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- Is The Trump Administration Attempting A Backdoor Gun Ban For Trans Americans?

- Democrats Successfully Strip All Anti-Trans Riders From Final Appropriations Bills

- Dept. of Education Attacks Middle School For Supposedly Letting Trans Student Onto Co-Ed Cheer Squad

- Judge Kacsmaryk Compares Drag To Blackface, Allows College Campus Drag Ban In Texas

- GOP Congressman Calls McBride "Gentleman" During Her Tribute to Women—Including a Cancer Victim's Memory

- Even Barrett Seemed Alarmed by the Implications of Anti-Trans Arguments at SCOTUS

- "No Investigation Will Stop Us From Taking Care Of Our Kids": School Districts Respond To Latest Anti-Trans Threats From Trump Admin

- New Jersey Remains Among Last Blue States Without Trans Shield Law As Democrats Punt To Next Session

- Tomorrow's SCOTUS Case Is Not Just About Transgender Sports; Ruling Could Impact All Trans Rights

- Op-Ed: With KOSA, Elizabeth Warren is Betraying the Trans Youth She Claims to Protect

- Texas A&M Bans Philosophy Prof. From Teaching Plato Because of "Gender Ideology"

- Over 400,000 Transgender People Have Moved States Since Trump's Election

Is The Trump Administration Attempting A Backdoor Gun Ban For Trans Americans?

ERIN REED | JAN 21, 2026, 11:00 AM EST | SOURCE

Reporting indicates that the Trump admin is considering requiring gun applicants list their "biological sex at birth," which could put them in a bureaucratic catch-22 if it does not match their ID.

Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday, Jan. 20, reporters at The Washington Post revealed that the Trump administration is planning sweeping changes to federal firearms regulations and forms. While most of the proposed revisions are framed as expanding access to guns, one provision immediately raised alarms among transgender legal experts. The Justice Department is expected to alter the firearm purchase form to require applicants to list their “biological sex at birth” rather than their gender identity—a seemingly technical change that could function as a de facto ban on firearm access for transgender Americans.

The form, ATF Form 4473, otherwise known as the “firearms transaction record,” is the federal doccument that must be filled out for every firearm purchase from a federal firearms licensee, which includes gun stores, pawn shops, and most retailers. As of now, the form allows applicants to list their gender identity, including a nonbinary gender identity. If the form changes, however, applicants will be expected to list their assigned sex at birth. This could create a bureaucratic headache for transgender people and potentially serious legal issues, placing them in a catch-22.

Consider two scenarios if such regulations take effect when a transgender woman attempts to purchase a firearm. In the first, she complies with federal guidance and lists “male” on the required form. When the dealer then verifies her government-issued ID—as required by law—and the sex marker reads female, the dealer may lawfully refuse the sale, unable to confirm that the form was completed truthfully and accurately. In the second scenario, if she lists “female,” she risks being accused of making a false statement on a federal form—an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. Either way, the result is the same: the transgender applicant is effectively barred from purchasing a gun.

“Whether that rises to the level of materiality for a criminal charge compared to say, using a false name, is up the courts but the mere possibility is enough to chill people from purchasing a gun. If they fill it out with sex assigned at birth, they could be denied for not having matching information,” Alejandra Caraballo, a Harvard Law instructor and civil rights activist, told Erin in the Morning. “I expect to see more instances of this with the federal government weaponizing forms and applications to force trans people to out themselves or even revert state ids to get basic services. This already happened with immigration forms and FAFSA. We could see this expand into welfare programs such as Medicaid, ACA exchange plans etc. Trans people must out themselves or risk losing program benefits or even face the potential of criminal charges for listing their gender identity.”

While blue states have shown a willingness to sue the Trump administration to protect transgender Americans, it remains unclear whether that resolve will extend to firearm regulations. Many Democratic attorneys general support strict gun-licensing requirements, and overlapping state laws—particularly mismatches between state and federal forms—could further complicate any legal challenge. Those dynamics may make the proposed requirements more difficult to legally combat even as their impact on transgender people becomes increasingly clear.

The latest push appears to trace back to recent efforts by far-right influencers advocating restrictions on gun ownership for transgender Americans. In September, Daily Wire reporter Mary Olohan reported that the Justice Department was considering “banning guns for transgenders,” quoting a source who said, “we’re not playing semantics with words like dysphoria. We’re talking about trannies, and we don’t think they should have guns.” That reporting was later corroborated by The Washington Post and CNN. While little changed in the immediate aftermath, months later it appears the administration may have identified a regulatory pathway to impose such restrictions.

For now, the proposal remains in its earliest stages and has not yet been formally submitted as a federal rule. That process is lengthy, opening the door to public comment, legal challenges, and potential delays before any change could take effect. Still, if the administration ultimately moves to restrict gun access for transgender Americans, an unresolved question looms: whether the country’s most powerful gun rights organizations will step in to defend transgender gun owners. When the proposal surfaced previously, the NRA publicly condemned it—an unexpected moment of alignment that surprised many transgender advocates. This time, however, the mechanism under consideration is far subtler, potentially designed to sidestep that opposition.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/is-the-trump-administration-attempting at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Democrats Successfully Strip All Anti-Trans Riders From Final Appropriations Bills

ERIN REED | JAN 20, 2026, 4:12 PM EST | SOURCE

The HHS and Education bills once contained the most sweeping anti-trans provisions in congressional history. Now they contain none.

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

Early Tuesday morning, final appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—and related agencies—were released, marking the last major funding measures to be negotiated in the aftermath of the record-breaking government shutdown fight in 2025. That standoff featured multiple appropriations bills loaded with anti-transgender riders and poison pills for Democrats, ultimately ending in a short-term continuing resolution that punted many of those provisions to the end of January. While other “minibus” packages funding individual agencies moved forward, the Education and HHS bills were conspicuously absent, as they contained some of the most sweeping and consequential anti-trans riders ever proposed in Congress. Now, with the final bills released, it is clear that no anti-transgender riders were included—meaning transgender people will largely be spared new congressional attacks through most of 2026 should they pass as-is.

As the government shut down on Oct. 1, the state of appropriations bills needed to reopen the federal government for any extended period was extraordinarily dire for transgender people. Dozens of anti-transgender riders were embedded across House appropriations bills, even as those provisions were largely absent from the Senate’s versions. The riders appeared throughout nearly every funding measure, from Commerce, Justice, and Science to Financial Services and General Government. The most extreme provisions, however, were concentrated in the House HHS and Education bills, including language barring “any federal funds” from supporting gender-affirming care at any age and threatening funding for schools that support transgender students. Taken together, those measures would have posed a sweeping threat to transgender people’s access to education and health care nationwide.

