- All articles

All articles

- US Gold Medal Olympian Amber Glenn: "They Hate To See Two Woke B****es Win"

- Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up

- “Magic: The Gathering” Gathers for Trans Lives, Raises $450,000 in Less Than Two Days

- Boy Scouts Threatened By Pentagon Over "Gender-Fluid Ideological Stances"

- The Cowardice Of American Medicine On Trans Youth Care

- Republican Senator Attacks Netflix Over “Trans Ideology” In Hearing

- California AG Bonta Files Groundbreaking Lawsuit Against Rady Children’s Hospital for Dropping Trans Youth GAC

- Black Trans Trailblazers That You May Not Learn About in History Class

- The Lavender Ledger: Your Strategic LGBTQ+ Reader By Erin In The Morning

- Kansas Legislature Passes Trans Bathroom Bounty, Drivers License Revocations

- Fox News Poll: Americans Prefer Democrats On Transgender Issues +22 Points

- Criminal Charges Pressed Against Budapest Mayor After Hundreds of Thousands Defy Pride Ban

- Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital In WA Shuts Down Youth Gender Clinic Amidst Federal Funding Threat

US Gold Medal Olympian Amber Glenn: "They Hate To See Two Woke B****es Win"

ERIN REED | FEB 11, 2026, 12:42 PM EST | SOURCE

Amber Glenn, referring to herself and Alysa Liu, shot back at critics on social media while holding her gold medal and wearing a progress pride pin.

Alysa Liu (left), Amber Glenn (right), US Figure Skating

This weekend, Amber Glenn and her teammate Alysa Liu, targets of far-right fury for their progressive, pro-LGBTQ+ stances and their own queer identities, took home gold in the team figure skating event at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Glenn had already drawn a firestorm for a pre-Olympics press conference in which she spoke freely about Trump's attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, leading to death threats and a temporary retreat from social media. Now, after winning gold, Glenn returned to TikTok to post photos of herself and Liu with their medals, captioning the post, "they hate to see two woke bitches win," openly mocking conservative critics of their political activism.

“If "Woke" means people who use their platforms to advocate for marginalized communities in the country that they are actively representing....... Then yeah sure?” posted Glenn.

Their figure skating team victory comes after days of far-right backlash to comments made during a press conference prior to the competition. At the conference, Glenn, who openly identifies as pansexual, spoke about attacks from the Trump administration on LGBTQ+ people and immigrants. "It's been a hard time for the community overall in this administration. It isn't the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights," she said. "And now, especially, it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities. I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn't have to before, and because of that, it's made us a lot stronger."

The comments drew a conservative firestorm, with MAGA Influencers stoking the flames. “USA figure skater Amber Glenn say the queers are having a “hard time” in Trump’s America. I really hope this bi*ch loses. She’s a DISGRACE!” Said MichelleRM68, a MAGA influencer on Twitter. “The woke left is making the Olympics completely unwatchable,” said AMUSE, another huge MAGA influencer account on the platform. Death threats then followed from the far-right.

Glenn and Liu did not lose, though. Instead, they skated solid performances, with Glenn finishing third in her segment and Liu scoring second in hers. After strong performances from the rest of the team, the Americans collectively took gold in the team figure skating event, making Glenn the first openly queer women's singles skater to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States. She then returned to social media to fire off her mocking post.

Glenn and Liu both have connections to the queer community. Glenn herself is openly pansexual and often is seen wearing a progress pride pin on her Olympic jacket. She’s also an outspoken supporter of transgender participation in figure skating, saying in an interview, “We need to be able to allow people to enjoy figure skating... it doesn't matter what your gender is. This is a sport that everyone deserves to enjoy and compete in and be able to express themselves in... If there ever were [trans athletes] then I think it's something that people deserve to participate in regardless of their gender identity.” Meanwhile, Liu made news for changing her pronouns to she/they on instagram.

Their advocacy comes as U.S. Figure Skating capitulated to the Trump administration in October 2025, banning transgender athletes from competing in their identified gender category. The ban, which replaced U.S. Figure Skating's 2016 gender inclusion policy, came after the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee directed its member organizations to comply with Trump's executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports." The policy now requires athletes to present an original birth certificate identifying their sex assigned at birth—and it applies not just to elite competition, but to all U.S. Figure Skating sanctioned events, sweeping up recreational and adult leagues in the process. Trans skaters who had been competing locally for years were suddenly told they could no longer participate.

The support from Olympic figure skaters draws a sharp contrast to both the political attacks on LGBTQ+ people and U.S. Figure Skating's capitulation to the Trump administration. It will also likely continue to draw far-right ire. Both skaters are slated to compete in the women's individual competition, with the short program on Tuesday, Feb. 17, and the free skate medal event on Thursday, Feb. 19.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/us-gold-medal-olympian-amber-glenn at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up

ERIN REED | FEB 9, 2026, 1:34 PM EST | SOURCE

A Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database reveals that 22 trans children under 18 died by suicide in England in 2021-22 alone.

Photo by ev on Unsplash

In 2024, whistleblowers familiar with internal discussions at the Tavistock gender clinic in the United Kingdom revealed to the Good Law Project that employees were privately alarmed by a spike in suicides among transgender youth following severe restrictions on care in the aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling. This information was never made public, with administrators concerned that it could cause reputational damage to the clinic. Following the Good Law Project's reporting, the UK government commissioned a report, known as the Appleby Report, that claimed there were only a handful of suicides and denied any increase, with many anti-trans political figures and activists then patting themselves on the back and absolving themselves of any blame. Now, after years of fighting for the data, the Good Law Project has received responses to freedom of information requests from the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) and discovered that the government report significantly undercounted transgender youth suicides: deaths rose roughly fivefold in the immediate aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling, with a devastating 22 trans kids taking their own lives in a single year.

The data, obtained through a freedom of information request to the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database, paints a devastating picture. Between 2019 and 2025, 46 trans children under the age of 18 died by suicide in England. The year-by-year breakdown is stark: 5 in 2019-20, 4 in 2020-21, 22 in 2021-22, and 10 in 2022-23, with the remaining spread in the later years. The massive spike in 2021-22 follows directly on the heels of the Bell v Tavistock ruling in December 2020, after which NHS England imposed restrictions on gender-affirming care for young trans people. By contrast, the Appleby Report—the government's official response to inquiries from whistleblowers about rising suicides—examined only the narrow pool of youth who had actually become patients of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock, finding just 12 total suicides over six years including adults. The NCMD data captures nearly four times as many deaths among children alone. Importantly, for later years, suicide reports have not been completed, and it is likely that some of the numbers for later years will rise significantly.

The gap between the Appleby Report, which was used to absolve the government of any culpability in trans youth deaths, and the Good Law Project's freedom of information request is no accident, but rather, a deliberate framing choice. The Appleby Report only examined patients of GIDS. But in the aftermath of the Bell v Tavistock ruling, wait times for GIDS appointments skyrocketed, now sitting at an estimated average of 25 years. Youth who were suffering no longer saw a pathway to gender-affirming care. Referrals stalled. Diagnoses became increasingly impossible to obtain. As restrictions piled on, these young people saw their future pathways to obtaining gender-affirming care shuttered in front of them. These youth were ignored in the Appleby report.

