shows that anyone who has gone through male puberty retains male anatomical differences that provide an athletic advantage.

    “The World Athletics Council was unwilling to compromise the integrity of the female category without evidence that these male advantages can be ameliorated.

    “We currently do not have any transgender athletes in elite international competition; therefore, the time is right to consult more widely on this subject. We hope that any transgender athletes who are planning to enter our sport at an elite level come forward and contribute to our new Working Group.”

    In recent years, some opponents of trans women and girls’ participation in sport have turned the issue into a political flashpoint. In January, a small group of demonstrators gathered outside the NCAA Convention in San Antonio to protest the inclusion of transgender women athletes in women’s college sports.

    Advocates of banning transgender women from women’s sport have argued that transgender women have a physical advantage over cisgender women in sports.

    But the mainstream science does not support that conclusion. A 2017 report in the journal Sports Medicine that reviewed several related studies found “no direct or consistent research” on trans people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers, and critics say the bans add to the discrimination trans people face.

    Debate in the scientific community about whether androgenic hormones like testosterone serve as useful markers of athletic advantage remains ongoing.

    A World Athletics document obtained by CNN earlier this year states that trans women “retain an advantage in muscle mass, volume, and strength over cis women” after 12 months of gender affirming hormone therapy, while acknowledging that there is “limited existing experimental data” on the matter.

    The new policy follows similar regulations introduced by swimming governing body World Aquatics last year, which say that male-to-female transgender athletes will only be eligible to compete in the women’s categories in World Aquatics competitions if they transition before the age of 12 or before they reach stage two on the puberty Tanner Scale.

    Some athletes welcomed World Athletics’ decision, including British runner Emily Diamond, who called it “a big step for fairness and protecting the female category.”

    Writing on Twitter, Diamond added: “Hopefully this will be the rule across all levels now, not just elite ranking events.”

    Save Women’s Sport Australasia, a group campaigning against transgender athletes in women’s sport, also welcomed the move from WA.

    “It’s not a ban, it just actually moves to protect the female category to female competitors and it was an excellent decision,” spokeswoman Ro Edge told Reuters.

    “So it’s really reassuring to hear (WA) president Seb Coe come out and say they’ve got to maintain fairness of female participation above all other considerations.”

    Coe said the decision came after deliberation with groups including World Athletics member federations, the Global Athletics Coaches Academy and Athletes’ Commission and the IOC, as well as representative transgender and human rights groups.

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  • Georgia’s governor signs ban on certain gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

    Georgia’s governor signs ban on certain gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill Thursday to ban certain gender-affirming care for minors, joining a growing number of GOP-led states looking to restrict the treatments across the country.

    Senate Bill 140 will bar licensed medical professionals in Georgia from providing patients under the age of 18 with hormone therapy or surgery related to gender transition. Violations of the legislation could lead to the revocation of a health practitioner’s license.

    Kemp announced the signing in a tweet, saying that the law would “ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of Georgia’s children.”

    “As Georgians, parents, and elected leaders, it is our highest responsibility to safeguard the bright, promising futures of our kids – and SB 140 takes an important step in fulfilling that mission,” he said.

    LGBTQ advocates, however, have expressed concern over restricting access to such treatment, which is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender, the gender by which one wants to be known.

    “SB 140 will outlaw the care necessary to save children’s lives,” Rep. Nikema Williams, who chairs the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement after the signing. “It is not only cruel, but it flies in the face of medical science, standards of patient care, and the lived experiences of those whom it impacts.”

    Democratic state Sen. Josh McLaurin shared similar concerns about the bill’s consequences for Georgia’s youth, after it passed in Georgia’s Senate Tuesday with a 31-21 vote.

    “Kids will commit suicide. Kids will feel like they’re not being heard, that their basic existence is being invalidated and erased,” McLaurin said.

    The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, noted in a 2022 report that 55% of transgender and nonbinary youth in Georgia “seriously considered suicide in the past year” and 16% attempted suicide in the same timeframe.

    While the bill grants exemptions to the law “for individuals born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development” and other medical conditions, it does not count gender dysphoria – a psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align, according to the American Psychiatric Association – among them.

    Minors who started hormone replacement therapy before July 1, 2023, will be allowed to continue the treatment under the new legislation.

    Cory Isaacson, a legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, warned ahead of the signing that the legal organization would sue the state over the law, claiming that Georgia’s politicians are “interfering with the rights of Georgia parents to get life-saving medical treatment for their children and preventing physicians from properly caring for their patients.”