Those fears eased somewhat when the government reopened under a short-term continuing resolution funding operations through the end of January. In the months that followed, Democrats notched a series of incremental victories for transgender people, advancing multiple appropriations “minibus” packages that stripped out anti-trans riders as the government was funded piece by piece. As amendment after amendment fell away, those wins grew more substantial, including the removal of a proposed ban on gender-affirming medical care from the NDAA—even after it had passed both the House and Senate. Still, the most consequential question remained unresolved: what would ultimately happen to the high-impact anti-trans provisions embedded in the HHS and Education bills.

Now, the package has been released—and for the moment, transgender people can breathe again. The final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom, and no mandate forcing colleges to exclude transgender students from sports or activities like chess or esports. The bills are strikingly clean. As such, they avert yet another protracted shutdown fight in which transgender people are once again turned into political bargaining chips—and, at least for now, remove Congress as the immediate vehicle for new federal attacks, should they pass as-is.

When asked about the successful stripping of anti-trans provisions, a staffer for Representative Sarah McBride tells Erin In The Morning, “Rep. McBride works closely with her colleagues every day to defend the rights of all her constituents, including LGBTQ people across Delaware. In the face of efforts by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to roll back health care and civil rights, she was proud to work relentlessly with her colleagues in ensuring these funding bills did not include anti-LGBTQ provisions. It takes strong allies in leadership and on committees to rein in the worst excesses of this Republican trifecta, Rep. McBride remains grateful to Ranking Members DeLauro, Murray, and Democratic leadership for prioritizing the removal of these harmful riders.”

This does not mean that transgender people will not be targeted with policies and rules that affect them in all areas of life. The Trump administration has acted without regard to law in forcing bans on sports, pulling funding from schools and hospitals, and banning passport gender marker updates. The Supreme Court has been increasingly willing to let the office of the presidency under Trump do whatever it would like to transgender people. However, the lack of passage of bills targeting transgender people means that these attacks will only last for as long as we have Trump in the White House, and a future president should hopefully be easily able to reverse the attacks.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/democrats-successfully-strip-all at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Dept. of Education Attacks Middle School For Supposedly Letting Trans Student Onto Co-Ed Cheer Squad

S. BAUM | JAN 20, 2026, 1:22 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;Our District has not violated any laws,&#8221; the Superintendent said.

Unnamed MU Photographer // Creative Commons

A Maine middle school cheer squad is facing the wrath of the Trump regime for reportedly allowing a trans student to join its co-ed team.

Last week, the Department of Education (ED) descended upon 18 educational institutions, announcing in a press release from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) that they are investigating everything from K-12 school districts, to college sports teams, to state departments that may allow “students to participate in sports based on their ‘gender identity,’ not biological sex.”

Soon after the OCR announcement, the Bangor Daily News reports, Superintendent Michael Hammer of Maine’s Regional School District #19 released a letter firing back at ED. In the case of RSU 19’s Nokomis Regional Middle School in Newport, Maine, ED claimed someone assigned male at birth was allowed to compete on the cheer team and use the women’s locker rooms, as per Hammer.

“The complaint alleges that the District discriminated against female students on the basis of sex by allowing a male student to join the girls’ cheerleading team and use the girls’ bathroom and locker room at Nokomis Regional Middle School,” Hammer wrote. “We were surprised to receive the letter from OCR because we have no record of having received any complaints about our cheerleading program.” He emphasized that the cheer squad is co-ed, non-competitive, and open to any student. Nobody is “cut” from the team.

“[I]t is hard to understand how participation by any student, regardless of their gender or gender identity[,] would discriminate against any other student,” Hammer said. Erin in the Morning was unable to reach a spokesperson for the district for further comment.

Like almost all of the attacks on trans athletes, the press release focused on “safety” in women’s sports—a common and contrived talking point for the right, whose concern for students and women’s athletics seems to evaporate when it comes to issues like addressing the gender wage gap in sports or supporting student survivors of sexual assault.

The Department’s investigations don’t name trans women as the explicit target of the OCR blitz, but that’s mostly because the federal government wants to avoid acknowledging the existence of trans people at all. They use transphobic epithets to get their message across, referring to trans teenage girls as “biological men.”

But RSU 19 and many of the other institutions on the list—such as Santa Monica College in California or Foxborough Public Schools in Massachusetts—are in states with robust equal rights protections for trans people, which would in theory penalize academic institutions for discriminating against their transgender athletes.

In other words, the federal government is investigating schools for allegedly following their state’s laws. There is no federal law requiring schools to ban trans athletes from competing on the team that aligns with their gender.

It’s unclear at this time whether even this is true, and whether there is or ever was a trans student on the cheer squad—cisgender women and intersex people are also common casualties in the right’s war on gender. The anti-trans craze has caused mass harassment campaigns and violence against transgender and cisgender students alike.

Hammer added that RSU 19 does not have a formal policy on gender-based bathroom usage, and that while they will comply with officials conducting the investigation, the district is “confident that when it is completed, it will be determined that our District has not violated any laws.”

Newport, Maine, is a town of just over 3,000 people. It is a distant rural school serving 500 kids from fifth to eighth grade; about half of the students in the district are classified as economically disadvantaged.

Last year, the regime pulled school lunch funding for low-income children in the state over the state’s refusal to comply in advance with anti-trans laws, sparking a lawsuit. The suit was settled in May—federal agencies unfroze the school lunch money, and Maine kept their anti-discrimination laws intact.

CAPTION: A letter sent out by Maine Regional School District 19.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/dept-of-education-attacks-middle at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Judge Kacsmaryk Compares Drag To Blackface, Allows College Campus Drag Ban In Texas

ERIN REED | JAN 19, 2026, 2:42 PM EST | SOURCE

The judge also ruled that drag shows do not convey any message about gender subversion, exempting it from first amendment protections.

Judge Kacsmaryk // Cspan

On Saturday, Jan. 17, far-right judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued one of his most extreme rulings yet, finding that West Texas A&M can ban drag performances on campus. In reaching that conclusion, Kacsmaryk discarded long-standing First Amendment precedent and made demeaning assertions about drag itself, including a comparison to “blackface.” The 46-page ruling is riddled with strained reasoning and misapplications of law and, unless overturned by a higher court, will continue to prevent the campus LGBTQ+ organization Spectrum WT from holding its drag show on campus—an event that raises funds for LGBTQ+ suicide prevention hotlines.

Spectrum WT is an LGBTQ+ student organization at West Texas A&M. The group previously held drag performances on campus, including in 2019, without incident. That changed in 2023, when University President Walter Wendler announced a ban on drag shows, writing in a campuswide email that the university would “not host a drag show on campus” because, he said, “every human being is created in the image of God, and therefore, a person of dignity.” Wendler went on to justify the ban by characterizing drag as “misogynistic,” “derisive,” “divisive,” and “demoralizing,” even comparing it to blackface. He concluded by writing:

“A harmless drag show? Not possible. I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it. Supporting The Trevor Project is a good idea. My recommendation is to skip the show and send the dough.”