More alarming is what appears to be an explicit attempt to cover up trans youth suicide deaths. Those who seek to restrict gender-affirming care also seek to restrict any information showing those restrictions may lead to harm. Among the far right, claims have emerged that transgender youth are in no danger of suicide from the withdrawal of gender-affirming care, but this could not be further from the truth. Numerous studies have shown high suicidality among trans youth and increasing suicidality in places where anti-trans legislation has taken root. Rather than report honestly on the impact of their policies, the UK government appears to have tried to cover it up.

“Those of us in or close to the trans community have been to the funerals of those we love. And we have wept together for those we have been unable to save on Trans Day of Remembrance. We know the truth – we see it with our own eyes. And, to us, the decision by Wes Streeting to commission a review into suicides which downplayed the scale of these tragedies was unforgivable. His report denied the reality of trans deaths, as Streeting’s ban on puberty blockers denied the reality of trans lives,” reads the Good Law Project report.

The UK government fought hard to keep transgender suicide data from the public, and now, two years after its attempt to bury the deaths of children, that data is out. Even what has been released is limited: the NCMD’s own response indicates that its methodology may not capture all transgender youth suicides in the country, meaning the true toll is likely higher. But what is now known is the grisly impact that anti-trans restrictions have had on the youth of England. And in the United States, where a similar effort to restrict gender-affirming care is underway across the nation, it is likely that similar devastation is unfolding, unreported and silent.

You can view the Good Law Project’s report here, and the NCMD and UK government data responses here and here.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trans-youth-suicides-skyrocketed at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

“Magic: The Gathering” Gathers for Trans Lives, Raises $450,000 in Less Than Two Days

S. BAUM | FEB 6, 2026, 1:09 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;Magic is political.&#8221;

Photo courtesy of Tolarian Community College, a YouTube channel dedicated to Magic: The Gathering.

The Magic: The Gathering community has come together for trans lives, raising over $450,000 in fewer than 48 hours—and there’s still one more day to chip in, all as of this writing.

“I’m giving TEN PEOPLE each one box of Collector Boosters from Lorwyn as a thank you for donating to Trans Lifeline!” Brian Lewis, who runs a YouTube channel called Tolarian Community College—and fittingly goes by “The Professor”—posted at noon on Feb. 4. The name is a nod to Tolarian Academy, a location in the game. “Just donate in multiples of $4.00 to @translifeline.org until Feb 7 at 10am PST!”

Just two hours after that initial post, Tolarian Community College announced that they’d amassed $20,000. The next day: $250,000. By the night of Feb. 5, The Professor told Erin in the Morning that the funds had surpassed $300,000.

Other prizes being raffled or auctioned off include a wide array of MTG merch: booster packs, coveted decks, and a 1907 copy of Peter Kropotkin’s book “Mutual Aid”—stuffed, of course, with MTG cards.

Crow’s Nest Comics in Seattle also added a signed copy of Seanan McGuire’s “Magic: Soul and Stone” comic collection to the prize pool, which only continues to grow.

“Magic is political because if trans people are dead then we, a trans-owned and ran comic/game store, can no longer exist,” the shop posted on Bluesky. “Also most of our players wouldn’t exist. So! Go donate!”

Trans Lifeline, the beneficiary of the fundraiser, is a grassroots, non-carceral, peer support hotline for trans people in crisis, which also offers microgrants to trans people in emergencies. A spokesperson for the group said Magic: The Gathering players have been especially supportive of the work they do.

“We’re once again in awe of Brian’s [The Professor] ability to rally the MTG community in support of our work,” Trans Lifeline told Erin in the Morning over email.

“In order to maintain our standards of safety for our callers, we can’t accept government grants for services, so we truly rely on grassroots fundraising like this to sustain our organization,” they continued. “We’ve been doing our best to increase our operator capacity to meet rising demand these last few years, and this fundraiser has already had a tremendous impact on keeping our organization grounded, resourced, and ready for the year ahead.”

Finally, Trans Lifeline added that, for the first time ever, the organization would be at MagicCon.

MTG is a collectible trading card tabletop game with both online and in-person elements. The game was first released in 1993—the brainchild of Richard Garfield, who at the time was a graduate student working towards a PhD in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. Today, MTG has tens of millions of players across platforms.

Tolarian Community College is widely considered to be one of the most prolific MTG content creators, with over 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube.

“Even though I feel that it is not my place to speak for others from communities that are affected by recent policy, I just want to help and I believe that I’m not alone in this endeavor,” The Professor told Erin in the Morning. “I want all people during this political moment to know that you’re not alone, and even though it may feel overwhelming, there’s even more of us who are happy to help, and this fundraiser is a great way to show how much we can achieve together.”

Tolarian Community College’s fundraiser for Trans Lifeline is a beloved yearly tradition. Last year, they raised nearly half a million dollars for the cause.

The hotline operates Monday through Friday. If you’re a trans person in the United States in crisis, you can access help at (877) 565-8860. Canadian callers can dial (877) 330-6366.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/magic-the-gathering-gathers-for-trans at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Boy Scouts Threatened By Pentagon Over "Gender-Fluid Ideological Stances"

S. BAUM | FEB 6, 2026, 12:33 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;Scouting America and the Department of War are near a final agreement.&#8221;

Wikimedia Commons

The Boy Scouts of America—which is now known as Scouting America—has found itself in the line of fire of the Department of Defense (doing business as the “Department of War”).

After the Pentagon threatened to end its longstanding partnership with the organization, Scouting America is reported to be “near a final agreement” to appease the Trump regime’s sudden interest in one of the country’s largest youth organizations.

“On January 21st, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14173: ‘Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,’ terminating radical DEI preferencing in federal contracting. All of our affiliations must meet this standard,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell tweeted Monday.

“But, for more than a decade now, Scouting America’s leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration and this Department of War, including an embrace of DEI and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances.”

Even before its 2025 name change, Scouting America had a rich history of providing programming and opportunities for all genders. Women and girls have held auxiliary and leadership roles in the Boy Scouts since its earliest days. Girls have been permitted to join some programs of the Scouts, namely the Venturing and Sea Scouts, since the 1970s—meaning Boy Scouts have been some level of sex-integrated for almost half of the organization’s 116-year history without issue.

In the late 2010s, other flagship programs, including the Cub Scouts, were also opened up to girls. President Donald Trump has seemingly embraced this in the past, evidently welcoming both girls and boys from Scouting America to the Oval Office.

Photo courtesy of the White House // Flickr

Now, however, Parnell said the Department would reconsider its ties with Scouting America, including its funding of the venerated National Jamboree. That is, unless they capitulate to a yet-unnamed remedy to the scourge of “gender” and “DEI.”

“Scouting America remains far from perfect, but they have firmly committed to a return to core principles,” Parnell said. “Back to God and country—immediately!”

Scouting America said in a statement to the Washington Post it was “encouraged by tonight’s social media post by the Pentagon” and that they will be “providing more details” soon.

“Scouting America and the Department of War are near a final agreement where we believe we can continue our partnership with Scouting America, as long as the organization rapidly implements the common-sense, core value reforms,” Parnell tweeted. “They are on the clock, and we are watching.”

Of course, “common sense” when uttered by a Trump official tends to be a rhetorical cudgel meaning “ideologically-charged, authoritarian repression.”