    “The ACLU of Georgia and our partners will now consider all available legal options in order to protect the rights of parents, young people, and medical providers in our state,” she said

    Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria.

    Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

    The Georgia bill does not explicitly prohibit puberty blockers, breaking with similar bans across the country. Instead, the bill takes aim at hormone therapy that comes with more permanent effects than puberty blockers, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which notes the treatment is shown to help transgender people with depression and boost self-esteem.

    Georgia’s legislation is similar in its goal to dozens of bills seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care across the country, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN.

    Some GOP-led states have already made restrictions on transgender youth’s access to health care in their states. On Wednesday, Iowa enacted its own ban on all forms of gender affirming care for minors, joining Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah and South Dakota, which passed their own bans earlier this year. Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas also enacted bans on gender-affirming care in recent years, though the laws in Alabama and Arkansas have been temporarily blocked by federal courts.

    Other potential bans are waiting in the wings, with Missouri’s Republican attorney general Monday announcing he would seek to implement an emergency regulation restricting gender-affirming care. Kentucky’s Republican-led legislature passed its own ban earlier this month while boasting a majority that could overturn the likely veto of its Democratic governor. That bill would also allow educators to refuse to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns and would not allow schools to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students of any age.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Kentucky lawmakers pass ban on gender-affirming care for youth | CNN

    Kentucky lawmakers pass ban on gender-affirming care for youth | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican lawmakers in Kentucky have passed a bill that prohibits transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming care, allows educators to misgender students and would not allow schools to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students of any age.

    The bill, if enforced, would prohibit gender-affirming care for minors, such as surgical procedures or the use of certain hormones, and calls for healthcare providers to terminate or set a timeline to end treatment for patients already undergoing such care.

    The emotional debate over gender-affirming care for transgender students has become a political flashpoint – especially among conservatives – at a time legislators across the country are advancing measures to restrict LGBTQ rights.

    Senate Bill 150 has been delivered to the office of Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat who has expressed his opposition to the measure. Republican lawmakers, however, hold a majority and could override a veto from the governor.

    Beshear, in a press conference earlier this month, chided the state legislature for focusing on the culture wars issue and challenged them to work on increasing teacher pay and expanding healthcare to residents.

    Beshear cited polls showing that a majority of Kentuckians believe medical decisions about their children should be left to parents and their families.

    “What some legislation is doing here in Frankfort is tearing that away and saying, ‘No, big government is going to tell you what is medically best for your children.’ As a parent, I think that’s wrong,” Beshear said on March 2.

    “When it comes to this issue polling doesn’t matter to me because I believe it’s the right thing to do,” said Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. David Meade (R). “If we’re going to protect children, we need to ensure that surgery or drugs that completely alter their life and alter their body is not something we should be allowing until they are adults who could choose that for themselves. This is the right thing to do for these children.”

    The Kentucky branch of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement saying the legislation was “rushed to the House floor after a hasty committee hearing where trans Kentuckians begged and pleaded for their lives, and access to critical care for trans youth.”

    “SB150 encompasses a host of new laws that are among the most extreme anti-trans attacks in the United States,” the ACLU statement said. The Kentucky ACLU said it “stands ready” to fight the ban in court should it become law.

    The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, noted the prevalence of deaths by suicide among LGBTQ youth.

    “It is appalling to see Kentucky lawmakers work so hastily on dangerous legislation that will only put young LGBTQ Kentuckians in harm’s way,” said Troy Stevenson, director of state advocacy campaigns for the Trevor Project. “In the last year, nearly half of LGBTQ youth in Kentucky seriously considered suicide – alarmingly, nearly 1 in 4 transgender and nonbinary youth in the state made a suicide attempt. Our leaders are pushing political wedge issues and sidestepping the real challenges like addressing the youth mental health crisis.”

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  • In wake of Florida law, additional states seek to restrict certain LGBTQ discussions in schools | CNN Politics

    In wake of Florida law, additional states seek to restrict certain LGBTQ discussions in schools | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Bills similar to Florida’s controversial legislation that bans certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools are being considered in at least 15 states, data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and reviewed by CNN shows.

    Some of the bills go further than the Florida law, dubbed by its critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” which sparked a furious nationwide discussion about LGBTQ rights, education policy and parental involvement in the classroom.