(The full email is attached at the end of the story)

The dispute has since evolved into a protracted legal battle winding its way through the courts. Judge Kacsmaryk first denied a preliminary injunction, allowing the ban to take effect. That decision was briefly reversed by a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit, before the full court vacated the panel ruling and opted to rehear the case en banc. Now, following a full bench trial, Kacsmaryk has issued a final ruling on the merits, holding that West Texas A&M may ban drag performances on campus.

While the decision permitting a campus drag ban is itself extreme and departs from precedent in similar cases nationwide, Judge Kacsmaryk’s reasoning is particularly egregious. In his ruling, Kacsmaryk accepts University President Walter Wendler’s framing wholesale, concluding that the ban is justified because Wendler likens drag to blackface and claims it “mocks” women. Embracing that comparison, Kacsmaryk writes that “the only difference is that one performance is ‘abhorred by cultural elites’ while the other is in vogue—at least for now.”

This framing, however, fundamentally misunderstands both drag and its comparison to blackface. Blackface was created by white performers to dehumanize a marginalized group and reinforce racial subjugation. Drag, by contrast, emerged from marginalized communities themselves as a form of self-expression, community building, and survival. It has existed across cultures and centuries, from Shakespearean theater to Harlem ballroom culture to contemporary performance. In its modern form, drag conveys meaning about gender identity and expression, deliberately subverting gendered expectations around clothing and performance—placing it squarely within the realm of activity protected by the First Amendment.

Judge Kacsmaryk also sidesteps these First Amendment protections in a separate section of his ruling, where he claims—without explanation, by fiat alone—that drag carries no discernible message. During the proceedings, Spectrum’s former president testified that drag performances convey messages including “bending gender norms,” among others. Kacsmaryk dismisses that testimony, writing that it is unclear whether any drag performances would feature cross-dressing that communicates such a message—a conclusion that requires a willful disregard for what drag is and how it functions. He further asserts that “this court cannot find that there is great likelihood that this message would be understood by those who viewed it,” effectively imagining a world in which audiences attend drag shows without recognizing their commentary on gender norms.

Kacksmaryk ruling that drag does not carry a message.

This is not the first time Judge Kacsmaryk has issued a controversial and legally dubious ruling targeting LGBTQ+ people or advancing far-right causes. His record includes a 2022 decision opposing workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees, a 2024 ruling striking down Biden administration Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students, a 2025 decision siding with employees who misgender colleagues and restrict bathroom access based on gender identity, and his widely criticized 2023 attempt to suspend FDA approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. None of this is coincidental. Before his appointment to the bench—where he continues to preside over cases of national consequence—Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel at First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal organization that routinely litigates against LGBTQ+ rights.

Kacsmaryk’s ruling stands in sharp tension with recent decisions elsewhere in the country. In June, the 11th Circuit found that drag bans create a “chilling effect” on protected speech, whereas a federal judge issued an injunction against Montana’s drag ban after concluding the law violated the First Amendment by censoring expression without proving obscenity. Even courts that have allowed drag restrictions to proceed have emphasized that such bans may be enforced only against obscene performances—not family-friendly shows. Whether this ruling endures may now hinge on the Fifth Circuit’s pending en banc hearing on drag bans. After previously blocking similar restrictions, the court vacated its own decision to rehear the issue before its full, heavily conservative bench—a showdown that will unfold this week and could determine whether Kacsmaryk’s reasoning holds permanently in states belonging to the circuit.

See the full decision here:

Dragdecision

749KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

See Walter Wendler’s full email banning drag on campus here:

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/judge-kacsmaryk-compares-drag-to at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

GOP Congressman Calls McBride "Gentleman" During Her Tribute to Women—Including a Cancer Victim's Memory

S. BAUM | JAN 16, 2026, 1:54 PM EST | SOURCE

A Georgia Republican couldn&#8217;t resist turning the moment honoring important Delaware women into a transphobic soundbite for the anti-trans Twitter mob.

Rep. Clyde // CSPAN

What do an esteemed military chaplain, a beloved daughter lost to ovarian cancer, Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, and an entrepreneurial small business owner have in common?

All are women owed deference on the floor of the House this week. However, Andrew Clyde—a Republican from Georgia appointed the Speaker pro tempore during a short absence of Speaker Mike Johnson—used his brief turn at the podium to demean them, turning a moment meant to honor women into a display of calculated disrespect aimed at Congresswoman Sarah McBride and designed to score cheap political points.

The Jan. 13 morning hour of debate in the House began when the Speaker, a congressman representing Georgia’s 9th congressional district, called McBride to the podium—introducing the co-chair of the Equality Caucus with a masculine honorific as the “gentleman from Delaware.” McBride had been called to recognize esteemed Delawarean women.

McBride commended Rev. Dr. A’Shellarien Addison for her promotion within the Delaware National Guard—the first woman chaplain in Delaware Guard history. She also paid homage to the closing of GrassRoots, a local small business chain founded by two women in the 1970s, Marylin Dickey and Vonna Taylor.

Finally, she recognized Dwayne and Karen Johnson, who lost their 26-year-old daughter Faith to ovarian cancer. They turned their grief into life-saving medical advocacy, helping to usher in a law that required health insurance companies in their state to cover yearly ovarian cancer screenings.

“We owe it to Faith and families across the country to keep pushing for early detection,” McBride concluded.

She left the podium without incident and did not reply to the Speaker’s comment. In turn, the congressman has either posted or reposted transphobic content about Sarah McBride half a dozen times since the seconds-long incident went down on Jan. 13.

Rep. Clyde posting spree

The congressman in question is otherwise known for barricading the doors on Jan. 6 to stave off “the mob who tried to enter” the Capitol, which he also described as a “normal tourist visit” with “no insurrection.”

It’s not the first time McBride has had to deal with hate and harassment on the House floor. In February of last year, a representative from Illinois’s 15th congressional district used masculine terms to address McBride. Republicans subsequently went on a public hate campaign because the congressional record fixed the incorrect language to accurately refer to McBride.

Then, in March, Texas Republican and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe Chair Keith Self addressed the congresswoman as “Mr. McBride.”

“Thank you, Madam Chair,” McBride replied.

She seemed prepared to move on and do her job, but her Democratic colleague from Massachusetts, Congressman Bill Keating, wouldn’t let yet another jab at her very existence pass by unchallenged. Keating and Self got into a heated exchange. “Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Keating said. “Have you no decency?”