Despite its inclusion of women, however, the Boy Scouts have had a rocky history with LGBTQ inclusion. Gay and lesbian scouts and scouting leaders were once explicitly banned, and many were expelled from the group on anti-LGBTQ grounds. This changed, bit by bit, following years of advocacy—even after a Supreme Court case in 2000 ruled the Boy Scouts were constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to discriminate against gay people.

Parnell’s Twitter threats of course correspond with other military and Pentagon efforts to purge trans Americans from their ranks. But the Department of (Culture) War, when it’s not kidnapping heads of state from sovereign nations, has its work cut out for it.

Meanwhile, you can express any concerns with Scouting America here.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/boy-scouts-threatened-by-pentagon at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

The Cowardice Of American Medicine On Trans Youth Care

ERIN REED | FEB 5, 2026, 4:47 PM EST | SOURCE

After capitulation by hospitals across the country, the ASPS and AMA have both thrown trans kids under the bus on surgical care.

Ted Eytan

The first year of the Trump administration has offered a master class in how powerful institutions capitulate to right-wing pressure rather than defend the marginalized people who depend on them. That pattern has played out across American life—from newsrooms to elite universities to television networks—but few sectors have folded as quickly or as completely as medical institutions facing federal threats over transgender care. Now, after a bruising week of far-right pressure and coordinated messaging, one of the most consequential shoes has dropped. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, led by a president who has donated heavily to the Trump campaign and to Ted Cruz, has issued a statement opposing gender-affirming surgeries for patients up to age 19—a move subsequently pseudo-endorsed by the American Medical Association and further bolstered by a lawsuit led by a detransitioner and backed by the current president-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

This week, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons released a statement concluding that “ASPS recommends that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.” Notably, 19 years of age is explicitly the age mentioned in Trump’s executive order, including a whole extra year of adulthood for no discernable reason. In justifying that position, the statement cites the Cass Review, which was advised on by members of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and has been rejected by multiple major medical organizations worldwide. Shortly after the ASPS announcement, the American Medical Association issued a statement concurring in part, writing, “In the absence of clear evidence, the A.M.A. agrees with A.S.P.S. that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.” Taken together, the statements represent a significant departure from prior approaches to transgender youth surgical care. It is notable, mildly so at least, that the AMA’s use of the word “generally” leaves open the possibility that specific clinical indications—such as chest masculinization surgeries for some transgender youth with exceptional dysphoria—may still be permitted.

It is no surprise that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons was among the first major medical organizations to fall. Plastic surgeons, as a group, have long donated far more heavily to Republicans than to Democrats, with contributions over the past two decades favoring Republicans by two to one. The society’s president, Bob Basu, is himself a significant Republican donor, having given repeatedly to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. In that sense, ASPS was always a prime pressure point for the far right’s campaign against transgender health care. What is more alarming is the broader capitulation now unfolding across American medical institutions—the speed with which they are yielding to political threats, and the silence or acquiescence of bodies tasked with protecting transgender care in the face of mounting political intimidation.

President of ASPS donations

In that sense, it is impossible to view this capitulation and cowardice in isolation. It sits alongside the dozens of hospitals that have curtailed or closed transgender youth care under threats from the Trump administration—often in direct violation of state law—while state attorneys general decline to enforce those protections against compliant hospitals. Over the past year alone, more than 20 hospitals have formally shut down all transgender youth care, with many more doing so quietly. In numerous cases, those decisions run afoul of state statutes that explicitly or implicitly protect gender-affirming care. And while there has been a notable exception—CA AG Rob Bonta’s lawsuit in California seeking to restore care after a hospital abandoned its obligations—what has defined this moment more broadly is institutional retreat: a pervasive unwillingness to fight for LGBTQ+ youth in the face of political threats from the far right and President Trump.

Even organizations tasked with protecting transgender people have abdicated that responsibility. Institutions such as Fenway Health in Massachusetts have dropped transgender youth health care, despite having been founded explicitly to protect vulnerable communities from politically withheld medical care. And it is impossible to ignore the elephant in the room that preceded the ASPS announcement: the recent New York lawsuit over gender-affirming masculinizing chest surgery, in which Dr. Loren Schechter, president-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, testified on behalf of a detransitioner who regretted gender-affirming care and ultimately won a large monetary award. And while to Dr. Schechter’s credit, that case may have featured legitimate malpractice not present in virtually any other case involving a detransitioner, it was shortsighted not to anticipate that such testimony—offered in a blue state—would play into the kind of coordinated blitz now unfolding, as anti-trans forces seize on the outcome they had been waiting to exploit.

Instead, it is difficult to view the actions of the American Medical Association and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons as anything other than cowardice. These organizations were neutral to, and at times even supportive of, transgender health care when the political winds favored doing so. It is easy to take principled stances when there is little cost. Now, as hospitals face discrimination lawsuits from transgender patients whose care has been dropped in blue states and as federal threats escalate, the timing of these statements makes their purpose clear: to shield hospitals in blue states from discrimination claims by preemptively narrowing standards of care. Little has changed about the underlying medical evidence. What has changed is the political environment. These decisions come not after new science, but after institutional capitulation and sustained pressure from the Trump administration. They are not medical judgments. They are political ones.

And it is important to recognize that this kind of preemptive cowardice is not theoretically confined to surgical care for transgender youth. The same tactics can be deployed against all transgender health care, including care for adults. Many of the same actors pushing these moves have made clear that this is only the beginning. And once this model is normalized, there is little reason to believe it will stop with transgender care. Any form of medical treatment that becomes politically inconvenient—PrEP, birth control, vaccines, antidepressants, and more—can be subjected to the same pressure campaigns and legal intimidation. These actions must be understood for what they are: a blueprint for eliminating any care that those in power disagree with.

And it is impossible to ignore the blatant hypocrisy embedded in the American Society of Plastic Surgeons position statement. Procedures such as rhinoplasty, gynecomastia surgery, and other aesthetic interventions remain entirely acceptable within ASPS standards. And while ASPS does not formally “recommend” breast augmentation surgery for cisgender patients under 18, many plastic surgeons continue to perform those procedures without any apparent enforcement effort from the organization. It is only when care involves transgender patients that the guns come out.

With all of this said, it is clear that transgender people are among those most impacted by institutional capitulation to the far-right project of eliminating the people it deems most disposable. But this, too, is not new. For decades, medical institutions forced transgender women to socially transition for years before granting access to hormones—a cruel and dangerous gatekeeping regime that pushed people into public exposure long before they could achieve any measure of safety. Institutions such as Johns Hopkins Hospital abruptly shut down transgender health care after declaring transgender people mentally ill in the 1970s. And for generations, trans people have been driven into black- and gray-market care, not by choice, but by medical systems that viewed them as expendable or worse.

And so, as pressure from the far right continues to intensify and hospitals and institutions choose cowardice, trans people and the providers who serve us are once again being pushed to the margins. The ASPS statement will make care harder to access for some transgender youth and may be further weaponized to target adults as well. But history makes one thing clear: care does not disappear—it moves. Even as major hospitals retreat, independent providers continue to step in. Organizations like the Trans Youth Emergency Project have already been routing patients to clinics willing to provide care, often quietly and through word of mouth. Informal and gray-market pathways persist, not because they are ideal, but because political cowardice leaves people with no other choice.

