- All articles

All articles

- Wes Streeting is Pretending He’s Not the Villain

- Armed Minorities are Harder to Oppress: The Case for Trans Community Defense

- Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here’s Why I’m Celebrating!

- TWIBS: Moldemort Loves AI

- Atlanta Activists Help Black, Trans, and Queer Americans Acquire Passports

SEP 17, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT | ALYSSA STEINSIEK | SOURCE

Wes Streeting is Pretending He’s Not the Villain

The UK’s Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, made some self-serving remarks that sound an awful lot like disingenuous crap.

Streeting moments before near fatal chocolate river incident

Opinion by Aly Gibbs

It’s been a tense week! Between powerful cisgender Boss Tweed-esque figure and International Flat Cap Wearing Champion (2022) Evan Urquhart saying what we’ve all been thinking (and generating more comments than we’ve ever received on a single Assigned piece in the process) and Jane Migliara Brigham reminding us that armed minorities can be much harder to oppress, I’d say we’re due for something silly.

So I’m going to make fun of Wes Streeting!

If you aren’t familiar, you lucky duck, Streeting is the Health Secretary for the currently in charge Labour government. He is a Gay man and a transphobe who ensured that a temporary ban on puberty blockers first issued by conservatives was made permanent despite tremendous backlash. He is, simply put, a traitor and a bigot of the highest caliber.

Now, somewhat unbelievably, Streeting is lamenting the long wait times trans Britons face for necessary, life saving healthcare, even though his government is largely responsible for that delay in care.

“Evidence shows trans people have higher rates of mental health conditions, including depression, when compared to the general population. Longer wait times only steepen this pain,” said Streeting at the NHS England LGBT+ Health Annual Conference in London on Monday. “Over 42,000 people are still waiting, often for years, for their first appointment at adult gender dysphoria clinics. That’s 42,000 people who are hurting, anxious, and exhausted. This breaks my heart... 42,000 or more individuals should not be feeling invisible, misunderstood or unsupported.”

For trans people in the UK, this must feel like a slap in the face. Streeting and his ilk have spent the entirety of their time in charge waging an actual war against the trans community. For him to pretend that’s not the case, that he gives even a smidgeon of a fuck about trans people, is so obscene it’s nauseating. Worse yet, he went on to attempt to sympathize with us.

“When I was growing up, I knew how it felt to keep part of myself hidden, scared of the judgment of others. To be bullied just for being me. I was lucky. I had a network of friends, family and organisations who loved and supported me for who I was. Having the confidence to be ourselves is as important as the confidence to express concerns about our own physical and mental health. And when who we are is so intimately linked to how we feel, safe spaces and understanding ears are what we need most. So it is personally upsetting to me, and I am sure to anyone reading this, that LGBT+ people still face worse health outcomes than other population groups.”

In what The Guardian buffoonishly described as extending an olive branch, Streeting said, “I know there are questions in our community about my motivation on this issue and the decisions that I took within days of coming into office. My motivation has only ever been to make sure that medicine given to children is safe and effective, and grounded in robust evidence.”

I suppose I can’t see into Wes Streeting’s heart of hearts and discern the inner truth of his very soul, but frankly? I think that’s a fucking lie. If Streeting’s motivation was to ensure that trans youth were receiving evidence-based, safe, effective treatment for gender dysphoria, he would have given his support to the affirming care model that nearly every medical professional on the planet stands by. He wouldn’t have taken puberty blockers away from trans kids, because we’ve been prescribing them since the 1980s without any significant adverse effects. He wouldn’t have rushed to dismantle trans healthcare by weaponizing the heavily biased Cass Report.

How many years will trans Britons have to wait for adequate care while Wes Streeting and people like him bloviate about how concerned they are, how heartbreaking it is that their actions have harmed tens of thousands of people?

To Wes Streeting, I give my most hearty: Go to hell, dickhead.

Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.