    The debate reflects the sensitive forces of LGBTQ rights becoming increasingly ascendant at a time when some parents are seeking greater input in their children’s education, especially in the wake of the tumult wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Republicans, arguing that discussions around gender identity and sexuality are inappropriate for young children, have used the banner of “parental rights” to push for a curtailment of such conversations in schools, even though opinions on the matter vary widely among parents. LGBTQ rights advocates see a conscious decision to stigmatize a vulnerable slice of American society and a potential chilling effect on what they believe to be urgently needed discussions.

    “These bills are predicated on the belief that queer identities are a contagion while straight, cisgender identities are somehow more pure or correct,” Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist for the ACLU, told CNN. “In truth, every student has a right to have their own life stories reflected back at them and every student benefits from stories that serve as a window into the lives of people different from them. Censorship and homogeneity benefit no one while denying all students an equal chance to learn, grow and thrive.”

    The ACLU has tracked a total of 61 bills across 26 states, though efforts in several states, including Mississippi and Montana, have already failed. Earlier this month, Arkansas approved restrictions against such discussions through the fourth grade.

    Ultimately, it’s unclear how many of the bills will be enacted. A Human Rights Campaign report released in January said that of 315 bills that they viewed as anti-LGBTQ that were introduced nationwide last year, only 29 – less than 10% – became law.

    Florida’s law, titled the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, prohibits classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” It also requires districts to notify a student’s parent if there’s a significant change in their mental or emotional well-being, which LGBTQ rights advocates argue could lead to some students being outed to their parents without the student’s knowledge or consent.

    “We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children. We will not move from that,” Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said when he signed the bill in March 2022.

    According to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for issues including LGBTQ rights, Florida’s law was the catalyst for the bills currently under consideration in other states, which include:

    • An Iowa bill that passed the state House last week that would prohibit instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through sixth grade.
    • A bill in Oregon that would prohibit any discussion on sexual identity for grades kindergarten through third grade without parental notification and consent.
    • Legislation in Alaska that would require parental notification two weeks prior to “any activity, class or program that includes content involving gender identity, human reproduction or sexual matters is provided to a child.”
    • Multiple bills in Florida that seek to double down on last year’s legislation, including one that requires instruction that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth” and another that prohibits requirements for employees to use pronouns that do not correspond with a student’s sex.

    A recurring theme in the legislation is a requirement that school employees notify a parent if a child expresses a desire to be addressed by a pronoun that matches their gender identity if it differs from the one assigned at birth.

    “We’re not saying that you can’t do this,” Washington Republican state Sen. Phil Fortunato, who introduced legislation that would limit instruction on gender and sexual identity for kindergarten through third grade, told CNN. “I mean, I disagree with it, but, you know, if the parents and the child agree with it, that is their decision. But they shouldn’t be doing it behind the parent’s back when their kid goes to school. And that’s the point of the bill.”

    Missouri’s bill is uniquely far-reaching: no employee at a public or charter school would be allowed to “encourage a student under the age of eighteen years old to adopt a gender identity or sexual orientation,” though what the law means by “encourage” is not explained. School officials would be required to immediately notify parents if their child confides in them “discomfort or confusion” about their “official identity” and teachers would not be allowed to refer to a student by their preferred pronouns without first securing a parent’s approval.

    The bill specifically calls for whistleblower protections for school employees who report violators, who would then face “charges seeking to suspend or revoke the teacher’s license to teach based upon charges of incompetence, immorality or neglect of duty.”

    In a blog post entitled “Evil perpetrated on our children,” Missouri GOP state Sen. Mike Moon, who sponsored the legislation, called it a “lie that boys can be changed into girls and girls can be changed into boys.”

    “One thing we must agree on, though, is that parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children,” he continued. “To that end, parents must be involved in the education of their children.”

    The measures are likely to face swift legal challenges if enacted, though at least two efforts to block Florida’s law have so far failed to take it off the books. One of those lawsuits, brought by a group of students, parents and teachers in Florida, was thrown out last month by US District Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee, who said the challengers were unable to show that they’ve been harmed by the law.

    “Plaintiffs have shown a strident disagreement with the new law, and they have alleged facts to show its very existence causes them deep hurt and disappointment,” Winsor wrote in his order. “But to invoke a federal court’s jurisdiction, they must allege more. Their failure to do so requires dismissal.”

    At the heart of opponents’ concerns is the vagueness in the laws’ language as written. LGBTQ issues are not generally a formal part of public school curricula, they point out, leaving educators with the prospect of having to determine where legal fault lines are drawn with nothing less than their careers at stake.

