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erin reed
'We Will Fight': Denver Schools Defy Trump's Attacks on Trans Students Despite Threats to Federal Funds
"The district has made clear it will not fold quietly, signaling that some institutions still have the resolve to stand against a federal campaign of erasure," wrote one LGBTQ+ rights journalist.
Sep 03, 2025
As educational institutions around the country capitulate, Denver's public school system said Tuesday that it would defy demands from the Trump administration to discriminate against transgender students even if it means losing federal funds.
Alex Marrero, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools (DPS), said the school "will protect all of their students from this hostile administration," by refusing to implement a ban on gender-neutral bathrooms mandated by Trump's Department of Education.
On Thursday, the department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent Denver Public Schools an email demanding that the school remove a multi-stall, gender-neutral restroom at one of its high schools, which it claimed violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
As Erin Reed, an independent journalist who covers LGBTQ+ rights, notes, the facility built by DPS and other schools is "similar to facilities in major airports, European cities, and increasingly across the United States." The school, meanwhile, has said that the facility was requested by students themselves and has 12-foot high partitions to protect their privacy.
The OCR went further. To be compliant with Title IX, it said, the school also had to "adopt biology-based definitions for the words 'male' and 'female'," meaning they needed to classify transgender students by their biological sex at birth rather than their preferred identities, including banning them from restrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex.
The Trump administration also called on the school to eliminate components of its "LGBTQ+ Toolkit," which includes guidance on how students and faculty can create a welcoming environment for their trans peers. Among other things, the document encourages members of the school community to step in to stop bullying of LGBTQ+ students, respect the preferred pronouns of all students, and for faculty to enforce dress codes in a gender-neutral way.
As Reed put it, the department was effectively "claiming that Title IX actually mandates discrimination against transgender students."
If DPS refused to comply within 10 days, the department threatened to strip the district of federal funding, which makes up 7% of the school's annual budget, according to Chalkbeat. A large portion of that federal money goes toward low-cost school lunches for poor children.
In a statement issued Tuesday, DPS's school board and administration put out a statement "disagreeing unequivocally" with the government's interpretation of the law.
"Title IX permits schools to provide sex-separate restrooms. It does not require that to be the only option," DPS argued. "The interpretation put forward by OCR would undercut our equity commitments, contradict our mission, harm the very students we are entrusted to support, and would have a devastating impact on East High School and the broader LGBTQ+ community. What matters most is that students are safe, have privacy, and can learn without fear."
"The decision to implement gender-neutral restrooms at East followed direct feedback from LGBTQ+ students who reported they did not feel safe," the statement continued. "For these students, access to a restroom where they feel secure is not symbolic. It is about dignity, health, and the ability to learn. When students speak, we listen and we act."
Superintendent Marrero, meanwhile, put out a short video on Instagram expressing his support for the district's LGBTQ+ students.
"As you might have seen in the news, the federal government has decided to take a firm stance and have us roll back our support to the LGBTQ+ community, and of course, we're not having it," Marrero said. "We will continue to stand in solidarity, and as you engage this weekend and beyond, I just wanted to let you know that we got you, and everything is going to be ok."
In a statement published alongside the video, Marrero wrote: "We will fight. In the courts, if we must. In the public square, when necessary. Always in partnership with those who believe that every student deserves to show up to school ready to learn, free from fear."
With this pledge to stand by its LGBTQ+ students, DPS joined five school districts in Virginia that last month responded with similar defiance when the Trump administration ordered them to stop allowing trans students to use bathrooms matching their gender. Those districts—which include Loudoun, Arlington, and Fairfax Counties—have launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration to keep their federal funding.
"Elite institutions like Brown, Columbia, and Penn—as well as multiple hospitals serving transgender youth—have already capitulated, signing away protections through bathroom and sports bans or cutting off medical care entirely," Reed wrote. "Denver Public Schools, by contrast, has drawn a line. With the Department of Education's deadline looming next Monday, the district has made clear it will not fold quietly, signaling that some institutions still have the resolve to stand against a federal campaign of erasure."
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'Have You No Decency?': House Hearing Ends After GOP Chair Misgenders Trans Lawmaker
After doubling down on calling Rep. Sarah McBride "mister," Rep. Keith Self explained, "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female."