At the same time, blue states remain one of the few institutional counterweights left, passing and updating shield laws to protect providers from abusive lawsuits, malpractice threats, and the weaponization of captured professional bodies like ASPS. Those protections will need to keep evolving as attacks do, and those of my many readers with such connections should strategize on how to lobby in the face of these recent strategies. What this moment makes unmistakably clear is that the American medical establishment, as an institution, cannot be relied upon to defend transgender care… it never could be. That work will continue to fall to individual providers, independent clinics, state lawmakers, and communities willing to act creatively and defiantly. As it has always been, transgender people will survive not because institutions protect us, but because we build parallel systems of care under a political regime increasingly committed to our erasure.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-cowardice-of-american-medicine at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Republican Senator Attacks Netflix Over “Trans Ideology” In Hearing

S. BAUM | FEB 5, 2026, 12:16 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8230;but children&#8217;s programming that actively promotes the cisgender, heterosexual nuclear family is apparently not &#8220;indoctrination.&#8221;

Senator Hawley // CSPAN

Tens of thousands of government workers waited with bated breath to see when they’d see their next paycheck as the partial government shutdown stretched from January into February. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri used this time, and taxpayer dollars, to attack Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos over what he felt was a saturation of “transgender ideology” in children’s shows, all via a Senate hearing.

“Almost half of your content for minor children promotes a transgender ideology,” Hawley barked at the visibly befuddled executive. Hawley did not provide evidence for this claim nor did his office respond when Erin in the Morning asked for the source of this statistic.

It’s also of note that buzzwords like “gender ideology” and “transgender ideology” are known to be far-right dog whistles used to repress women, gay people, and trans people worldwide, as per Human Rights Watch.

Sarandos emphasized that the company features a wide variety of children’s shows and called Hawley’s characterizations “inaccurate.”

It’s not the first time Netflix has become the subject of public outcry—on both sides of the political spectrum—over its content, some of which happens to include trans people. In 2021, trans rights groups chastised the media giant for platforming Dave Chappelle’s comedy special, in which he took aim at the trans community.

Meanwhile, in October 2025, Netflix was subject to a boycott campaign called by far-right agitator Chaya Raichik (aka Libs of Tiktok) and anti-trans billionaire Elon Musk, who frequently uses his platform on X to stoke hate against trans people.

Far-right pressures have indeed seen some success in recent years in an effort to wipe LGBTQ+ representation from media. In 2022, Disney+ Junior Mode removed the wildly popular Owl House, potentially due to its queer representation. In 2024, the platform removed references to a transgender character’s gender identity in the Pixar series Win or Lose.

This hearing was supposed to be about a proposed merger between Netflix and Warner Bros., two of the most powerful media conglomerates already. It was titled: “Examining the Competitive Impact of the Proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers Transaction.”

One would imagine such a hearing would be more focused on, say, antitrust laws, but no. Republicans turned it into an opportunity for a HUAC-style shakedown, where they made a spectacle of soundbites to grill Netflix for being too “woke.”

Republicans called any programming with trans characters “sexualized” and therefore inappropriate for children. Of course, children’s programming that actively promotes the cisgender, heterosexual nuclear family is apparently not “indoctrination.”

“We have no political agenda,” Sarandos insisted. “We have a great deal of programming on Netflix, left, right and center.”

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/republican-senator-attacks-netflix at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

California AG Bonta Files Groundbreaking Lawsuit Against Rady Children’s Hospital for Dropping Trans Youth GAC

S. BAUM | FEB 4, 2026, 2:13 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;If my child had a different diagnosis, they would likely have a surgery date tomorrow. But because of who my child is, the door was closed.&#8221;

From the Jan. 24 protest outside of Rady Children’s. Provided by TransFamily Support Services.

“For the last five months, there has been one thing standing in the way of getting my child the medically necessary treatment they needed,” Sasha, a California parent of a trans minor, said. Their written speech was read aloud by activists to the crowd of 600 protestors outside of Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego on Jan. 24, according to organizers on the ground.

“It wasn’t science,” Sasha said of their barriers to care. “It was politics. It was a system deciding that my child’s healthcare was a debate, rather than a diagnosis.”

Sasha battled with insurance companies, with corporate bureaucracy, with the American health care system. “Our family lived on a roller coaster of hope and heartbreak,” they said. “I cannot tell you the relief of looking at my child and saying, ‘We did it. You’re going to get the care you need.’”

Then they called the hospital to schedule an appointment.

“That is when Rady’s told me that they simply don’t do it anymore,” Sasha said. “If my child had a different diagnosis, they would likely have a surgery date tomorrow. But because of who my child is, the door was closed. Not by an insurance algorithm, but by the very institution we trusted to care for them.”

Sasha is a pseudonym; as a parent of a trans kid, they fear they cannot speak out without subjecting their child to violence, harassment or even persecution. Their remarks were provided by Kathie Moehlig, executive director of TransFamily Support Services.

Fourteen years ago, Moehlig’s own trans child was a patient seeking gender-affirming care at Rady Children’s. In fact, they were the very first.

But years of advocacy, coalition building, research and education came to a screeching halt when Trump returned to power. Rady Children’s recently announced they would be ceasing gender-affirming care for trans people under age 19—meaning even legal adults, at 18 years old, are being denied treatment.

Last month, it announced the closure of its Center for Gender Affirming Care, effective Feb. 6. As per a statement to the East Bay Times, Rady is withdrawing “medical interventions, procedures and prescriptions,” but will maintain “counseling, mental health resources and care coordination.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, however, isn’t letting that happen. Bonta recently announced he is suing Rady, a bold move amidst a hostile and unpredictable legal landscape for gender-affirming care. He also appears to be the first AG to take such concrete action against a provider who capitulated to the Trump regime.

But because of the Trump regime’s general disregard for the rule of law, Bonta must take on Rady with surgical precision. So he’s not really suing them for violating equal rights laws. He’s suing them for violating a contract.

This playbook, experts tell Erin in the Morning, could inform other Attorneys General trying to protect GAC in their own state.

Images from the Jan. 24 protest outside of Rady Children’s. Provided by TransFamily Support Services:

“We had to think creatively”

Trump has deployed an arsenal of political tactics to try to decimate trans people’s health care. He’s signed executive orders, held Medicaid and Medicare funds hostage, and sent feds on fishing expeditions to investigate, intimidate, and harass GAC providers with boldly overreaching subpoenas.

None of that changes the fact that there is no federal law barring gender-affirming care for trans youth, nor is there any state law against it in California.

“The environment around gender-affirming care has changed dramatically, with escalating federal actions,” Rady Children’s Health said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “These developments affect our role and responsibilities as a provider participating in federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which are essential to caring for all children and families in our communities.”

As the Trump regime continues to subvert checks, balances, and democracy, lawyers are tasked with reimagining how they might uphold the laws meant to protect Americans.

Last month, Erin in the Morning reported on how a coalition of public interest lawyers filed a historic, first-of-its-kind class action lawsuit to quash a subpoena after federal officials sought extensive records about trans kids from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles—including names, addresses, patient notes, and social security numbers.

“After the Supreme Court’s June decision in Trump v. CASA made it impossible to extend relief to unnamed but similarly-situated parties outside of a class action,” Khadijah M. Silver, Director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, told Erin in the Morning at the time. “We had to think creatively.”

In 2025, the devastating Skrmetti decision determined that Tennessee’s law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors was not unconstitutional. This reinforced what lawyers post-Roe already feared: SCOTUS, as it stands, can no longer be viewed as a reliable safeguard for constitutional rights, if it ever was one to begin with.