    “What counts as classroom discussion? As classroom instruction? Does it just include the curriculum for the class?” asked Alice O’Brien, the general counsel for the Alice O’Brien, in an interview with CNN. “For example, does it include teachers’ lesson plans, or does it sweep so broadly as to include classroom discussion? A teacher answering a student’s question, a teacher perhaps intervening in an incident where one student is bullying another student because of that student’s prestige, sexual orientation or gender identity? It’s very unclear what is prohibited and what is not prohibited.”

    There are other concerns. Naomi G. Goldberg, the deputy director of MAP, worries about a “chilling effect on teachers themselves in terms of their ability to support students in the classroom as well as the students themselves in the classroom.”

    A similar point was made in a CNN op-ed last year by Claire McCully, a trans mother who is outraged over Florida’s law.

    “Like any other parent, I expect my family to be welcomed and accepted by others at the school,” McCully wrote. “And of course, this acceptance might be more likely if some of the children’s stories read in classrooms feature two dads, two moms or even a trans mom.”

    Cathryn Oakley, the state legislative director and senior counsel of the Human Rights Campaign, told CNN that using a student’s preferred pronouns is harmless to other students but deeply meaningful to trans children themselves. She urged a cautious approach that recognizes the need for schools to be a safe space for vulnerable children, particularly if there is a risk that outing a child before they are ready could lead to “family rejection or even violence.”

    “No one is suggesting that this is information that won’t be relevant to parents,” she said. “But what we are saying is that young folks should be able to have this conversation on their own terms with their parents and not have a third party be forced to broker a conversation that could put that child in danger.”

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  • Girls’ high school deemed ineligible to play in future activities and tournaments after forfeiting basketball game against team with transgender student-athlete | CNN

    Girls’ high school deemed ineligible to play in future activities and tournaments after forfeiting basketball game against team with transgender student-athlete | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Vermont girls’ high school that withdrew from a basketball tournament last month after refusing to play against a team that had a transgender player is no longer able to participate in future Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) activities and tournaments, the group said in a news release Monday.

    VPA, the state’s governing body for school sports, sent a letter to the Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) on Monday saying the school’s forfeiture, and stated rationale for forfeiting, did “not meet the expectations” of the organization’s policies after MVCS forfeited the February 21 game.

    “Thus, Mid Vermont Christian school is ineligible to participate in VPA activities going forward,” the letter said.

    In a Tuesday statement, MVCS said it plans to appeal the decision.

    “Mid Vermont Christian school is disappointed with the decision of the VPA Executive Council to ban us from participation in all VPA activities. We intend to appeal the decision,” the head of school at MVCS, Vicky Fogg, said in an email. “Canceling our membership is not a solution and does nothing to deal with the very real issue of safety and fairness facing women’s sports in our beloved state. We urge the VPA to reconsider its policies, and balance the rights of every athlete in the state.”

    A 2017 report in the journal Sports Medicine that reviewed several related studies found “no direct or consistent research” on trans people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers, and critics say the recent surge in anti-trans rhetoric and legislation adds to the discrimination that trans people – particularly trans youth – face.

    VPA said its executive council held a meeting Monday to discuss the forfeited game and came to “an immediate determination of ineligibility for Mid Vermont Christian in VPA sanctioned activities and tournaments going forward.” The news release cites the letter VPA sent to MVCS.

    MVCS was set to play against Long Trail School last month, but MVCS forfeited the game due to a transgender player on Long Trail’s roster, the head of school at MVCS, Fogg previously told CNN.

    “We withdrew from the tournament because we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players,” Fogg previously said in a statement. “Allowing biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”

    CNN has repeatedly reached out to Long Trail for comment.

    In its Monday release, VPA said it “reiterates its ongoing support of transgender student-athletes as not only a part of building an inclusive community for each student to grow and thrive, but also as a clear expectation by Vermont state law(s) in the Agency of Education Best Practices, and in VPA Policy regarding transgender student athletes.”

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  • Biden says efforts to restrict transgender rights ‘close to sinful’ | CNN Politics

    Biden says efforts to restrict transgender rights ‘close to sinful’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden called efforts to restrict transgender rights in Florida “close to sinful” in an interview released Monday, suggesting federal laws should be passed to protect those rights in all states.

    “What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” Biden said during an interview with Kal Penn for “The Daily Show.”