Mar 12, 2025
The Republican chair of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee abruptly ended a hearing Tuesday after a Texas lawmaker repeatedly misgendered a transgender U.S. congresswoman, sparking a heated response from one of their Democratic colleagues.
Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, introduced Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) as "Mr. McBride," prompting the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress to retort, "Thank you, Madame Chair" before beginning her remarks.
McBride was interrupted by Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), the subcommittee's ranking member, who said, "Mr. Chairman, could you please repeat your introduction again?"
Texas Republican Keithself storms out of the meeting he's supposed to be running because a Democrat asked him to treat his colleague Sarah McBride with respect. These people would not last one day as a trans person.
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— Ari Drennen (@aridrennen.bsky.social) March 11, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Self, a 71-year old former Army colonel and county judge, replied that "we have set the standard on the floor of the House."
When pressed by Keating to explain that standard, Self doubled down on calling McBride "mister."
Keating shot back: "Mr. Chairman, you are out of order. Have you no decency? I mean, I've come to know you a little bit, but this is not decent. You will not continue [this hearing] with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way!"
Self then adjourned the hearing. He later explained on social media that "it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female," a reference to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on the first day back in office.
As journalist Erin Reed noted:
This is not the first time McBride has been treated this way by her colleagues. Just one month ago, Rep. McBride was referred to as the "gentleman from Delaware" on the House Floor by Republican Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.). Like Self, Miller also bragged about it afterwards, stating: "Today on the House floor, I refused to deny biological reality… President Trump restored biological truth in the federal government, and I refuse to perpetuate the lie that gender is open to our interpretation. It is not."
McBride has been a frequent target of Republican attacks, facing bathroom bans and dehumanizing rhetoric from her colleagues.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and commentators cheered Self and misgendered McBride. Miller even deadnamed the congresswoman.
McBride responded to Tuesday's incident on the social media site X, writing: "No matter how I'm treated by some colleagues, nothing diminishes my awe and gratitude at getting to represent Delaware in Congress. It is truly the honor and privilege of a lifetime. I simply want to serve and to try to make this world a better place."
The congresswoman has repeatedly stressed that she intends to "pick her battles" and eschew biting at Republicans' bait, while acknowledging that, as hurtful as it can be, bigoted attacks against her are a GOP ploy to distract attention from policies that harm working-class Americans.
"Now that I've got your attention," McBride
said in a separate X post demonstrating this ethos, "Our economy is tanking because of Trump's tariffs."
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Democratic State AGs Vow to Fight Trump's Attacks on Transgender People
"We will not let the president turn back the clock or deter us from upholding California values," said Rob Bonta, the state's attorney general.
Feb 05, 2025
Fifteen Democratic state attorneys issued a joint statement Wednesday vowing to protect access to gender-affirming healthcare amid the Trump administration's attacks on transgender people, which include a new executive order aiming to ban trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams.
"We stand firmly in support of healthcare policies that respect the dignity and rights of all people," the attorneys general said in a statement decrying Republican President Donald Trump's January 28 executive order banning federal support for gender-affirming care—which the president described as "chemical and surgical mutilation"—for young adults and minors under the age of 19.
"Healthcare decisions should be made by patients, families, and doctors, not by a politician trying to use his power to restrict your freedoms," the statement continues. "Gender-affirming care is essential, lifesaving medical treatment that supports individuals in living as their authentic selves."
"The Trump administration's recent executive order is wrong on the science and the law," the attorneys general asserted. "Despite what the Trump administration has suggested, there is no connection between 'female genital mutilation' and gender-affirming care, and no federal law makes gender-affirming care unlawful. President Trump cannot change that by executive order."
"State attorneys general will continue to enforce state laws that provide access to gender-affirming care, in states where such enforcement authority exists, and we will challenge any unlawful effort by the Trump administration to restrict access to it in our jurisdictions," they added.
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin signed the statement.
"California supports the rights of transgender youth to live their lives as their authentic selves," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Wednesday. "We will not let the president turn back the clock or deter us from upholding California values."
"I understand that the president's executive order on gender-affirming care has created some confusion," Bonta added. "Let me be clear: California law has not changed, and hospitals and clinics have a legal obligation to provide equal access to healthcare services."