Bonta and officials from other blue states already filed a lawsuit against the federal government over their harassment of pediatric gender clinics, but Bonta appears to be the first to actually hold a health care institution responsible for dropping trans patients over Trumpian threats. And this time, Bonta is using a legal maneuver that could help civil rights defenders sidestep the overreach of Trump’s lackeys.

From the Jan. 24 protest outside of Rady Children’s. TransFamily Support Services.

“A very strategically pled lawsuit”

Last year, Rady Children’s parent company merged with that of Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). Both companies had to seek approval from the state to complete the merger, and agree to conditions set by the AG’s office. Bonta argues that in dropping gender-affirming care for trans minors when and how it did, Rady violated the contract.

“Rady Children’s Health has chosen to violate its merger agreement and California law in response to the Trump Administration’s illegal campaign against providers of gender-affirming care,” Attorney General Bonta said in a Jan. 30 press release. “Rady flagrantly disregarded its legal obligations by unilaterally deciding to preemptively comply with the Administration’s demands and cease medically necessary care for roughly 1,450 patients.”

“We will not allow Rady to violate its obligations to its patients and the State,” Bonta continued.

It’s notable, experts tell Erin in the Morning, that this was the manner in which Bonta pressed charges, and it’s a strategy that might be advantageous in other states, too.

“This is a very strategically pled lawsuit,” said Rachel See, who spent over a decade as an attorney in the federal government occupying senior enforcement and management roles, in an interview with Erin in the Morning.

“It’s being brought solely under California law, because of the California AG’s unique power to approve mergers between California nonprofit hospitals,” she said. “It means that this is a lawsuit that only the California Attorney General could bring, and only against Rady, because of the merger conditions.”

“The complaint doesn’t speculate about why Rady made this decision because it doesn’t have to,” See continued. “It doesn’t matter why Rady chose to preemptively comply with demands it expects to receive from the federal government. According to the AG, the only thing that matters is that they violated the merger conditions.”

By orienting the lawsuit around the breach of the merger conditions under California nonprofit corporation law, Bonta is able to avoid judicial questions about federal nondiscrimination or constitutional claims. That means it should be able to stay in California state courts instead of a more ornery federal jurisdiction.

“There’s no federal question and no easy way for the Trump administration’s Department of Justice to interfere,” See said. “The complaint does include a demand for civil penalties of $2,500 per violation under California’s Unfair Competition Law, but that’s not the point. The point is the injunction.”

Meanwhile, Bonta has signaled that the door remains open for him to take further actions against hospitals that abandon their responsibility to care for transgender patients.

“I understand that the President’s executive order on gender affirming care has created some confusion,” he said last February. “Let me be clear: California law has not changed, and hospitals and clinics have a legal obligation to provide equal access to healthcare services.”

You can view the full complaint filed by Bonta here.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/california-ag-bonta-files-groundbreaking at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Black Trans Trailblazers That You May Not Learn About in History Class

S. BAUM | FEB 2, 2026, 6:14 PM EST | SOURCE

For Black History Month, we&#8217;re honoring these Black trans pioneers from across America.

It’s Black History Month, and despite what the Trump regime wants you to believe, Black trans and gender nonconforming people have always been at the forefront of change in this country—sometimes waging these battles from the most marginalized of spaces, and other times, doing so in the highest halls of power.

Not all of them may have used the word “transgender” to identify themselves, given that labels and notions about gender are specific to time and place. But today, we can look back at all of these trailblazers and recognize reflections of our own experiences of gender diversity.

To kick off Black History Month, we’ll be honoring the legacies of just a few of these heroes who have shepherded the struggle for the liberation of Black people, trans people, and all Americans.

Pauli Murray // Flickr

1. Pauli Murray (1910 - 1985)

Perhaps the most underappreciated Black TGNC icon is Pauli Murray. Like many queer people who lived in an earlier era, Pauli did not, as far as public records show, use the word “transgender” to describe themself. Many modern day institutions still reference the civil rights leader using “she/her” pronouns.

While Pauli did indeed use she/her pronouns in public writings, in private, they expressed themself more nebulously. Pauli, who grew up in North Carolina, wrote that they believed themself to be “a girl who should have been a boy.” They sought out testosterone for hormone replacement therapy, and even begged doctors to perform exploratory surgeries with the belief they would find undescended testes.

They were also known to wear a seahorse broach on their lapel—and indeed were “obsessed” with seahorses due to their “genderless” nature. It was a symbol, Murray felt, of their own gender ambiguity.

Regardless of what word Pauli would have used today, they were passionate about the crux of gender liberation and racial justice. They were known as the first African-American “woman” ordained as an Episcopal priest and the first Black person to graduate with a JSD from Yale Law. Alongside Betty Friedan, Pauli also co-founded the National Organization for Women.

But Pauli’s most significant contribution to American life might be their role in ending segregation. They initially pioneered the legal theory that was used by civil rights lawyers in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation in American public schools.

Frances Thompson // Wikimedia Commons

2. Frances Thompson (1840 -1876)

Historian Channing Joseph described Frances as “one of the linchpins” who propelled Reconstruction forward after the Civil War.

Frances was born into slavery on a Southernplantation. It was here that she transitioned—the family that claimed to own her recognized her gender identity and gave her feminine clothes to match.

Frances was liberated during an uprising and began her life as a free woman in Memphis, Tennessee, where she witnessed one of the most consequential post-War atrocities against Black Americans—the Memphis Massacre of May 1866.

Countless Black Tennesseans were murdered, robbed or raped by an angry mob of white men, most of whom were police. Thompson was one such victim.

In the aftermath, Frances was one of five brave Black women who recounted their stories of survival before a congressional committee. Their testimony helped reinvigorate Reconstructionist efforts. Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment just a few weeks later, in June of 1866.

“To check the brutal violation of black Memphians’ rights by agents of the state, the federal government would guarantee citizenship, equal protection, and due process,” writes historian Jules Gill-Peterson. “At the heart of this historic transformation of the Constitution lay the testimony of five women who told Congress of being raped by white men, asserting that they must be protected from such violence like any white woman would have been [and...] their claim to equal protection included a woman who had become one through transition.”

“Thompson had once been enslaved, and she knew as well as anyone that her testifying under oath to white congressmen was unprecedented,” Gill-Peterson continued. “In much of the country, black women could not legally be raped because the legal system developed during slavery did not consider them persons.”

The entire Memphis police force was fired in the aftermath, largely in thanks to Frances and the women who testified, Gill-Peterson writes. For a while, she returned to life in Memphis as a renowned spiritualist and fortune teller. But after nearly a decade of police harassment, a neighbor outed her, and law enforcement arrested her for “crossdressing.”

Frances was sentenced to forced labor in a men’s chain gang, and died shortly after her release, likely due to health conditions exacerbated by the brutality of her incarceration.

Miss Major // Mickalene Thomas via Facebook

3. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy (1946 - 2025)

We would be remiss not to mention that we’re celebrating the first Black History Month since the passing of the magnanimous Miss Major.

Known to many as “Mama,” Major was a dedicated community organizer who refused to abandon the most marginalized among us.

“Major’s fierce commitment and intersectional approach to justice brought her to care directly for people with HIV/AIDS in New York in the early 1980s, and later to drive San Francisco’s first mobile needle exchange,” her obituary via House of gg reads.