    Biden’s comments came as an unprecedented number of measures are introduced in state legislatures this year that are seeking to restrict LGBTQ rights. The proposed bills cover a wide range of policies, including some that seek to restrict transgender people from competing on sports teams or using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

    Youth and medical care is a growing legislative focus. Florida will soon enact a measure banning gender-affirming medical care for youth, including barring doctors from prescribing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for patients under 18. Tennessee passed a law this month banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

    Biden didn’t specify which rules he found offensive, but said that efforts to restrict the rights of trans individuals were “cruel.”

    “It’s not like a kid wakes up one morning and says, You know, I decided I wanted to become a man or want to become a woman or I want to change. I mean, what are they thinking about here? They’re human beings. They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations,” he said.

    “It just, to me, is, I dunno, it’s cruel,” he went on.

    “And the way we do it is make sure we pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage. You mess with that, you’re breaking the law, and you’re going to be held accountable,” he said.

    At least 385 bills targeting LGBTQ rights and queer life have been introduced around the country through March 7, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union. The number of bills has already surpassed last year’s total of 306, according to ACLU data shared with CNN.

    In the interview, Biden also affirmed his support for same-sex marriage, describing an epiphany when he was young after seeing two “well-dressed men” kissing outside an office building in Delaware.

    “I’ll never forget – I turned and looked at my dad. He said, ‘Joey, it’s simple. They love each other,’” he said.

    Despite the early view into same-sex relationships, Biden still voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 when he was a senator, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

    His views on the issue evolved, and in 2012, when he was serving a vice president, Biden delivered an unexpected endorsement of same-sex marriage in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    At the end of last year, Biden signed into law landmark new federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples, capping both a personal and national evolution on an issue that’s enjoyed growing acceptance over the past decade.

    In the interview, Biden lightly ribbed Penn – an actor who also worked in the Obama White House – for putting off marriage after getting engaged to his partner five years ago.

    “Listen to your auntie and your uncle: get married. Do it now. Don’t wait,” he said.

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  • Tennessee governor signs ban on gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

    Tennessee governor signs ban on gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed a law that prohibits gender-affirming care for minors, the latest state to do so as part of a wider Republican-pushed effort nationwide.

    Senate Bill 0001 prohibits health care providers “from performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”

    It specifies that minors who receive care cannot be held liable but lawsuits could be brought up against a minor’s parents “if the parent of the minor consented to the conduct that constituted the violation on behalf of the minor.”

    The newly signed law also grants the attorney general the authority to fine health care professionals who provide the care with a civil penalty of $25,000 per violation.

    The law – enacted on the same day that Lee signed a bill restricting drag show performances in the state – will go into effect on July 1. Gender-affirming care that began prior to July 1 is not considered a violation “provided that the treating physician must make a written certification that ending the medical procedure would be harmful to the minor,” though access to such care must conclude by March 31, 2024.

    LGBTQ advocates and many physicians regard the treatment as medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender, the gender by which one wants to be known.

    But Tennessee’s legislation – similar in its aim to more than 80 such bills nationwide seeking to restrict access to the treatment, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN – expresses concern over long-term outcomes and questions whether minors are capable of making such consequential decisions.

    Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.

    Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

    In pushing the health care bans, Republicans have argued that decisions around such care should be made after an individual becomes an adult, though lawmakers in some states have sought to push bans as far back as the age of 26.

    “The state has a compelling interest to protect children from experimental and unproven medical procedures,” Tennessee state Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican, told CNN. “We want children suffering from gender dysphoria to get the important mental health treatment they need, but it’s not appropriate to subject children to irreversible procedures with lifelong health complications.”

    Tennessee’s law comes in the wake of similar restrictions in other Republican-controlled states.

    Earlier this week, Mississippi enacted a similar ban, joining Utah and South Dakota, which passed their own bans earlier this year. Arkansas enacted a ban in 2021, and Alabama put one on its books last year. Arizona also enacted restrictions on gender-affirming care in 2022, though its ban was less sweeping than the others.

    Blasting Lee’s signing, the ACLU on Thursday said Tennessee’s law takes a critical and sensitive decision away from families of transgender youth and promised to mount a legal challenge in court.

    “We will not allow this dangerous law to stand,” the ACLU, its Tennessee chapter and Lambda Legal said in a statement. “Certain politicians and Gov. Lee have made no secret of their intent to discriminate against youth who are transgender or their willful ignorance about the life-saving health care they seek to ban. Instead, they’ve chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee.

    The statement continued, “We are dedicated to overturning this unconstitutional law and are confident the state will find itself completely incapable of defending it in court. We want transgender youth to know they are not alone and this fight is not over.”

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