This article was downloaded from https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/wes-streeting-is-pretending-hes-not-the-villain at Sep 17, 2025, 7:19 PM EDT.

SEP 16, 2025, 7:00 AM EDT | ASSIGNED | SOURCE

Armed Minorities are Harder to Oppress: The Case for Trans Community Defense

As the rhetoric against transgender people escalates and the Department of Justice discusses the removal of our rights, the transgender community needs to learn to defend itself.

by Jane Migliara Brigham

Before his body was even cold, various fascist public figures were trying to find a connection between the assassination of Charlie Kirk and trans people at large. This comes off of the heels of a recent mass shooting in Minneapolis by a detransitioner, which was also blamed on us. These shootings are being used as a pretext to ban transgender people from owning firearms. The justification is that it prevents those with mental illnesses from getting guns, as bigots and psychologists are fond of declaring us mentally ill. This is contradicted by internal discussions in the DOJ, with one official allegedly saying “We’re not playing semantics with words like dysphoria. We’re talking about trannies, and we don’t think they should have guns”. This support was also seen at the local level, with similar proposals coming from the Pierce County Sheriff, whose agency would likely be responsible for enforcing such a ban.

Trans people are no strangers to discrimination and double standards. Even as gun organizations like the National Rifle Association and others oppose the ban on constitutional grounds, the false idea that we are mentally ill has made many wary of defending us and our rights.

We should not mince words about why The Trump Administration wants to ban us from owning guns. The fascist movement behind it has made it clear that it wants to “remove transgenderism from public life”, as Micheal Knowles put it before a cheering audience. Project 2025, the blueprint of the current government, calls our very existence pornography as it calls for pornography to be banned. The implication is that you remove the idea of transgenderism from society by removing the people that embody it, aka trans people ourselves. An important step in this process is stopping the group from being able to defend themselves, as the Nazi government did to Jews in 1938. It is reasonable to assume that the Trump Administration has similar aims for us.

Fascist governments do their best to disarm minorities because armed minorities are harder to oppress. This is why much of the foundation of our gun control laws were designed to disarm black dissidents, especially the Black Panthers. As trans people begin serving as a scapegoat for the fascist movement, we can see the same disarming playbook being used against us.

The proper response to such a threat is an armed community defense. When enough people in an area or among a given group are armed and willing to use their guns to defend their fellows, then the whole group becomes part of an armed community defense. The more people that are under the defense umbrella, and the more people who contribute to it, the more of a deterrent we can make against the bullies who terrorize us.

This is why trans gun ownership is so important in keeping us safe from a hostile government. We are not ruled by just people; we are ruled by bullies, and the only thing a bully respects is force. To ward off the violence of the state, and the bigots who work in concert with it, we need the capacity to defend ourselves from their violence. That means getting guns.

Community defense and gun ownership go hand in hand. Although we are taught to think of civil rights movements in the United States as peaceful, the movement’s demands came in a context of the whites in power fearing violence if they were not met. The fight to end slavery would not have been won without the backing of a massive army to free the enslaved. The fight to end Jim Crow was marked by rebellions all over the country, with cities like Detroit and dozens of others erupting into armed struggles to break free of tyranny. Famously, the Black Panther Party used armed patrols of their neighborhoods as a means of uniting their communities against police occupation.

Trans people ought to look to the armed movements of the past for examples. We do not have to commit to any particular action. The ability to demonstrate that we can fight back against tyranny will serve as deterrence against abuse. It’s all well and good to convince people that the cause of trans liberation is just, but we don’t live in a world of arguments, we live in a world of power. Power might be swayed by arguments, but ultimately, power grows out of the barrel of a gun. To deny trans people the right and ability to get guns is to deny us self-determination over our lives. This is exactly what Trump and the fascists want.

The solution is simple: Arm the dolls. Those at the greatest risk of abuse have the greatest need to defend themselves and their communities. As trans people, we know damn well that we need to defend ourselves.