“As director of the TGI Justice Project, she’d return to prisons as a mentor to her ‘gurls’ inside. In 2019, she would be powerfully guided by spirit and her vision in search of a family gathering property. House of gg was born out of her dream to build a center that would empower, heal and be a safe haven for Black trans people and movement leaders in the Southern US—a space for our community.”

In Miss Major’s own words:

“We used to accept this crap of: ‘We’re not worthy,’ and ‘We shouldn’t exist,’ like this government is trying to push down our throats,” she told VICE in 2018. “We’ve got to revolt, and we’ve got to reclaim who the fuck we are [...] If this world is going to get its act together, they have to support and put in the front to lead this revolution the people who are the most oppressed, which is my Black transgender community.”

Marsha P. Johnson // British Online Archives

4. Marsha P. Johnson (1945 - 1992)

Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson is perhaps the most recognizable figure in Black trans American history. In the early years post-Stonewall, many mainstream gay and lesbian organizations sought to distance themselves from their trans counterparts. Today that inclination is making a nasty comeback as mentions of trans people and trans life are removed from Stonewall Monument materials.

Marsha was a prolific organizer and drag queen whose radiant joy and humor was a fixture of Manhattan’s queer nightlife scene. She mobilized her community in the aftermath of the Stonewall Uprising. Alongside Sylvia Rivera and others, she founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group that waged direct actions against anti-trans violence and police brutality.

Most importantly, however, STAR established deep networks of mutual aid and care for the trans street kids and sex workers either abandoned by the state or actively targeted by it.

In her own words:

“We want to see all gay people have a chance, equal rights, as straight people have in America,” Marsha said in an interview from 1970. “Our main goal is to see gay people liberated and free and have equal rights that other people have in America. We’d like to see our gay brothers and sisters out of jail and on the streets again.”

The circumstances around Marsha’s death remain unclear—we only know she was pulled from the Hudson in 1992, off of the historic Christopher Street Piers.

But Marsha’s legacy lives on, and her name has become synonymous with the spark that ignited the LGBTQ liberation movement as it is known today. A floral archway adorns the Marsha P. Johnson State Park in Brooklyn, and every Pride, homages to Marsha are plentiful—indeed, her rallying cry of “For All of Us” is the theme of this year’s Pride Parade in New York City.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/black-trans-trailblazers-that-you at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

The Lavender Ledger: Your Strategic LGBTQ+ Reader By Erin In The Morning

ERIN REED | FEB 1, 2026, 2:25 PM EST | SOURCE

Our service for the week to cover the news we did not carry but do not want you to miss.

Inside EITM’s newsroom, we track dozens of breaking stories weekly—tips flood in from readers embedded in state houses, school boards, and organizations across the country. Our sources are everywhere. But here’s our strategic dilemma: while we’re chasing down original leads and working our exclusive angles, critical intelligence is moving through other channels that deserves your attention.

Consider this your weekend drop.

These are the stories that crossed our desk, passed our vetting, and matter to LGBTQ+ people—reported by trusted outlets while we were deep in our own investigations. Think of it as our intelligence-sharing agreement with you: the essential coverage from across the LGBTQ+ media landscape that we’ve been monitoring, verified, and deemed operationally significant.

This week’s important releases:

Trump admin is trying to deport LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers to countries where they’d be killed, lawyers say, Christopher Wiggins - The Advocate

Anti-immigrant actions by the Trump administration have dominated headlines in recent weeks, from ICE raids in major cities to the brutal treatment of citizens and noncitizens alike. Now, new reporting suggests those policies may place transgender and queer people in mortal danger. According to emerging accounts, the administration is advancing deportation practices that would send LGBTQ+ people back to countries such as Uganda, where they face severe persecution—and, in some cases, death. In other instances, individuals are reportedly being removed to third countries with which they have no connection at all, leaving them exposed to violence with no support or protection. The full, deeply disturbing reporting is available at The Advocate and deserves close attention.

Council of Europe votes to pass trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy, by Amelia Hansford - Pink News

In Europe, there has been a huge fight over whether or not to ban conversion therapy across the European Union’s 26 member states. This effort has been opposed by anti-transgender groups, including TERF organizations who find the conversion therapy of transgender peopel completely acceptable, regardless of how they feel about LGB conversion therapy. Despite significant lobbying by anti-transgender organiations like Sex Matters, this week the vote advanced at the Council of Europe. The 71-member body voted in favor of the ban, with only 26 members voting against it.

The Trojan Horse Before the Supreme Court, by Michael Waters - NY Mag

I have long argued that the transgender athlete ban now before the Supreme Court of the United States is a doorway the far right intends to use to restrict transgender people across nearly every aspect of public life. In a new piece for Intelligencer at New York Magazine, journalist Michael Waters lays out exactly how that strategy works. Once courts bless discrimination against transgender people in sports, the same legal logic can be extended to housing, education, and beyond. It is an argument we have been making at Erin In The Morning for some time, and it is notable—and important—to see it articulated in a major legacy outlet.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/the-lavender-ledger-your-strategic-39d at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Kansas Legislature Passes Trans Bathroom Bounty, Drivers License Revocations

S. BAUM | JAN 31, 2026, 1:59 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;They're using very overtly anti-democratic measures to pass all this stuff because they know that it's unpopular.&#8221;

Jimmy Emerson // Creative Commons

Earlier this week, Erin in the Morning reported that Kansas lawmakers were fast tracking sweeping anti-trans measures through the legislature. Following a rapidfire vote in both the House and the Senate, the bill passed, and is now on its way to the Governor’s desk.

It was rushed through the legislature with such speed and urgency that it was able to sidestep almost all public input on key provisions of the bill; among other things, there simply wasn’t time to show up.

Interestingly, however, an out-of-state anti-trans activist with groups like Do No Harm and the Alliance Defending Freedom—both Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate/extremist groups—was on the scene for the vote, which he gloated about on social media.

“Doug Richey with ADF Action here in the Kansas State Capitol with some wonderful news,” the conservative talking head posted to X on Jan. 28. “Just want to stop and thank the sponsors and the legislators who’ve been working on this, quite frankly, for a number of years.”

He went on to laud the bill as a victory for the privacy of women and children. “They don’t have to worry about a member of the opposite sex coming into that space and creating the challenges that we all know exist,” he said.

Except these provisions actually do the opposite. The twin pieces of legislation, SB 244 and HB 2426, ban people from entering restrooms in publicly-owned buildings that deviate from their sex assigned at birth, all while explicitly empowering citizen-vigilantes of any sex to interrogate unsuspecting members of the public about their genitals—and to receive a monetary reward for doing so. This has earned it the nickname of the “Bathroom Bounty Hunter” bill.

It also is slated to forcibly revoke state IDs from many trans people. The legislation’s dire implications for trans Kansans’ ability to obtain accurate documentation puts their ability to travel, use a driver’s license, and even potentially vote at risk. And it all happened using a backdoor channel for rushing through emergency legislation dubbed the “gut and go” method.

“The original bill (HB 2426) required the state of Kansas to invalidate legally issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses to depict strictly someone’s sex assigned at birth,” a presser from the ACLU of Kansas reads.

“Even after 200 people submitted opposition testimony against the ID provision, the House Committee on Judiciary amended the bill to also apply to bathrooms, requiring such private spaces to be used only according to an individual’s sex assigned at birth. The committee members then stripped and inserted the contents of the bill into a separate ‘shell bill’ (SB 244) that had passed in a previous, different form.”