Republican lawmakers also passed a Capitol anti-trans bathroom ban aimed explicitly at keeping McBride out of the women’s restroom—although all Capitol Hill visitors and staff have also been caught in the dragnet. McBride agreed to follow the rules, but denounced the effort as a ploy “to distract from the real issues facing this country.”

This didn’t stop South Carolina’s Rep. Nancy Mace, who regularly hurls slurs across the House floor, and Colorado’s Rep. Lauren Boebert, Mace’s hateful counterpart who was ejected from a theatre for behaving inappropriately with her date, from deputizing themselves as the bathroom police. In Jan. 2025, they accosted a woman they believed to be Congresswoman McBride in a Capitol Hill bathroom.

In actuality, the individual in question was an unsuspecting cisgender woman, caught by surprise when she was suddenly thrust into the crosshairs of the GOP’s anti-trans attacks.

Update: Congresswoman McBride sent the following statement: “I didn’t hear the remark and I still don’t know who Rep. Clyde is.”

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/gop-congressman-calls-mcbride-gentleman at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Even Barrett Seemed Alarmed by the Implications of Anti-Trans Arguments at SCOTUS

S. BAUM | JAN 15, 2026, 5:01 PM EST | SOURCE

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who penned what might be the most virulently anti-trans Supreme Court document in history, had &#8220;concerns&#8221; about how Hecox and BPJ might impact cisgender women.

Wikimedia Commons

Some transphobes might be on the cusp of understanding what the trans community has been saying for decades now: anti-trans extremism hurts everyone, transgender and cisgender people alike.

Realistically speaking, it’s doubtful these human rights concerns will be enough to tip the scales in favor of progress for the trans community at SCOTUS. We are staring down the barrel of Supreme Court decisions in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. BPJ, both of which follow young trans women who had the audacity to want to play sports with the other girls at school.

The decisions could potentially shape how Americans of any sex or gender are treated across all aspects of life—not just trans people, and not just in sports.

“Even Barrett was a bit alarmed about what a broad decision here could do for women,” Alejandra Caraballo, a Harvard Law instructor and civil rights activist, told Erin in the Morning. “It could result in segregation of women in a host of other areas of public life under the rationale that biologically, men are different and they need to be separated.” Underlying this is the assumption there is a universal scientific or legal definition enshrining two binary sexes, which there is not.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, previously penned one of the most conservative anti-trans documents in SCOTUS history in an even further right-wing concurring opinion for Skrmetti. In this case, however, she seems to at the very least acknowledge that anti-trans policies mandating sex segregation inevitably harm cis women, too.

“Your whole position in this case depends on there being inherent differences,” the Justice told the anti-gender rights camp. “I’d be a little bit concerned about what the ramifications of that might be.”

What if, for example, a state produced evidence that women outperform men in math—that women’s good grades put men at a disadvantage academically? Would women need to be culled from advanced math; would there be a required men’s-only remedial option? “Seems to me like there would be some risk on your understanding that that would be okay,” Barrett remarked.

And as far as competitions go, liberal Justice Elena Kagan added: “How about chess club?”

West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams, arguing in favor of the state in BPJ, said this would “fail” to require sex segregation “because there’s an actual lack of evidence of meaningful physiological differences that are reflected in the existence of the express regulations in the athletics context.” (Note: There has nonetheless been a successful push to ban trans women from many gendered chess tournaments, as Erin in the Morning has extensively reported on since 2023.)

Beyond that, despite the snipers atop the roof of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, who oversaw protestors and counterprotestors alike, the tenor inside of SCOTUS was more cordial—on its face. Lawyers exchanged pleasantries. Justices asked them questions about “your friends on the other side.” At least one of the trans youths who fascists have scapegoated to tear apart the country sat quietly as her humanity was interrogated in front of the world.

“A lot of people want to read hope into the justices’ generally more conciliatory demeanor on Tuesday but I fear we cannot afford that luxury right now,” Khadijah M. Silver, Director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, told Erin in the Morning.

“We must prepare for a world where whatever decision, however narrow on its face, is read expansively by judges that have been placed in their roles explicitly to erase our legal right to exist,” they said. “This has never been a strict constitutional or statutory inquiry but instead a political one.”

Some expert spectators latched on to milquetoast comments by the likes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who told the lawyers representing a trans athlete: “I think one of the themes of your argument has been the more people learn, the more they’ll agree with you.”

But this is arguably an off-hand comment at best, and a condescension at worst—a post-Skrmetti affirmation that the court does not see trans people as a distinct class worth protecting. During questioning, many Justices refused to recognize the long and storied history of legal discrimination against the trans community in the United States. Conservative Justices suggested that, because most anti-trans laws do not actually use the word “transgender,” that they can’t possibly be a symptom of discrimination against trans people.

We’ve seen the fallout of this mental-legal gymnastics before; as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion on Skrmetti, this line of thinking was used to justify racial segregation by arguing that, while different races were separated, they all were separated equally.

“[N]early every discriminatory law is susceptible to a similarly race- or sex-neutral characterization,” Sotomayor had said of Loving v. Virginia, which challenged a state antimiscegenation law. “A prohibition on interracial marriage, for example, allows no person to marry someone outside of her race, while allowing persons of any race to marry within their races.”

In today’s legal battle over trans rights, this manifests as trans erasure. The more the government can plausibly deny the existence of trans and intersex people—robbing them of legal recognition—the more it emboldens lawmakers to discriminate. The logic rests on the idea that you can’t violate the constitutional rights of a group if that group does not exist.

On Tuesday, Justices further grappled with the combined and contradictory legacies of the 2025 Skrmetti case, which upheld Tennessee’s law preventing trans youth from accessing many kinds of gender-affirming care, and the 2020 Bostock decision, which established employee anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people.

Republican-appointed swing Justice Neil Gorsuch was the primary author of the Bostock decision. He argued then that trans people were constitutionally entitled to employment protections from discrimination on the basis of sex. This time around, Gorsuch sparred with attorneys over what “sex” even means.

But, as University of California - Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky notes in his analysis on SCOTUSBlog: “Over the last year, the court has failed to follow the logic of Bostock in upholding discrimination against transgender individuals.”

Indeed, the more these cases play out in front of the court, the more the contradictions of anti-trans extremism seem to crumble.

“My sense is that this court is going to sidestep the constitutional questions entirely—they didn’t seem even remotely eager to grapple with the basic reality that trans people are protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause,” said Tekla Taylor, a Public Education Specialist at Advocates for Trans Equality.

“It wouldn’t shock me if they ultimately say that states can discriminate against trans girls under Title IX, which completely glosses over the fact that the feminists who fought for Title IX did so to expand opportunity and dismantle sexist stereotypes—not reinforce them.”