I will be spending the weekend practicing my shooting with my local community.  I hope you consider doing so as well.

Jane Migliara Brigham is a recent graduate with a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies.  Her debut book “The Transsexual Nation” is expected to be released in 2026.  You can follow her on Bluesky at @janethebane.meangirls.online

This article was downloaded from https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/armed-minorities-harder-to-oppress-trans-community-defense at Sep 17, 2025, 7:19 PM EDT.

SEP 15, 2025, 5:53 AM EDT | ASSIGNED | SOURCE

Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here’s Why I’m Celebrating!

It’s a wonderful thing to outlive someone who spent his life working for your elimination.

illustration by Evan Urquhart in the style of Charlie Hebdo

Opinion, by Evan Urquhart

Most Mondays, Assigned Media runs the news aggregation column Leading Off. With the news dominated by the death of far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk, and amidst widespread fears of violence from the far right, we chose to feature this opinion column by our founder Evan Urquhart this week instead.

We’re not supposed to say it. It is terribly taboo. According to Reuters, at least 15 people have already been fired for saying it (reporting by NBC suggests it may be many more). And yet, and yet… there’s a stirring deep inside, a wild joy lifting our hearts, an impish gleam in our eyes as we say Charlie Kirk is dead.

How could anyone be sorry? How could anyone be mournful? A man who  kept a watchlist of professors whose views he disagreed with (one that spurred endless death and rape threats), is now dead! A man who supported the January 6 rioters that chanted calls to hang our vice president is dead! A man who called for his supporters to bail out the attempted murderer of one of his political rivals is dead! A vicious and committed racist is dead!

He claimed a passage in Leviticus said gay men should be stoned to death, calling this “God’s perfect law”*—and now he’s dead! In part, I am celebrating the fact that, however much evil remains in the world, at least nothing can ever bring him back. But mostly, I’m celebrating because he’s dead and I am still alive.

In normal times, I’d work to keep my schadenfreude at the death of a terrible person under wraps. The man has children, after all, and it would be a terrible thing if they were to learn how joyful their father’s death has made the people who he hurt. That’s why, in the first 24 hours after Kirk’s death, I kept decorum. I refrained from saying anything celebratory or even negative about this awful man. (Most people on the left did the same.)

These, however, are not normal times. These are times when the right to say something the far right finds offensive is under threat. It’s  under threat by the US government and by individuals in the far right who seek revenge. If they’re compiling a list of everyone who refuses to fellate the memory of the horrid, evil, violent, moon-faced turd then it’s a list I’d rather be on than off.

I am nothing if not a free speech absolutist. Freedom of expression is central to the ability of trans people to live our lives openly, freely, and with pride. And that’s why, however tasteless, however much I’d hesitate to say it in any normal circumstance, today I am determined to join the celebrants with my full chest.

All that said, let’s take a minute to be clear: There was no hotbed of violent transgender leftism that resulted in Kirk’s murder. Our community has always been peaceful, and only recently even begun considering the need for self-defense. Even if the young, white, male scion of a deep red state had a transgender partner (a claim that remains unverified by any reliable news organization), that is as irrelevant as the fact that his parents were Republicans. Attempts to blame the trans community on this pretext would be funny—if they weren’t putting us all in deadly peril.

For my part, I certainly never wanted Kirk to be shot—honestly I didn’t think about him much, except as one of a cadre of interchangeable dead-eyed far right toads. You know, the ones embracing Nazi analogies for the modern day US that casts them as the Nazis and trans people (and Jewish people, and immigrants, and Black Americans) as the Jews?

“This is our Reichstag fire!” they cried, as Kirk lay dead. Yes, you fucking freaks, we know.

I do not want and have never wanted any of them dead. I want them to chill out and be normal for the first time in their lives.