In other words, Kansas Republicans passed an already-maligned bill through one chamber, switched out the contents in the next, and were then able to propel the bills ahead with even more stringent anti-trans rules, circumventing the public’s ability to meaningfully weigh in or protest.

“They’re using very overtly anti-democratic measures to pass all this stuff because they know that it’s unpopular,” Isaac Johnson of Trans Lawrence Coalition told Erin in the Morning. “They have to get through ASAP because they don’t want anyone to talk about it.”

The original HB 2426 was introduced by Kansas lawmakers on the very first day of the 2026 session. The bill comes after courts struck down Attorney General Kris Kobach’s previous bids to persecute trans Kansans for violating their civil rights.

While Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is expected to veto these measures, the legislature is expected to have enough votes to override such a veto.

The bill technically only names public buildings—such as schools, some airports, public parks—in its provisions, but it also leaves many aspects up for interpretation, including whether some regulations, such as the bathroom bounties, can be extended to private businesses. The ambiguity is the point, Kansas State Representative Abigail Boatman told Erin in the Morning. It stokes fear and confusion among trans Kansans.

“I think the bounty section is highly problematic,” Boatman said. “There’s no established plan on how to enforce this law. There’s very little plan to explain about how complaints would be addressed outside of just, well, they’ll call the Attorney General’s office, and the Attorney General’s office can handle it.”

Even more, it offers an apparent financial incentive to violate the privacy of Kansans regardless of their gender or sex. “You could be paid money for leading to the conviction,” Boatman said. It also grants a mandate for state officials “to proactively invalidate people’s identifying documents and reissue them.”

Boatman warns it all furthers a dangerous precedent in Kansas and across the country—countless reports have already surfaced of law enforcement and anti-trans actors confronting trans and cisgender people alike for using the “wrong” bathroom. In one case, a cisgender woman was accosted in a Capitol Hill restroom by anti-trans agitators Reps. Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. They had mistaken her for Congresswoman Sarah McBride, who is trans.

Now, Boatman must reckon with her own safety as a Kansan. As an elected official who is also trans, the culture war bills are more than hypothetical. These bills, dripping with anti-trans animus, follow her to her own place of work, as do the men and women that write them.

“I am not here to be a cause,” Boatman told Erin in the Morning. “I’m here to be a legislator.”

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-legislature-passes-trans-bathroom at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Fox News Poll: Americans Prefer Democrats On Transgender Issues +22 Points

ERIN REED | JAN 30, 2026, 2:07 PM EST | SOURCE

Virtually every subgroup surveyed&#8212;from mothers to Black voters to even rural white voters&#8212;expressed greater confidence in the Democratic Party&#8217;s handling of transgender issues in the latest poll.

Ted Eytan // Wikimedia Commons

Anti-transgender politics appears to be losing steam with American voters. That trend was already visible in November, when multiple candidates who centered their campaigns on anti-trans messaging were soundly defeated despite spending enormous sums on attack ads. Now, there is fresh evidence from an unlikely source. According to a new poll released Thursday by Fox News, voters say Democrats have a better approach to transgender issues by a wide margin—an outcome that suggests the years-long anti-trans panic may finally be wearing thin, at least among voters.

According to the latest Fox News poll, when respondents were asked which political party they believe would do a better job on transgender issues, 60 percent said Democrats, compared with just 38 percent who chose Republicans—a 22-point advantage. The result suggests a growing disconnect between how political leaders frame transgender issues and how voters actually respond to them. While the public holds a wide range of views on specific questions involving bathrooms, sports, and medical care, voters appear to find the Democratic approach on transgender issues significantly more palatable than the Republican one.

The breakdown among key demographic groups was even more striking. Black voters were among the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party’s approach to transgender issues, with 71 percent siding with Democrats compared with 28 percent favoring Republicans—a staggering 43-point margin. Every age group favored Democrats over Republicans, but support was strongest among voters under 45, where 65 percent backed Democratic policies versus 35 percent for Republicans, a 30-point gap. Even self-identified moderates broke heavily toward Democrats, with 63 percent supporting the Democratic platform compared with 32 percent backing the Republican one—a 31-point margin that underscores how broadly anti-trans messaging appears to be backfiring beyond the party base.

Perhaps most striking, voters typically assumed to lean Republican still favored Democrats on transgender issues. As expected, urban and suburban voters backed Democrats by wide margins—roughly 30 points—but rural voters also broke in Democrats’ favor. Even there, Democrats held a 10-point advantage. That shift suggests Republicans may be losing an advantage they long believed they held, based largely on assumptions about prejudice in rural areas. Notably, Democrats even led among white rural voters, 51 to 45 percent, indicating that the edge persists among groups often considered central to the Republican base.

Democrats also performed surprisingly well across most religious groups. They held an edge among Catholics—including white Catholics—as well as among Protestants. While those margins were narrower than in other demographics—about a 16-point advantage among Catholic voters—they are notable given that Trump carried many of these groups comfortably. Even among evangelical Christians, one of the few constituencies that still leaned Republican on transgender issues, support for the Democratic approach was substantial, with 41 percent siding with Democrats.

These numbers do not appear to be aberrations. Instead, they point to a growing problem for a Republican Party that has increasingly elevated anti-transgender policy into a central political strategy, pouring tens of millions of dollars into anti-trans advertising. That investment has not paid off. In places like Virginia and New Jersey, and in school board races across the country, Republicans were decisively defeated when targeting transgender people became a defining priority. Far from being a political liability, supporting transgender people may increasingly be an electoral asset. Democrats, if they choose to recognize it, can run openly on their supportive stances—and on exposing the cruelty of Republican policy—and be rewarded by voters for doing so.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/fox-news-poll-americans-prefer-democrats at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Criminal Charges Pressed Against Budapest Mayor After Hundreds of Thousands Defy Pride Ban

S. BAUM | JAN 29, 2026, 6:51 PM EST | SOURCE

&#8220;Despite threats or punishment, I will continue to fight. Freedom and love cannot be banned.&#8221;

Budapest Pride

Mayor Gergely Karácsony of Budapest did not ask for permission. He led by example, standing alongside hundreds of thousands of Hungarians pouring into the streets of his city for the 30th annual Pride Month celebration last year.

Meanwhile, the country’s authoritarian right-wing government made public displays of queerness illegal.

Now, Mayor Karácsony is being charged for organizing an unlawful assembly despite a prohibition order, PBS reports. The Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office said it will seek to impose fines without a trial.

“I refuse to be intimidated or silenced,” Karácsony wrote in a Jan. 28 post on X. “I will never accept that standing up for freedom, free speech, or love can be treated as a crime. Despite threats or punishment, I will continue to fight. Freedom and love cannot be banned!”

Ahead of the March 2025 Pride event, Hungarian authorities threatened organizers with years of imprisonment. They also said they would deploy facial recognition software against attendees to track them and impose fines, but after 350,000 people marched on Budapest (as per organizers, although crowd estimates vary), police backtracked.

Earlier that month, the country’s authoritarian right-wing party, shepherded by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, passed a law barring any public assembly that “promotes and displays deviations from the gender identity corresponding to the sex at birth, gender change, and homosexuality.”

In April, a constitutional amendment was added in a similar vein, enshrining the right of children’s “moral development” as the foremost law of the land, superseding nearly every other right.