Taylor further emphasized how laws are already chipping away at trans, intersex and women’s rights. “It was extremely disappointing,” they said, “though not remotely surprising, to hear Chief Justice Roberts try to wave away the Court’s own ruling in Bostock in order to pretend these laws don’t plainly discriminate against young trans people and deprive them of the same opportunities everyone else has.”

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/even-barrett-seemed-alarmed-by-the at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

"No Investigation Will Stop Us From Taking Care Of Our Kids": School Districts Respond To Latest Anti-Trans Threats From Trump Admin

ERIN REED | JAN 15, 2026, 1:11 PM EST | SOURCE

School districts in CA, CT, HI, ME, MA, NV, NY, PA, VT, and WA received word that they would be placed under investigation for trans-supportive policies.

Maryland GovPics // Wikimedia Commons

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education issued sweeping threats and launched investigations into 18 school districts across the United States for allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports. The actions appear to be a continuation of the administration’s long-running pressure campaign against districts with transgender-inclusive policies—most of which have refused to comply and, in many cases, have successfully fought back. Notably, the latest wave of investigations coincided with historic Supreme Court oral arguments on transgender sports participation held the same day, signaling that the administration may believe a ruling favoring discrimination is imminent and is preparing to force compliance even in blue states with longstanding protections for transgender students. In response, multiple school districts are already declaring their intent to keep supporting their transgender students.

Among the school districts and institutions notified that they will be placed under investigation for transgender-inclusive policies are Jurupa Unified School District (CA), Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (CA), Santa Monica College (CA), Santa Rosa Junior College (CA), Waterbury Public Schools (CT), the Hawaii State Department of Education (HI), Regional School Unit 19 (ME), Regional School Unit 57 (ME), Foxborough Public Schools (MA), University of Nevada, Reno (NV), Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District (NY), the New York City Department of Education (NY), Great Valley School District (PA), Champlain Valley School District (VT), Cheney Public Schools (WA), Sultan School District No. 311 (WA), Tacoma Public Schools (WA), and Vancouver Public Schools (WA).

The threats appeared to focus primarily on sports, though the administration’s past Title IX enforcement actions have also explicitly or implicitly sought to dictate policies governing dormitories and bathroom access. Notably, the investigations are concentrated largely in blue states with progressive policies and, in many cases, shield laws protecting transgender rights, asserting that it can override those protections. This approach rests on a novel and fringe legal theory advanced by the Trump administration: that Title IX not only permits discrimination, but requires it. Under this theory, the administration has repeatedly attempted to withhold significant federal funding from school districts that allow transgender girls to participate in youth sports or use bathrooms aligned with their gender—funds that often support programs such as free and reduced-price lunch for hungry students and after-school services.

“In the same week that the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the future of Title IX, OCR is aggressively pursuing allegations of discrimination against women and girls by entities which reportedly allow males to compete in women’s sports. Time and again, the Trump Administration has made its position clear: violations of women’s rights, dignity, and fairness are unacceptable,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey in a press release for the Department of Education. “We will leave no stone unturned in these investigations to uphold women’s right to equal access in education programs—a fight that started over half a century ago and is far from finished.”

Schools are already beginning to formulate their responses, and so far, none appear to be immediately complying with demands to ban transgender athletes or impose bathroom restrictions in response to the letters. Instead, multiple districts are publicly reaffirming inclusive policies. In Vermont, Champlain Valley Superintendent Adam Bunting said in response to the letter, “No investigation is going to stop us from taking care of our kids… I want to assure you and all of our students that we remain steadfast in our commitment to honoring the identities of every learner.” At the University of Nevada-Reno, a spokesperson similarly pushed back, stating, “The University remains committed to fostering an inclusive, supportive, and respectful campus environment for all of our students. We also recognize and uphold our responsibilities under state and federal law, and we will continue to act in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.”

Many school districts have remained silent in the immediate aftermath of receiving the letter, likely working with legal counsel to determine their next steps. While multiple major universities and Ivy League institutions have, in the last year, broadly capitulated to anti-transgender pressure, local school districts have shown far greater reluctance to comply. Earlier this year, multiple districts rebuffed similar administration threats to withhold funding tied to school lunch programs and sex education, including school systems in Virginia, New York City, Denver, and Chicago—all of which refused to back down.

The threats arrive alongside a Supreme Court hearing on transgender participation in school sports. While the case itself is narrowly focused on athletics, its outcome could have sweeping consequences for transgender rights nationwide—shaping how Title IX is enforced in blue states and whether transgender people receive any constitutional protections tied to sex and gender identity at all. As the court deliberates, the fight is already playing out on the ground, with state and local officials bracing for continued federal pressure that seeks to strip funding from basic school programs, including lunch assistance for hungry children, in an effort to force discrimination against a small number of transgender students.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/no-investigation-will-stop-us-from at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

New Jersey Remains Among Last Blue States Without Trans Shield Law As Democrats Punt To Next Session

S. BAUM | JAN 14, 2026, 12:07 PM EST | SOURCE

There&#8217;s a new governor, a new legislature, and a new call to action. Will New Jersey lawmakers finally protect trans kids&#8217; care?

New Jersey State Legislature // Niagara // Wikimedia Commons

It’s a new day in New Jersey politics, we hope. Activists and lawmakers say the Garden State is on the verge of passing sweeping health care laws protecting transgender people and their medical providers. They’ve been saying as much for years, but a new coalition of advocates has emerged to make equal rights and access to care the law of the land.

Advocates who spoke to Erin in the Morning said they had been under the impression that the law would be put to a vote during the final weeks of Governor Phil Murphy’s tenure—and expressed fear about what the delay could mean for trans New Jerseyans.

“As a new session of the New Jersey legislature opens today and the state prepares for the swearing in of Mikie Sherrill as governor on January 20, a new coalition of transgender adults, parents, providers and allies calls on the state legislature to honor their lame duck commitments and get protections for gender-affirming and reproductive health care on the books immediately,” a press release by the newly-formed Transgender Rights Coalition of New Jersey (TRC-NJ) reads.

The group emerged after years of attempts to pass “shield” laws fell short, leaving trans youth, their parents, and their providers in a state of perpetual fear as assaults on trans Americans’ rights intensify every single day. The proposal also protected reproductive health care more broadly, including abortion.

“I’m terrified,” one parent of a trans teen told Erin in the Morning at the end of the last legislative session, which was earlier this month. She said hundreds if not thousands of trans people, parents of trans youth, doctors and activists have voiced their support for the measures. “I don’t understand how I can live in New Jersey, which always says, like, ‘We’re the bluest of the blue.’”

It’s not immediately clear why New Jersey, which has had almost a decade of Democratic leadership across the board—Democrats control the Senate, the Assembly, the governorship, and the attorney general’s office— adjourned without enacting a version of a law that has been implemented in most every other state in the Northeast Corridor. New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia all have trans shield laws on the books.