The statement from the 15 attorneys general came on the same day that Trump signed an executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" that directs the Department of Education—which the president has vowed to abolish—to notify school districts that allowing transgender girls and women to compete on female teams violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education.
The executive order also directs the administration to "convene representatives of major athletic organizations and governing bodies, and female athletes harmed by such policies," and "convene state attorneys general to identify best practices in defining and enforcing equal opportunities for women to participate in sports and educate them about stories of women and girls who have been harmed by male participation in women's sports."
Wednesday's directive is the latest salvo in Trump's war on transgender people, which includes a day one executive order declaring that only two genders exist, another order advocating action against educators who "facilitate the social transition of a minor," a reinstatement of his first-term ban on new military enlistment by trans people—who, according to the White House, cannot lead an "honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle"—nominating a transphobe to head the Justice Department's civil rights office, and scrubbing all mention of transgender people and issues from federal agency websites.
Trans people and their allies are fighting back. Lawsuits have been filed
challenging restrictions on access to gender-affirming healthcare and the transfer of transgender women inmates to men's prisons. On Wednesday, a federal judge appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan temporarily blocked federal prisons from moving transgender women to men's facilities and cutting off their access to hormone therapy, citing the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At least two federal judges have also issued temporary restraining orders on Trump administration efforts to freeze funding for federal agencies and programs.
Protests in defense of gender-affirming healthcare and other trans rights have also taken place at hospitals and other locations across the country as Trump and allies including Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk pressure the U.S. Treasury Department to defund any programs specifically helping transgender and other LGBTQ+ people.
"The protection of marginalized communities will not come solely from elected officials or bureaucratic processes—it will come from sustained, organized resistance," trans rights activist Erin Reed wrote Wednesday. "History shows that real power lies not in centralized institutions but in the collective action of those who refuse to be divided."
"Authoritarian governments rely on fragmentation, banking on the idea that the public will see themselves as isolated rather than interconnected," Reed added. "As protests grow and solidarity strengthens across movements, the coming months may test just how powerful a unified public can be."
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Trump Bans Federal Support for Gender-Affirming Healthcare Up to Age 19
"This order will kill kids, there's no other way to say it," asserted one critic.
Jan 28, 2025
In his administration's latest attack on LGBTQ+ Americans, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order banning the federal government from supporting a wide range of gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.
Trump's order—titled "Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation"—states that the federal government "will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures."
"Child" is defined in the order as anyone younger than 19—including 18-year-old adults. The directive covers treatments and procedures including gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapy. The ban will adversely affect people who rely upon federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE, through which the Department of Defense provides health coverage for nearly 2 million youth dependents.
This order will kill kids, there's no other way to say it. It's the government forcibly taking control of the bodies of thousands of children.
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— Katelyn Burns (@katelynburns.com) January 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Furthermore, the order—which is almost certain to be challenged in court—places hospitals, clinics, and other providers of gender-affirming care at risk of losing federal funding.
"This executive order is a brazen attempt to put politicians in between people and their doctors, preventing them from accessing evidence-based healthcare supported by every major medical association in the country," Kelly Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. "It is deeply unfair to play politics with people's lives and strip transgender young people, their families, and their providers of the freedom to make necessary healthcare decisions."
"Questions about this care should be answered by doctors—not politicians—and decisions must rest with families, doctors, and the patient," Robinson added. "Everyone deserves the freedom to make deeply personal healthcare decisions for themselves and their families—no matter your income, zip code, or health coverage."
Trump made opposing rights for transgender people—especially children—a major part of his 2024 campaign, as it was during his first term.
The president's executive order claims that "medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child's sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions."
"This dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation's history, and it must end," asserts the directive, which dubiously claims that "countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding."
However, trans advocate Erin Reed pushed back, noting on social media that "detransition is rare, 1-4% in most studies, and regret even lower."
Furthermore, many doctors and medical experts agree that gender-affirming care saves the lives of trans youth, who are at higher risk of suicide and other self-harm, partly due to discrimination, bullying, and other societal pressures.