In reality, this rhetorical cudgel wherein extremists pearl-clutch about “the children” is, as it is in many authoritarian regimes, a convenient scapegoat. The real goal is to attack the LGBTQ community, and to repress free speech more broadly.

“The spurious justification for the passing of this law—that events and assemblies would be ‘harmful to children’—is based on harmful stereotypes and deeply entrenched discrimination, homophobia and transphobia,” said Dávid Vig, Director of Amnesty International Hungary at the time.

But organizers are maintaining a defiant tone. In emails with Erin in the Morning, they said they’ll be coming back this year for Pride 2026, this time in June.

“At Budapest Pride, we will continue to stand firm in our support of the fundamental freedoms that everyone is entitled to,” a spokesperson said. “We stand up for ourselves, we stand up for each other, because we want to live in a free, peaceful and equal country.”

Hungary has been in the news a great deal recently due to its anti-LGBTQ policies, as it was the first contemporary EU country to enact a Pride ban. Romania soon followed.

“For the first time in its 13-year history, setbacks in human rights of trans people across Europe and Central Asia now clearly outweigh progress,” a TGEU (Trans Europe and Central Asia) report found in May. “This regression signals more than just a crisis for trans communities—it is a broader crisis of democracy and fundamental rights across the region.”

Furthermore, Orbán has become a disturbing fixture in American politics, helping lawmakers here in the States pioneer new and creative ways to antagonize LGBTQ people.

“About the Don’t Say Gay law, it was in fact modeled in part on what Hungary did,” Rod Dreher, an editor at the American Conservative magazine, said during a panel interview in Budapest. Vox first reported this story.

“I was told this by a conservative reporter who […] said he talked to the press secretary of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and she said, ‘Oh yeah, we were watching the Hungarians, so yay Hungary.’”

Meanwhile, CPAC—the Conservative Political Action Conference, a highly influential yearly gathering of (largely American) conservatives—was co-hosted last year by Hungary and Poland. The headlining keynote speaker was Prime Minister Orbán.

“The Trump tsunami swept through the entire world,” Orbán said. “We are no longer suffocating in the woke sea.”

The risks facing LGBTQ people across the world in this political moment are dire. At the same time, the fact remains that authoritarians—no matter the continent—rule by fear.

As seen at Budapest Pride, many of their threats cannot be carried out to scale. There’s more of us than there are of them.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/criminal-charges-pressed-against at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital In WA Shuts Down Youth Gender Clinic Amidst Federal Funding Threat

S. BAUM | JAN 29, 2026, 10:42 AM EST | SOURCE

What arguably amounts to an appeasement strategy simply falls short.

Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital // Dane Meyere

The MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, notified patients on Monday that it would be closing its pediatric gender health clinic due to political and legal attacks on trans-affirming care. It will begin winding down operations immediately.

“Over the last year we have worked to find options that would allow us to continue to care for this important group of patients. But recent developments at the Federal level now threaten to cut off Medicare and Medicaid payments to MultiCare’s entire health system if we continue offering these services,” the message sent to patients, signed by MultiCare CEO Bill Robertson, reads. “Without those payments, our organization would cease to exist.”

Patients who are 18 and older will be redirected to their primary care physician for hormone replacement therapy, while minors already on puberty blockers or HRT will have to consult their health care team for options—seemingly outside the MultiCare system. A spokesperson told Erin in the Morning that behavioral health care, such as psychotherapy, will continue to be offered.

The stoppage is “due to recent escalations at the federal level to eliminate medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria for minors nationwide, as well as investigations and significant penalizations of health care organizations that provide such care,” the spokesperson confirmed.

Numerous health care institutions are indeed being probed by federal authorities, and the ensuing litigation can indeed be costly. However, the Trump regime has yet to actually make good on its threat of successfully withdrawing Medicaid and Medicare funding from a hospital for providing gender-affirming care.

At the same time, the majority of MultiCare patients rely on Medicaid and Medicare. This includes more than 300 primary, urgent, pediatric, and specialty care locations across Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, as well as 13 hospitals.

MultiCare told Erin in the Morning that this loss of funding could undermine the entire health system’s ability to operate.

“We recognize how important this care is to our gender health clinic patients and have a sense of the impact this will have on you and your family,” MultiCare’s CEO said in his Monday message to patients.

In September, doctors at Mary Bridge Children’s gender clinic stopped accepting new patients or writing new prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormone regimens. This was devastating for parents like Sierra, a mom from Kitsap County whose 12-year-old daughter is transgender. Pseudonyms have been provided due to safety and privacy concerns surrounding Sierra’s child.

“Based on my interactions with the medical staff at Mary Bridge, they’re heartbroken,” Sierra told Erin in the Morning. “They don’t support what the leadership is doing, although all of us, including me, understand they need federal funding in order to stay open.”

Sierra says many families like hers, especially in progressive areas of Washington, figured their care would be safeguarded from federal threats by state anti-discrimination laws.

“Trans children are the sacrificial lamb here,” she said. “In order to keep the show going, that’s what’s happening.”

However, what arguably amounts to an appeasement strategy simply falls short. If trans kids are deemed acceptable collateral, anyone could be next. We already know that Trump is also waging war on vaccines, mental health medications, and abortion, to name just a few kinds of care on the chopping block.

“People like me—maybe they don’t have trans kids, but they’re very liberal, very progressive—think, ‘Well, we’re in Washington, so we’re okay,’” Sierra told Erin in the Morning.

“That’s absolutely false. No one is safe until everybody is.”

The White House is continuing to target safe havens for trans youth—but the presence of institutions (or lack thereof) who are ready and willing to fight for the trans community has been consequential.

Hospitals, universities, and states that resisted executive overreach have not gone unscathed, but they have scored meaningful victories. A class action lawsuit in California successfully safeguarded patients’ data against a drummed-up subpoena aimed at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Maine sued and secured federal funding for school lunches in spite of Trumpian threats to cut it over the state’s defense of its trans students. And Boston Children’s Hospital took the feds to task after the Department of Justice came knocking. A judge quashed that subpoena in court.

This article was downloaded from https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/mary-bridge-childrens-hospital-in at Feb 11, 2026 at 6:23 PM EST.

Table of Contents

Erin in the Morning: 2026 Feb 11

All articles

US Gold Medal Olympian Amber Glenn: "They Hate To See Two Woke B****es Win"

Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up

“Magic: The Gathering” Gathers for Trans Lives, Raises $450,000 in Less Than Two Days

Boy Scouts Threatened By Pentagon Over "Gender-Fluid Ideological Stances"

The Cowardice Of American Medicine On Trans Youth Care

Republican Senator Attacks Netflix Over “Trans Ideology” In Hearing

California AG Bonta Files Groundbreaking Lawsuit Against Rady Children’s Hospital for Dropping Trans Youth GAC

Black Trans Trailblazers That You May Not Learn About in History Class

The Lavender Ledger: Your Strategic LGBTQ+ Reader By Erin In The Morning

Kansas Legislature Passes Trans Bathroom Bounty, Drivers License Revocations

Fox News Poll: Americans Prefer Democrats On Transgender Issues +22 Points

Criminal Charges Pressed Against Budapest Mayor After Hundreds of Thousands Defy Pride Ban

Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital In WA Shuts Down Youth Gender Clinic Amidst Federal Funding Threat