Governor Phil Murphy also signed an executive order creating shield protections, but without the codification of law, these safeguards remain up in the air. A new governor could overturn it at any time.

Some New Jerseyans initially criticized Democratic leadership over the stalemate. “As a coalition, we were deeply disappointed that the bill we need to protect trans people, reproductive health access, and health providers did not pass in the previous legislative session, despite substantial support among lawmakers,” said Louise Walpin, co-lead of the progressive group WADEIn NJ and a founding member of the TRC-NJ.

“At the same time, we appreciate that legislative leadership understands the importance of this bill and is committed to work with us to deliver a new bill to Governor-elect Mikie Sherill’s desk in the first months of her governorship.”

Garden State Equality’s Action Fund Board Chair, Jeannine Frisby LaRue, struck a similarly hopeful chord in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, as one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases for trans rights in history played out before a conservative majority of judges.

“Legislative leaders have personally assured me this is an issue they support and that we will expeditiously pass this bill in the new legislative session,” LaRue said. “I am confident Governor-Elect Sherrill will enthusiastically sign this bill into law.”

Khadijah M. Silver, Director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), a national nonprofit delivering pro bono services to TRC-NJ, also told Erin in the Morning that the fight is still on.

“We call on everyone who is impacted by snowballing federal and out-of-state attacks on your rights to come together,” Silver said. “Tell your stories to the Attorney General’s office and the legislature so they can effectively fight for your rights, and protect each other as we push this bill over the line.”

Constituents can also use the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters to contact their representatives, and to demand that the 222nd Legislature make trans rights a priority from day one.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/new-jersey-remains-among-last-blue at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Tomorrow's SCOTUS Case Is Not Just About Transgender Sports; Ruling Could Impact All Trans Rights

ERIN REED | JAN 12, 2026, 5:29 PM EST | SOURCE

Though much of the reporting on the Little v. Hecox court case is about transgender sports participation, the SCOTUS ruling could impact all rights of transgender people.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Tomorrow, oral arguments will be heard in two cases that could prove pivotal for transgender rights nationwide: West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. Both stem from state laws banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports—one at the high school level, the other at the collegiate level. In each case, lower courts blocked the bans, finding that they likely violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause as well as Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination in education. Now, those rulings are under direct threat. The cases have since been brought to the Supreme Court by Republican state attorneys general with backing from Alliance Defending Freedom, a central legal force behind Project 2025. While much of the early coverage has framed the Supreme Court’s review as narrowly about sports, the stakes are far higher: depending on how the Court rules, these cases could reshape the legal framework governing transgender rights for an entire generation.

Both cases involve transgender girls who participated in sports before being targeted by state bans, and in both instances, lower courts ruled that those bans were discriminatory. In B.P.J.’s case, she transitioned in the third grade and never went through male puberty. No athlete was cut from a team to accommodate her, and claims that she possessed a “biological advantage” stretch credulity. She initially competed in running events before later moving to shot put and discus, before her participation was ultimately barred by West Virginia state law. Lindsey Hecox, meanwhile, was a collegiate runner who complied with testosterone-suppression requirements. She was banned by Idaho state law. Hecox has since attempted to withdraw from the case due to sustained harassment but has not been permitted to do so.

Now, both cases have reached the Supreme Court, just half a year after the Skrmetti ruling, which held that transgender youth do not have a constitutional right to healthcare and that states may ban gender-affirming care. While it may be tempting to view these cases as narrow disputes over sports participation, their potential impact extends far beyond athletics. Unlike Skrmetti—where the Court framed the issue as one of age classification and medical regulation, a characterization many transgender-rights advocates strongly dispute—these cases more directly confront whether transgender people are entitled to equal protection under the law. At stake are foundational questions: whether discrimination on the basis of gender identity constitutes sex discrimination, and whether Title IX offers any protection at all to transgender students. The answers to those questions would reverberate well beyond school sports, reshaping the legal landscape for transgender rights nationwide.

The two primary legal questions in the cases center on Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment—specifically, whether anti-trans policies constitute prohibited sex discrimination or impermissible status-based animus. The Supreme Court largely sidestepped those kinds of constitutional questions in Skrmetti by applying a lower standard of review to medical regulations based on age and diagnosis, but the sports cases leave far less room for avoidance. Under Title IX, the argument is relatively direct: penalizing a student for their gender identity is inseparable from their sex assigned at birth, meaning a ban on a transgender girl is fundamentally a ban based on sex. A transgender girl being banned from the bathroom but not a cisgender girl means that the transgender girl is banned by virtue of her assigned sex at birth, hence sex discrimination under Title IX. Under the Equal Protection Clause, the stakes are even higher. The Court may determine whether transgender people qualify as a quasi-suspect class entitled to heightened scrutiny, given a long history of official discrimination, the group’s relative political powerlessness, and the basic reality that being transgender bears no relationship to a person’s ability to compete, perform, or contribute to society. Ruling in the negative on this could be catastrophic for transgender people.

While lower courts have ruled in favor of transgender people, there is a new push to deny transgender people any protections whatsoever. One argument being advanced by the far right is that Title IX not only allows for discrimination against transgender people, it mandates it. Such a ruling would mean that schools and colleges across the United States could discriminate against transgender people in education… not just in school sports, but in bathrooms, locker rooms, dormitory housing, and even admissions policies—effectively legislating transgender students out of public existence and rights when it comes to educational institutions.

When it comes to equal protection, the consequences could be even more dire. The justices may decide whether sports bans violate the Equal Protection Clause based on transgender status or sex. If the court rules that transgender status is not subject to heightened scrutiny, and that discrimination against transgender people does not constitute sex discrimination, it would open the door for nearly any law targeting transgender people to be deemed constitutionally permissible. That could include adult bathroom bans, restrictions on birth certificates, housing discrimination, and more. In Skrmetti, the justices sidestepped this question, declining to rule on equal protection and instead anchoring their decision in age and medical-diagnosis classifications. In the cases heard tomorrow, that sidestep may be harder to justify—and with a court that has repeatedly shown an intent to narrow transgender rights, this represents especially dangerous territory.

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court as oral arguments unfold tomorrow. Outside the building, advocates from across the country—including the ACLU, Lambda Legal, GSA Network, and the Transgender Law Center—are expected to rally in defense of transgender students whose lives and futures hinge on this case. A decision is likely months away, but its impact will be immediate and far-reaching. What the court chooses to say about equal protection and Title IX will shape not only the fate of transgender athletes, but the legal standing of transgender people in public life for years to come.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/tomorrows-scotus-case-is-not-just at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Op-Ed: With KOSA, Elizabeth Warren is Betraying the Trans Youth She Claims to Protect

EVAN GREER | JAN 12, 2026, 12:44 PM EST | SOURCE

Evan Greer writes for EITM: "KOSA&#8217;s re-emergence comes during a moment of existential crisis for the Democratic party."