Trans people and their allies are already fighting back against Trump's policies. On Tuesday, half a dozen active-duty transgender U.S. troops and two people seeking to join the military sued to block a revival of the president's first-term ban on trans people enlisting in the armed forces.
The previous day, a transgender woman inmate in a federal women's prison sued the Trump administration over a recent executive order narrowly defining sex, arguing it is motivated by hate, violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and places her in mortal danger if she is transferred to a men's facility as ordered by the government.
In stark contrast with the direction in which Trump is steering the U.S., health officials in Thailand—which last year became the first nation in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage equality—this week announced a multimillion-dollar initiative to provide gender-affirming care for 200,000 transgender people in the country.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said last week that the marriage equality law, which went into effect this month, "marks the beginning of Thai society's greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion—our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity."
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Trump Taps Anti-Trans Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon for Key Civil Rights Post
"Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them," argued one critic.
Dec 10, 2024
LGBTQ+ and voting rights defenders were among those who sounded the alarm Tuesday over Republican President-elect Donald Trump's selection of a San Francisco attorney known for fighting against transgender rights and for leading a right-wing lawyers' group that took part in Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
On Monday, Trump announced his nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to head the key civil rights office, claiming on his Truth Social network that the former California Republican Party vice-chair "has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers."
"In her new role at the DOJ, Harmeet will be a tireless defender of our Constitutional Rights, and will enforce our Civil Rights and Election Laws FAIRLY and FIRMLY," Trump added.
However, prominent trans activist Erin Reed warned on her Substack that Dhillon's nomination—which requires Senate confirmation—"signals an alarming shift that could make life increasingly difficult for transgender people nationwide, including those who have sought refuge in blue states to escape anti-trans legislation."
Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She has stated that it must be "made unsafe" for hospitals to provide trans care, and frequently shares Libs of TikTok posts. She intends to target trans people in blue states. Subscribe to support my journalism.
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— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) December 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM
Reed continued:
Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth.
Reed also highlighted Dhillon's attacks on state laws protecting transgender people, as well as her expression of "extreme anti-trans views" on social media—including calling gender-affirming healthcare for trans children "child abuse."
Last year, The Guardian's Jason Wilson reported that the Center for American Liberty made a six-figure payment to a public relations firm that represented Dhillion in both "her capacity as head of her own for-profit law firm and Republican activist."
Writing for the voting rights platform Democracy Docket, Matt Cohen on Tuesday accused Dhillon of being "one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country."
"In the past few years, Dhillon—or an attorney from her law firm—has been involved in more than a dozen different lawsuits in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. challenging voting rights laws, redistricting, election processes, or Trump's efforts to appear on the ballot in the 2024 election," Cohen noted.
As Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday, "The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has the critical responsibility of enforcing our nation's federal civil rights laws and ensuring equal justice under the law on behalf of all of our communities."
"That means investigating police departments that have a pattern of police abuse, protecting the right to vote, and ensuring schools don't discriminate against children based on who they are," Wiley noted. "The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country."
"Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them," she asserted. "Rather than fighting to expand voting access, she has worked to restrict it."
A staunch Trump loyalist, Dhillon has also embraced conspiracy theories including the former president's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and has accused Democrats of "conspiring to commit the biggest election interference fraud in world history."
She was co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association when it launched Lawyers for Trump, a group that urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of the former president after he lost the 2020 election.
Cohen also highlighted Dhillon's ties to right-wing legal activist and Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, described by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) as a "lawless con man and crook" for his refusal to comply with a Senate subpoena and his organization of lavish gifts to conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices.
"We need a leader at the Civil Rights Division who understands that civil rights protections are not partisan or political positions open to the ideological whims of those who seek to elevate a single religion or to protect political allies or particular groups over others," Wiley stressed. "We need a leader who will vigorously enforce our civil rights laws and work to protect the rights of all of our communities—including in voting, education, employment, housing, and public accommodations—without fear or favor."
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Utah's Anti-Trans Bathroom Snitch Line Flooded With 'Bogus' Complaints
State Auditor John Dougall said that "concerned citizens should directly contact the bill sponsor, Rep. Birkeland," who doubled down on her support for the recently enacted law.
