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anti-trans
Trump's Budget Exposes the Cruel, Immoral Rot at the Heart of the Republican Party
If we judge President Trump’s values by this budget, we could reasonably conclude he values only Pentagon bloat and aggressive assaults against the most vulnerable people in society.
Apr 24, 2026
Presidents release their federal spending priorities annually in the form of a federal budget proposal. This is a moral rather than a practical document—the president’s budget virtually never passes Congress as written. Instead, it expresses the values of presidents and how they want to see the nation’s revenues raised and investments spent. It’s a blueprint for the kind of country they want us to be.
These priorities fluctuate depending on which administration and party is in power. The fiscal year 2027 budget proposal from President Donald Trump is a shocking departure from values most Americans hold.
The budget proposal builds on the values legislated through Trump’s so-called “One Beautiful Bill,” passed last year, which stole from the rest of us to give tax breaks to the uber wealthy and the richest corporations.
If we judge Trump’s values by this budget, we could reasonably conclude he values only Pentagon bloat, aggressive assaults against immigrant families, and stripping rights from transgender people. Meanwhile, families and communities are essentially thrown to the wolves.
We must demand robust investments in family, community, and basic human needs. These are our national values, not war and the prosecution of immigrant children.
The most eye-popping number is the proposed $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon—a huge increase over the already astronomical $1 trillion spent this year. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has brazenly abused immigrants and US citizens, would also get billions more—over and above the unprecedented sums it got in the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
What wouldn’t get an increase in Trump’s budget? Programs that actually help people. This budget proposes a 10% cut to all non-Pentagon discretionary spending.
The Department of Health and Human Services is cut by 12.5%. The Department of Agriculture, 25%. The Department of Labor is slashed by 26%, and the Environmental Protection Agency is cut in half.
Jobs Corps for young people and work assistance for seniors are eliminated. After-school programs and food assistance for children are slashed. The federal government’s signature housing program, HOME, is zeroed out entirely.
At a time when families are navigating rising living costs, stagnant wages, and a tight job market, this budget proposes deep cuts to the programs that help them get by. Education, food and housing assistance, home energy assistance, and worker rights—all either zeroed out or drastically reduced. Even the children’s summer food program and the fruit and vegetable benefits of food stamps are cut.
Mind you, all this would come on top of the historic $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, SNAP, and other programs under the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Those cuts aren’t a proposed blueprint—they’ve already been passed into law.
Children feel these effects the most. Reduced access to Head Start and school-based nutrition and disability services doesn’t just affect the present moment—they shape lifelong outcomes. Food insecurity, unstable housing, and a lack of early education create barriers that no child should have to try to overcome.
Transgender people, already under aggressive attack, are targeted in this budget—for example, historic cuts to the National Institutes of Health include eliminating research on the health of trans people.
The document also repeatedly scapegoats the trans community for cuts to programs that have virtually nothing to do with them. For instance, university programs that support vulnerable students were eliminated because the administration claims they fund “clothing needs for transgender people.” Cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association were justified, in part, because the agency allegedly held a workshop for transgender people.
These disinvestments destabilize entire communities and local economies. Public health suffers and income inequality increases.
A nation’s strength is not measured solely by its military spending or economic indicators. It is measured by whether its people—especially its most vulnerable—have what they need to live with dignity. This budget fails that test.
We know what works. Investments in education, nutrition, health, housing, care, income, and work supports. These investments stabilize communities and improve the economy. Choosing to cut these programs is not inevitable. It is a policy decision whose adverse effects will be felt for generations.
We must demand robust investments in family, community, and basic human needs. These are our national values, not war and the prosecution of immigrant children. Because when we disinvest in people, we all pay the price.
This op-ed may be republished with attribution to InsideSources.com.
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Anyone Telling You to Fear Your Trans Neighbors Is Lying to Hide Their Real Agenda
Mostly, they’re hoping you won’t notice the precedents they’re setting to take away your healthcare and invade your privacy.
Apr 04, 2026
It’s a distressing time to be a trans person just trying to mind your business.
This March, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued its third “red flag” warning about the risk of “anti-trans genocide” in the United States, warning about laws and policies designed to “criminalize” the entire trans community “based solely on its existence.”