I know that some people who would usually be on my side may look askance at my strong words. But I have concluded that strong words are the only ones suited for this day. In the first months of Trump’s second term we’ve had far too many people tempering their tones, hoping to avoid the ire of the victorious far right. Each on our own we’ve been keeping our heads down, afraid to say the wrong thing, hoping things get better or, if they get worse (which we pretend not to expect), that we’ll be able to survive. As we cower we are losing the core freedoms that we learned in school made ours a country worthy of our love. We must be brave. We must not shrink.

That’s why I’ve chosen to depart from my normally measured tone. I have always believed in an American right to free speech which includes a right to be offensive. It’s not a right I’ve often exercised myself, but it is one I value highly, nonetheless. Today, this hallowed right is teetering on the brink. I think I’ll use it while I still have it, thank you very much.

Fuck Charlie Kirk, and fuck you, if you don’t like me saying fuck him. I’m not afraid to say I’m glad I’m still alive at 47 while he is dead at 31.

While I still can, I feel like celebrating.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that Leviticus calls for gay men to be stoned to death. While it calls for gay men to be executed, the Bible does not specify a method. Kirk was misquoting the Bible when he stated his beliefs about gay men.

Evan Urquhart is the founder of Assigned Media.

This article was downloaded from https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/transgender-and-celebrating-charlie-kirk-death at Sep 17, 2025, 7:19 PM EDT.

SEP 12, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT | ALYSSA STEINSIEK | SOURCE

TWIBS: Moldemort Loves AI

J.K. Rowling seems to have given in to the lying hallucination machine, sharing a video on her X account that includes indecipherable AI jibberish.

Humor by Aly Gibbs

This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.

Okay… well. Since it’s been a pretty slow news week, let’s talk about J.K. Rowling again.

I know, I know! I shouldn’t even be acknowledging her, right? She’s evil, she’s transphobic, she funds transphobia, we all know what her deal is and I probably don’t need to shine a light on her nastiness. I can already hear the scolding, and I’m inclined to agree… usually. Listen, when you see what she’s up to this week, you’ll be glad I shared it with you.

Moldemort, Queen of Transphobia and winner of the Most Rotted Brain UK award five years running, has been taken in by the AI boogeyman. Hold on, they call it the bogeyman, right? Why aren’t we calling him the boogerman, then? Sorry, totally not the point.

Anyway, yeah, Rowling shared a video on the morning of September 8th that shows Dr. Helen Webberley mocking transphobes for being frightened of “willies,” also known as penises by those of us who are not uncompensated victims of twee UK vernacular, and calling them phallophobes. Dr. Webberley includes a helpful screenshot of a description of phallophobia, which is described as a fear of the penis and masculinity.

I don’t personally associate penises with masculinity right off the bat, of course. Those of you who date trans girls will undoubtedly be familiar with the concept of the feminine penis. Surely, I don’t need to explain the feminine penis to any of you, do I? Obviously not. So, Dr. Webberley is replied to by “Aja the Empress,” who says there’s something wrong with the good doctor, and Webberley answers simply: At least I ain’t scared of willies.

Well done, doctor, well done.

So, the altercation between Dr. Webberley and some random transphobe did take place, but what happens next in the video shared by Rowling is absolutely bizarre. The video shifts from a low quality screencap of a real encounter on X to two more screenshots of absolute mind boggling fucking jibberish generated by some sort of AI service, I guess, in what could pass for ancient Greek maybe? You can judge for yourself.

So that’s bizarre.

Rowling included with the unhinged video her own thoughts on Webberley’s accusations of phallophobia: “Tell me again how gender identity ideology isn’t homophobic. Would you trust this UK doctor, who was suspended from practicing by the medical council and now heads up quasi-medical trans advocacy group GenderGP, to be sympathetic to a young girl who’s attracted to other girls?”