May 08, 2024
In just a week since its launch, Utah's " snitch line" for a new law restricting transgender people's access to some bathrooms and changing facilities was inundated with around 10,000 "bogus" reports, state Auditor John Dougall revealed Tuesday.
Dougall, a Republican running to represent the state's 3rd Congressional District, shared the figure with Utah News Dispatch and released a lengthy statement detailing his office's efforts to comply with House Bill 257, which GOP legislators passed and Gov. Spencer Cox signed earlier this year.
The law prohibits trans students in K-12 public schools from using bathrooms or changing rooms that align with their gender identity, according to an online resource from the ACLU of Utah and Equality Utah. The restrictions also apply to changing rooms in government-owned or -controlled buildings—such as the Utah Capitol and city or county recreation centers—but not to the facilities in private spaces such as restaurants, shopping malls, or theaters.
Since Dougall's office launched the online complaint form last week, Utahans and other opponents of H.B. 257 have posted the link on social media with messages like, " You know what to do." Some people even shared screenshots of their fake submissions.
Among the critics of the form was state Sen. Jennifer Plumb (D-9), who
said on social media last week: "Apparently Utah's solution to people feeling unsafe in restrooms is to encourage folks to take photos of and focus extreme attention on the private parts of others who are taking care of a biological need to eliminate waste? What could possibly go wrong?"
Dougall responded that "our hotline has historically allowed complainant to upload additional supporting information. My office has no interest in those types of photos which, of course you know, would be illegal." The auditor went back and forth with Plumb, who stressed that "these 'hotline' reporting spaces are what make people unsafe."
In his Tuesday statement, Dougall said that he has not received "a single legitimate complaint" and that his office "only investigates alleged violations of the statute by government entities" and "will not investigate the actions of any private individuals."
"The office created the complaint form to comply with a statutory mandate—a role we did not request. Indeed, no auditor sets out to become a bathroom monitor," Dougall continued. He noted that "the bill was rushed to final passage" and neither its sponsor, state Rep. Kera Birkeland (R-4), "nor any other legislator consulted with this office regarding this newly mandated obligation."
"I recognize that many Utahns feel trampled by an invasive and overly aggressive Legislature that too often fails to seek input from those most affected," he added. "The Legislature crafted these public policies, and only the Legislature can revise them. Concerned citizens should directly contact the bill sponsor, Rep. Birkeland, and other legislators at le.utah.gov."
Responding to Dougall's statement on social media Tuesday, Birkeland
said in part that "it's not surprising that activists are taking the time to send false reports" and "backlash from this legislation was completely expected."
"But that isn't a distraction from the importance of the legislation," she added, claiming that the law protects women and girls, and that opposition to it comes from "a loud and vocal minority."
Since North Carolina passed the nation's first bathroom bill in 2016, similar laws and other state-level legislation attacking various trans rights have been advanced by Republican lawmakers throughout the United States, often provoking legal challenges.
As trans journalist Erin Reed, who tracks anti-trans legislation across the country, highlighted Tuesday:
The ordeal over the bathroom reporting tool in Utah mirrors problems seen in many other anti-trans bathroom laws targeting transgender adults. These laws are extremely difficult to enforce. Questions of enforcement were brought up often in the debate, with many pointing out that you can't always tell who is transgender. This sentiment was shared in the Senate Business and Labor Committee by Dustin Parmley, a public defender, who stated: "This bill is impossible to enforce. It relies on citizens to determine if someone is feminine or masculine enough to use it. The exceptions are for hidden conditions, such as someone's surgery or birth certificate. It will lead to unnecessary police investigations."
"Other attempts to create such forms have similarly failed,
such as in Virginia, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin's tip line was flooded with complaints about Beowulf, or in Missouri, where scripts for the Bee Movie were sent in," Reed noted. "In this case, it appears that when faced with problems enforcing anti-trans laws, the state of Utah attempted to sidestep the issue by abdicating the responsibility of enforcement to its citizens."
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Transgender Russians Scramble for Healthcare as Draconian Ban Looms
One prominent American activist said the proposed legislation is "terrifying, and absolutely what Republicans want here in the U.S."
Jul 14, 2023
Transgender people in Russia are rushing to procure gender-affirming surgeries and hormones before legislation banning the critical healthcare and stripping trans people of marriage and parental rights is signed into law—an outcome American LGBTQ+ rights advocates warn is Republicans' ideal endgame in the United States.