In February, Kansas invalidated the IDs of all trans people in the state with a single day’s notice. Finally, just recently, the International Olympic Committee mandated that all persons competing in women’s events must submit to genetic screening—which will also ban all trans women and many intersex people from participating in Olympic sports.
As a trans person trying to walk my dog, pay my bills, and answer work emails in time to fold the laundry and make dinner, it’s profoundly stressful to say the least.
Dozens and dozens of peer-reviewed, scientifically valid studies in dozens of countries and contexts show that letting people make their own choices about how they live their own lives in their own bodies is very good for their well-being.
But it’s been this way for years. The tide of contemporary anti-trans legislation has grown from 2016’s famous (and failed) “bathroom bill” in North Carolina to a wave of speculative legislation funded by conservative billionaires creating division by stoking manufactured mass hysteria.
The numbers are staggering: a 668% increase in anti-trans legislation from 2021 to 2025, according to the Lemkin Institute. Since we all huddled down on our couches and started a sourdough hobby in 2020, the Institute says, we’ve had six consecutive record-breaking years in anti-trans bills introduced across the country.
But the horrors don’t stop in the legislatures.
A recent executive order banning trans people from the military calls trans people inherently dishonest and dishonorable. The US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that states can legally compel trans adults like me to “appreciate [our] sex” by banning our access to gender-affirming healthcare. And when a Texan politician called billionaires a more dangerous 1% of the population than trans people, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s pastor said he hoped the man would be crucified.
For all the hate we’re getting these days, you’d think trans women were scooping up Olympic gold medals and firebombing suburban dog parks.
The reality is much less exciting, underwhelming even. We remain, by and large, humans with less money; less political power; and maybe more opinions on animation, philosophy, and colored hair dye than the average bear.
It’s estimated that there are less than 10 trans athletes of any gender in the entire NCAA. Only one openly trans woman has competed in the entire history of the Olympic games, and she didn’t place. In fact, the British Journal of Sports Medicine recently found no scientific evidence that trans women have a single competitive advantage over cisgender women in sports.
But dozens and dozens of peer-reviewed, scientifically valid studies in dozens of countries and contexts show that letting people make their own choices about how they live their own lives in their own bodies is very good for their well-being.
The American Medical Association, the largest association of physicians in the United States, just affirmed that hormone therapy, sex-reassignment surgeries, and other procedures that change a person’s physical sex characteristics are successful and medically necessary. These procedures have some of the lowest regret rates around: lower than hip replacements, lower than cosmetic surgeries, perhaps even lower than Harry Potter tattoos.
The people telling you to fear your trans neighbors are lying to your face and inventing a scary fantasy. Mostly, they’re hoping you won’t notice the precedents they’re setting to take away your healthcare, invade your privacy, and send you on a surprise trip to the DMV.
And if you’re a woman in sports, they’ll want your genetic data. I haven’t looked at a history book in awhile but I’m pretty sure that’s a red flag.
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A Declaration of Independence From Trump’s Fascist America
Whenever any fascist regime of government becomes destructive to the future of humanity and the planet, it is the Responsibility of the People to drive it from power through nonviolent protest day after day.
Jul 04, 2025
In Washington D.C., On This July 4th, 2025
IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY,
WE DECLARE OUR INDEPENDENCE FROM TRUMP’S FASCIST AMERICA
Whenever any fascist regime of government becomes destructive to the future of humanity and the planet, it is the Responsibility of the People to drive it from power through nonviolent protest day after day until the regime is removed from power.
Donald Trump must go NOW because he and his regime are fascist. Fascism is a radically reactionary qualitative change in how society is governed. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, virulent racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive “traditional values.” Fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build the movement and consolidate power. What is crucial to understand is that once in power fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights.
The history of the Trump fascist regime is a history of repeated injuries, usurpations, and violence in the service of consolidating a fascist tyranny—assaulting truth, rule of law, the separation of powers and of church and state—while accelerating the climate catastrophe, endangering public health, and raising the risks of global war.
Let the facts be submitted.