Elizabeth Warren // Wikimedia Commons

Editors Note: This is a submitted Op-Ed from Evan Greer and Janus Rose. Evan Greer is the director of Fight for the Future. Janus Rose is a writer and editor.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is well known in Massachusetts’ LGBTQ community for showing up at Pride events and dancing around in a feather boa. But when her queer and trans constituents asked her to meet with us about legislation that could harm the most vulnerable members of our community, she wouldn’t even look us in the eye.

The first time Sen. Elizabeth Warren threw her support behind the Kids Online Privacy Act (KOSA), the deceptively-named censorship bill once again making its way through Congress, LGBTQ+ and human rights groups warned her that the poorly written bill would be used to erase queer and trans communities from the internet. Now, despite the Trump administration using every tool at its disposal to eliminate LGBTQ+ people from public life, the Senator from Massachusetts has once again signed on to co-sponsor the dangerous bill.

In September of 2025, Fight For The Future joined a coalition of local LGBTQ+ orgs to deliver petitions opposing KOSA to Sen. Warren’s office. The coalition, which represents thousands of queer and trans people across Massachusetts, formally requested to meet with the Senator to discuss KOSA and other bills threatening our LGBTQ+ neighbors.

Instead, Warren ghosted us. And now, she has once again announced her co-sponsorship of KOSA — this time under the looming threat of the Trump administration and its obsessive anti-LGBTQ agenda.

KOSA’s supporters have pitched it as a much-needed measure to rein in Big Tech and protect kids. But Warren and other Democrats should know by now that the bill would be a gift to Trump and his anti-LGBTQ+ allies. In its current form, the Senate version of KOSA that Warren endorsed would empower the Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to purge online content sought out by trans youth, abortion-seekers, and other vulnerable communities. In the name of “protecting children” online, the bill would establish a “duty of care” that gives the agency the ability to censor anything that it determines could make kids “anxious” or “depressed” — including health resources for LGBTQ+ youth and information on abortion.

There’s no longer any doubt that this is exactly how KOSA would be used. Earlier this year, the Trump-controlled FTC held a sham “workshop” to spin up ideas on how to use the agency’s authority to terrorize LGBTQ+ communities, including targeting doctors and medical providers of trans healthcare. It follows the blueprint outlined in Project 2025, which proposes labeling all queer and trans online content as “pornographic” and targeting any website or app that promotes “trans ideology” — the MAGA catchphrase for anything that supports trans peoples’ right to live dignified lives in peace.

KOSA would be a major step in seeing this agenda realized. Yet Democrats like Warren and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have continued to carry water for the bill despite widespread support from far-right bigots. Republican proponents like Marsha Blackburn have openly stated the law would be used to remove trans content online. The anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation has also said the quiet part out loud, stating explicitly that its goal with bills like KOSA is “keeping trans content away from kids” and removing abortion resources from the internet.

Warren’s co-sponsorship of KOSA is a shocking betrayal at a time when anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry is ascendant and self-described “allies” in Congress are abandoning our communities to the MAGA wolves. Since taking office, the Trump administration has used every lever of power available to crush queer and trans people under its boot—removing access to healthcare, banning them from sports and public bathrooms, and preventing them from obtaining IDs with correct gender markers that match their lived realities. Rather than rise in defense, some Democrats have joined with the extreme right in pushing censorship legislation like KOSA.

Bills like KOSA are a major part of a multi-pronged effort to purge queer and trans communities from the internet. 25 states have already passed draconian age verification laws, which require people to submit to invasive ID checks before accessing porn or any website or app the state has deemed “harmful to minors.” Politicians on both sides of the aisle are also reviving a multi-year campaign to eliminate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the “Internet’s First Amendment” which prevents companies from being sued for hosting user content that the government finds objectionable.

Criticism of KOSA within Congress has grown since the last time it was introduced. Sen. Edward Markey said he did not support the bill when confronted at a recent event, placing Warren completely out of alignment with one of her closest Democratic allies. Other progressives like AOC and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) have also vocally opposed KOSA, echoing concerns raised by LGBTQ youth and human rights experts.

Warren’s betrayal on KOSA is even more heartbreaking because she has shown in the past that she understands how legislation like this can harm our community. Warren cosponsored the Safe Sex Worker Study Act, which would study the harm done by SESTA/FOSTA, an anti sex trafficking law that led to widespread censorship of LGBTQ resources and profound harm to sex workers’ safety. KOSA raises the exact same concerns. Warren is asking the government to learn from its last deadly mistake while encouraging it to make the same mistake again. It’s clear her support for KOSA is political and opportunistic, not rooted in the rigorous analysis she is known for.

Big Tech and the surveillance capitalist business model employed by giants like Meta and Google is doing real harm, especially to young people. Doing nothing is not an option. But there are ways lawmakers can take on Big Tech without throwing trans people under the bus, like by passing strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation. Human rights advocates have been calling for this for years.

Democrats like Warren seem to be following the advice of an elite class of pundits and political operatives, who have repeatedly insisted that the only way forward for the Democratic party is to abandon LGBTQ+ voters and shift further to the right. But recent election victories by left-progressive and democratic socialist candidates like Zohran Mamdani have completely disproven this tired theory. More than ever before, voters are saying loud and clear that they want Democrats who will fight back against the Trump agenda and refuse to sacrifice the rights of marginalized people on the altar of bipartisanship.

KOSA’s re-emergence comes during a moment of existential crisis for the Democratic party. Warren’s LGBTQ+ constituents want to know: are principled Democrats going to listen to queer people and stand up for trans youth? Or will they throw us under the bus so they can say they’re “protecting the kids,” by advancing legislation that actually hurts kids?

Janus Rose contributed this piece.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/op-ed-with-kosa-elizabeth-warren at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Texas A&M Bans Philosophy Prof. From Teaching Plato Because of "Gender Ideology"

S. BAUM | JAN 9, 2026, 10:42 AM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world&#8217;s most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education.&#8221;

PLATO // Letina_x // Creative Commons

Even Plato is not safe from the war on “woke.”

Writings from Plato, the ancient Greek scholar whose work is often considered the bedrock of modern philosophy, were deemed too controversial for the classroom by officials at Texas A&M University - College Station because of their discussions of gender.

Dr. Martin Peterson, a TAMU philosophy professor and chair of the university’s Academic Freedom Council, had submitted his syllabus to department leadership for review ahead of the spring 2026 semester.