If you don’t know, GenderGP is a private care service in the UK for trans folks seeking help with medical transition. They have used doctors located abroad, and headquartered themselves outside of the UK, to avoid interference by the UK’s government who despise transgender people and would very much prefer if they weren’t allowed to be happy or healthy. Dr. Webberley and her husband have been embroiled in some scandals related to the service, though she has been exonerated of those charges in the past. Best I can tell, Dr. Webberley no longer explicitly practices medicine (she decided not to renew her license, feeling that her work as an advocate would be more beneficial than her work as a doctor, given the state of trans care in the UK), and spends most of her time tirelessly advocating for the transgender community.

Which is more than can be said for many doctors and hospitals on our side of the pond.

It’s extremely unclear to me what’s going on with Rowling here, and so I am forced to conclude that the mold has liquified another layer of her already ailing brain. Please focus your thoughts and prayers on the mold at this time, urging its good work along as best you can.

Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.

This article was downloaded from https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/twibs-moldemort-loves-ai at Sep 17, 2025, 7:20 PM EDT.

SEP 11, 2025, 8:44 AM EDT | ASSIGNED | SOURCE

Atlanta Activists Help Black, Trans, and Queer Americans Acquire Passports

As the government declares war on black, brown, gender diverse, and impoverished communities, activists in Georgia are working to secure people’s ability to travel out of a country that is increasingly hostile to their existence.

SNaPCO’s Executive Assistant Asya Fields (right) with two participants of the 2025 Passport Clinic at Fulton County Superior Court Passport Office. photo by Asya Fields

by Dr. Christy Perez

In August 2025, Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative (SNaPCo) organized a seven-day passport clinic in Atlanta, providing a critical resource at a time when access to travel and identification has become increasingly tied to questions of survival. In addition to my role as a journalist, I serve with SNaPCo as Leadership & Development Coach, and I was involved throughout the passport clinic. This piece reflects that dual position.

In partnership with Vote Riders and the Fulton County Superior Court Clerk’s Office, roughly 185 people over the course of the week-long initiative were engaged - many of them Black, trans, and queer community members navigating the complex process of securing passports. These documents, once treated mainly as tickets for travel, have now become shields against erasure, harassment, and shrinking rights.

“As a man of color, I often carry extra weight navigating systems that weren’t built for me,” said Jordan Ferguson, 25, of Atlanta. “For a long time the process of updating my documents felt overwhelming, like one more barrier in a world that already questions my existence. This clinic lifted that weight, they made everything smooth and easy; they paid for it all. It gave me hope and reminded me that community care makes all the difference. Snap Co. didn’t just help me get a passport; they gave me the chance to exist fully and authentically, and for that, I’m deeply grateful.”

Eighty-five people were provided fully paid passport appointments through the clinic, while others were referred to services such as Vote Riders for assistance with identity documents. The number of completed appointments would likely have been higher, but many participants told SNaPCo they simply could not afford to take time away from work—a barrier that underscored how economic precarity intersects with questions of mobility and safety. For those able to secure appointments, the process was transformative, representing not just a bureaucratic step but an affirmation of dignity and future possibility.

Each day of the clinic, at least one volunteer from the local community was present to welcome participants, offer encouragement, and demonstrate that their neighbors and networks stand behind them. It was not only about paperwork; it was about showing up in ways that said, you are seen, you are loved, and you are supported. This visible presence of care set the tone, shifting the atmosphere from a transactional government process into an act of community wellness.

“This clinic wasn’t just about getting passports,” said Toni-Michelle, executive director of SNaPCo. “It was about reminding our people that in a country determined to police our bodies, our freedoms, and even our ability to move, we still have the power to protect each other. Every appointment, every volunteer, every moment of care was a statement: we refuse to be erased, and we will build the futures we deserve.”

SNaPCo, a Black trans-led organization, has built its reputation on redefining public safety through practices rooted in community wellness and abolitionist vision. Rather than relying on policing, surveillance, or incarceration, the group invests in tangible supports that help people protect themselves and their families. The passport clinic is a prime example: while politicians debate rights in courts and legislatures, SNaPCo is equipping vulnerable people with the means to move freely and, if necessary, to leave. The passport clinic initiative is only one of numerous SNaPCO projects, programs and research areas.