Members of the State Duma—the lower house of Russia's Federal Assembly—unanimously approved a third and final reading of the proposed amendments to the Law on the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Russian Citizens. Lawmakers in the upper chamber, the Federation Council, are expected to approve the proposal on July 19 and then send it to Russian President Vladimir Putin's desk for his all-but-certain signature.
"I'm in a panic. The process of my gender transition had been delayed... Now I have to start it urgently."
If passed, the legislation—which was submitted by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and the leaders of all five parties represented in the body—would ban healthcare including gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy for adults and minors. The amendments would also forbid people from changing their names and gender on official documents, ban people who have transitioned from adopting children, and annul their marriages.
Separately, the State Duma passed a resolution recommending that the Russian government officially classify being transgender, "transvestism," and pedophilia as diseases. Activists strongly condemn the conflation of LGBTQ+ people with pedophilia, while researchers and medical associations around the world have increasingly recognized that being transgender is not a disease.
Volodin said the amendments will "protect our citizens and our children" from the Western embrace of transgender rights and the transgender "industry," which he called "total satanism."
However, a group of Russian medical and legal experts spoke out against the legislation, warning that, if enacted, it would "violate the right to life and medical assistance."
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov argued Friday that the experts' concerns are "perhaps excessive," noting the ban contains exceptions for people with congenital anomalies and birth defects, as well as genetic and endocrine diseases associated with atypical genitalia in children.
Clinical psychologist Egor Burtsev, who has treated Russian transgender patients for more than a decade, said banning gender-affirming healthcare is tantamount to "torture."
Burtsev told Coda Story's Tamara Evdokimova:
What consequences will this have? Transgender people remain, but the procedures are banned... Someone who has been undergoing hormone therapy for 10, 15 years, who's looked completely different for a long time... is suddenly deprived of the possibility to receive hormone therapy. The body changes, not quickly, but it changes, there are all kinds of reversals, transformations.
"What we will see is the highest risk of depression, the highest risk of self-harm, the highest risk of suicide," Burtsev said, warning that trans people would also turn to the black market for hormones and even surgery—a potentially risky proposition.
Burtsev said that trans people are "being thrown overboard" by the Russian government—which has already drawn international criticism and condemnation for passing a so-called "gay propaganda" law and a ban on same-sex marriage.
"And I would equate this to torture; depriving transgender people of medical care, hormone therapy, and any psychological help that might have been available before," he added.
Yan Dvorkin, who runs the trans and nonbinary support group Center-T, told The Moscow Times that the organization has received three or four times as many requests for help in the weeks since the bill's introduction.
"These people see their future is collapsing," Dvorkin explained. "We are getting a lot of suicidal messages."
Alexei, a 23-year-old transgender man, said: "I'm in a panic. The process of my gender transition had been delayed because I have been living on my own since I was 18 and I didn't have enough money. Now I have to start it urgently."
"We are getting a lot of suicidal messages."
Trans people are under attack in a growing number of countries as right-wing governments around the world move to restrict and even rescind their rights in what critics say is a backlash to LGBTQ+ progress in recent decades.
According to the website Trans Legislation Tracker, 561 anti-trans bills have been introduced in 49 U.S. states so far this year, with 79 of the proposals passed and signed into law.
Reacting to the Russian amendments as they made their way through the State Duma, U.S. trans rights activist Erin Reed called the proposals "terrifying and absolutely what Republicans want here in the U.S."
Tiffany Najberg, a Louisiana-based physician who is trans, said on social media that the Russian legislation shows what Republicans "would do... here if they had a chance."
Asked by Evdokimova about anti-trans legislation in the United States, Burtsev said that "there is a wave of such anti-gender movements in the world right now."
Uganda, for example, recently passed a law criminalizing same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults and imposing the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality."
"Conservatism and neoconservatism are coming to the fore," he observed. "Even some quite democratic countries are not succeeding on this front right now."
"But that doesn't mean that this situation won't change, because democracy works somewhat differently," Burtsev added. "Democracy doesn't work like this, with one vulnerable group receiving help while another gets discarded."
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