This review is required as per new rules instituted by the University Board of Regents after conservatives waged a harassment campaign against faculty who taught about gender or race. According to reporting by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the syllabus included excerpts of Plato’s Aristophanes’ Myth of the Split Humans, Diotima’s Ladder of Love and a textbook titled Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues. All of them were flagged by the university because they supposedly violate the updated restrictions on content that “advocate[s] for” particular views on race, sex or gender.

“How can we possibly teach philosophy without being allowed to discuss Plato, even if some of Plato’s ideas are a little bit controversial?” Peterson said in an interview with The New York Times.

Peterson also emailed university officials to appeal the decision. He asserted his coursework “does not ‘advocate’ any ideology.” Instead, he said, “I teach students how to structure and evaluate arguments commonly raised in discussions of contemporary moral issues.”

Email banning Plato

In a statement released on Jan. 7, the faculty union—American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Chapter at Texas A&M University-College Station—condemned what they called the “banning of Plato.”

“At a public university, this action raises serious legal concerns, including viewpoint discrimination and violations of constitutionally protected academic freedom,” the statement said.

“Beyond the legal implications, the moral stakes are profound. Silencing 2,500-year-old ideas from one of the world’s most influential thinkers betrays the mission of higher education and denies students the opportunity to engage critically with the foundations of Western thought. A research university that censors Plato abandons its obligation to truth, inquiry, and the public trust—and should not be regarded as a serious institution of higher learning.”

Professors also expressed concern that the rules are wildly subjective, leaving many instructors unsure of how to move forward. “Where is the line between teaching and advocating?” sociologist Dr. Nancy Plankey-Videla, who serves as the director of graduate studies at TAMU, asked the Board of Regents at a November meeting on the rule change, with no immediate response.

The controversy comes after a massive free speech scandal rocked the university last year. A student surreptitiously recorded a lecture from a professor of literature who talked about gender identity; on the whiteboard, an image of the gender unicorn can be seen.

The student asserts that teaching about gender diversity is illegal, which is categorically false. “According to [President Trump], there’s only two genders,” the student can be heard saying. “I am not going to participate in this because it’s not legal, and I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws as well as against my religious beliefs.”

After Republican lawmakers fomented a hate-fueled frenzy against the professor, she, several department officials, and the university president were either fired, demoted or forced to resign amidst the ensuing media fallout.

Erin in the Morning inquired about other works on Texas A&M syllabi that “advocate[s] for” a specific world view when it comes to sex and gender, including the Bible (which explicitly advocates for multiple kinds of gender-related surgeries), or medical textbooks that acknowledge the undisputed biological reality of, say, the existence of intersex people, or the psychological harms caused by denying trans people access to gender-affirming care.

TAMU did not reply to the request for comment.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/texas-a-and-m-bans-philosophy-prof at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Over 400,000 Transgender People Have Moved States Since Trump's Election

ERIN REED | JAN 8, 2026, 11:39 AM EST | SOURCE

The large migration builds on earlier movements of transgender people in response to anti-transgender legislation.

Across the United States, transgender people have been battered by a relentless wave of anti-trans legislation from Republican-led states. Under the Trump presidency, that pressure has only intensified, leaving transgender people increasingly dependent on whether their state government is willing to protect them or abandon them. While many states have weakened protections or embraced outright hostility, a smaller number have taken the opposite approach—suing the federal government, refusing to cooperate with discriminatory directives, and affirming trans people’s right to live freely. Transgender people are noticing. According to a new poll from the Movement Advancement Project and NORC, an estimated 400,000 transgender people have already fled their home states for safer ones since the 2024 election, relocating specifically in response to anti-trans laws and policies, making it among the largest relocations in modern history in the US.

Surveyors at the Movement Advancement Project polled more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ households, asking respondents about their perceptions and actions since the 2024 election. When asked whether they had moved to a different state, 9% of transgender respondents said that they had. That figure translates into a striking level of displacement. According to Gallup, transgender people make up roughly 1.3% of the U.S. population—about 4.5 million people nationwide. If 9% of that population has moved states, it amounts to approximately 401,000 transgender people relocating in the wake of the election, an extraordinary migration driven by political conditions rather than personal preference.

MAP Survey

The likely reasons for this movement appear later in the survey. Transgender people report experiencing startling levels of discrimination in the aftermath of the 2024 election. More than half—56%—said they have faced discrimination because of their gender identity, while 47% reported being harassed in person. In many cases, that hostility is coming directly from the state itself: 24% of transgender respondents said they were discriminated against or mistreated by their local or state government. Faced with conditions like these, which can make even day-to-day life a struggle, relocation becomes less a choice than a means of survival.

MAP Survey

The movement is not limited to transgender people. A far larger number of LGBTQ+ people overall have also changed states since the Trump election. While the percentage is smaller—about 5% of non-transgender LGBTQ+ respondents—the raw numbers are much larger, translating to roughly 1.5 million people relocating across state lines since the election. Their reasons closely mirror those cited by transgender respondents: widespread harassment, persistent discrimination, and a growing sense that remaining in place has become untenable.

This is not the first survey to document this kind of movement. In 2023, Data for Progress examined transgender migration in the aftermath of harsh anti-transgender legislation passed at the state level, and found similarly large numbers of transgender people reporting that they had moved to a different state as a result. While the Movement Advancement Project survey focuses only on migration since the 2024 election, the broader pattern is clear: this migration has been underway for several years, and the true number of transgender people who have relocated in response to hostile policy environments is likely far larger than any single survey can capture.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/over-400000-transgender-people-have at Jan 21, 2026 at 6:14 PM EST.

Table of Contents

Erin in the Morning: 2026 Jan 21

All articles

Is The Trump Administration Attempting A Backdoor Gun Ban For Trans Americans?

Democrats Successfully Strip All Anti-Trans Riders From Final Appropriations Bills

Dept. of Education Attacks Middle School For Supposedly Letting Trans Student Onto Co-Ed Cheer Squad

Judge Kacsmaryk Compares Drag To Blackface, Allows College Campus Drag Ban In Texas

GOP Congressman Calls McBride "Gentleman" During Her Tribute to Women—Including a Cancer Victim's Memory

Even Barrett Seemed Alarmed by the Implications of Anti-Trans Arguments at SCOTUS

"No Investigation Will Stop Us From Taking Care Of Our Kids": School Districts Respond To Latest Anti-Trans Threats From Trump Admin

New Jersey Remains Among Last Blue States Without Trans Shield Law As Democrats Punt To Next Session

Tomorrow's SCOTUS Case Is Not Just About Transgender Sports; Ruling Could Impact All Trans Rights

Op-Ed: With KOSA, Elizabeth Warren is Betraying the Trans Youth She Claims to Protect

Texas A&M Bans Philosophy Prof. From Teaching Plato Because of "Gender Ideology"

Over 400,000 Transgender People Have Moved States Since Trump's Election