The urgency of this year’s clinic was heightened by political shifts under the Trump administration. Attacks on trans rights have resurfaced with renewed force, echoing earlier battles over gender markers on identification documents. During Trump’s previous presidency, restrictions on trans health care and identity recognition fueled fear and instability. In 2025, with new militarization initiatives being piloted in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., many organizers see passports as part of a survival strategy. Atlanta, home to strong Black trans organizing, is bracing for similar tests of tolerance and force.

That militarization agenda cannot be separated from the wholesale expansion of policing across the country. What begins as “security measures” in one city often spreads nationally—new surveillance technologies normalized in airports, police forces armed with military-grade weapons patrolling neighborhoods, and protest restrictions reframed as law-and-order policies. The net effect is an infrastructure of control designed to police not just bodies but freedoms: restricting where people can go, how they can assemble, and even whether their identities are recognized as legitimate. Communities already criminalized—Black, Brown, immigrant, queer, trans, and poor—are targeted first, but history shows the apparatus never stops there. SNaPCo’s work anticipates this reality, creating practical defenses for those who cannot wait for government institutions to change course.

Zyaire Jackson, 38, of Atlanta, described his family’s clinic day appointment process as “quick and easy,” adding that they were welcomed by friendly SNaPCo faces. “They were smiling when we arrived. And I was blessed to hear about SNaPCo because I was going through serious depression with everything that’s going on with the politics,” Jackson said. “Not knowing what this political climate might mean for me and my family.”

For trans people in particular, accurate identification is a matter of immediate safety. Misaligned documents can expose travelers to harassment, denial of services, or worse. A passport that reflects a person’s identity not only affirms dignity but also provides an additional layer of protection in encounters with authorities at airports or border crossings. Beyond the personal stakes, the availability of passports offers communities the option of flight should conditions in the United States become untenable.

By offering this service, SNaPCo challenges the state’s narrative of “public safety,” which often justifies policing, militarization, surveillance, and restrictions on movement. Instead, the clinic points to another vision: safety as the freedom to move, to thrive, and to be recognized. For participants, many of whom might never have accessed passports without SNaPCo’s support, the clinic was more than paperwork. It was preparation for the future in an era of uncertainty.

As militarization creeps closer and political hostility escalates, the passports secured during this seven-day initiative stand as more than documents. They are testaments to foresight and collective care. They remind us that survival is not only about resisting harm but also about building systems of love, resilience, and protection. And they underscore what SNaPCo has long insisted: the work of liberation is not abstract. It is local, it is material, and it is urgent.

“A passport means more than just being able to get to safety and it means more than just the freedom of being able to travel and see the world. It means the ability to let the world see us, too,” Jackson added.

Dr. Christy Perez, also known as C-Dreams, is an award-winning journalist, visionary public theologian, and abolitionist strategist whose work bridges faith, justice, and storytelling. A 2024 PJP Stillwater Award recipient for Best News Story and Marvel Cooke Abolitionist Journalism Fellow, her writing has appeared in outlets including HuffPost, The Appeal, Filter Mag, Business Insider, and more. Drawing from lived experience and a career of movement leadership, she writes to expose systemic harm, uplift marginalized voices, and chart pathways toward liberation.

This article was downloaded from https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/passport-clinic-atlanta-georgia-vote-riders-solutions-not-punishment at Sep 17, 2025, 7:19 PM EDT.

Table of Contents

Assigned Media: 2025 Sep 17

All articles

Wes Streeting is Pretending He’s Not the Villain

Armed Minorities are Harder to Oppress: The Case for Trans Community Defense

Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here’s Why I’m Celebrating!

TWIBS: Moldemort Loves AI

Atlanta Activists Help Black, Trans, and Queer Americans Acquire Passports