To establish the rule of virulent white supremacy:
Trump has: re-exalted the slaveowners’ Confederacy; renamed U.S. military bases after Confederate “war heroes”; purged Black generals and racial diversity programs from the military; appointed white supremacists to key positions; racially whitewashed government websites and offices; made comments animalizing Black Haitian immigrants; removed Dr. Martin Luther King’ Jr.’s bust from the Oval Office; suggested that the nation’s first Black president face a “military tribunal”; assaulted the teaching and study of Black and Native American history; granted refugee status to white South African heirs of racist apartheid on the false claim that they are victims of “white genocide”; repeatedly spewed racist lies about people of color being unskilled and unqualified; and created a Supreme Court that ended anti-racist affirmative action in college admissions.
To cement the subjugation of women and erasure of LGBT people:
Trump has: bragged about being “the guy who ended” women’s fundamental right to abortion after his Supreme Court appointees reimposed the female enslavement of forced motherhood; repealed a government rule that requires medical providers to perform abortions required to save a pregnant woman’s life; threatened to use the archaic, 150-year-old Comstock Act to ban abortion in every state, with no exceptions; banned transgender care for minors; banned use of gender identity pronouns; stated that the gender identity on passports must match gender identity on birth certificates; and removed transgender service members from the military, making the false and dangerous claim that transgender troops cannot meet the military’s “high standards.”
To demonize whole peoples and threaten the world with “America First” xenophobia and imperialist aggression:
Trump has: unleashed militarized gendarmes to terrorize predominantly Latino immigrants with mass racially profiled kidnapping operations reminiscent of 1850s Fugitive Slave hunts from coast to coast; opened churches, schools, and immigration courts to his ferocious pursuit of brown-skinned immigrant bodies; attacked by executive fiat the core constitutional right of birthright citizenship, rendering stateless the children of undocumented immigrants born in this country; disappeared immigrants to torture prisons in El Salvador, with a green light from the Supreme Court to “deport” migrants to any third country or distant concentration camp; ordered the single largest de-legalization of human beings in U.S. history, stripping half a million Haitians, Cubans, and Venezuelans of their protected status overnight; illegally bombed Iran while threatening more “tragedy” to come; vowed to seize Greenland, threatened to annex Canada, deepened U.S. support for genocide in Gaza; and invoked “Manifest Destiny”, the 19th-century notion that America is divinely ordained to control all of North America.
And to establish a blatant dictatorship in which there is no rule of law and Trump is the law; where there is no due process, rights for the people, or recourse to redress the injustices of the regime; and political enemies are arrested, threatened, and suppressed:
Trump has: claimed that his reelection and second horrific administration are “God’s will” and refused to say whether he must honor the U.S. Constitution; waged a relentless war on truth, feeding his hate-filled base with one wild fascist lie after another; issued a barrage of illegal and unconstitutional executive orders; commanded the National Guard and the U.S. Marines to repress public protests of his mass deportation raids in Los Angeles, and threatened to arrest the governor of California and mayor of Los Angeles for voicing their opposition; made the Department of Justice a tool of retribution against his political enemies; blackmailed, bullied, and attacked the independence and integrity of leading law firms, universities, media corporations, and nonprofit organizations; defied federal court rulings; smeared and called for the impeachment of judges who rule against him; purged the military of leaders who might oppose his fascist moves; violated international law and the War Powers Act; and staged a military parade to announce the birth of a 21st-century fascist army loyal not to the rule of law, but to Trump personally.
A harsh historical truth made evident at great human cost in the previous century is that it is devastatingly difficult to dislodge fascists from power once they consolidate rule over state and society, as in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and in Chile under Pinochet in the 1970s. If they are not separated from authority prior to the cementing of their reign, it can become too late.
No matter how they attain power, fascist rule is never legitimate. The responsibility to expel fascists from power is particularly urgent when fascism threatens to consolidate control atop history’s most powerful nation in a time of deepening global climate catastrophe and a world full of ever more lethal nuclear weapons.
Refuse Fascism, appealing to all who care about justice and decency, declares: IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA. TRUMP MUST GO NOW!
Please join Refuse Fascism in declaring and demonstrating independence from Trump’s Fascist America during four days of action in Washington D.C. July 1-4, 2025—details here: https://refusefascism.org/2025/06/25/come-to-d-c-july-1-4-four-days-of-historic-struggle/.
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