It Is Not Just Us!

It is not just Trump and his cohorts attacking the trans community, but also everything they label as “woke”!

White House Appeals Decision Requiring Sign Language Interpreters

Abe News

by James Weisman, Esq.

Feb 1, 2026

There are two legal defenses to a charge of discrimination on the basis of disability built into the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They can be called “undue burden” defenses – undue financial and/or administrative burdens, i.e., the accommodation necessary is financially disproportionate to the defendant’s ability to pay or is so disruptive to the defendant’s operations that it is unreasonable.

Since “reasonableness” is all the “reasonable accommodation” laws require, a defendant’s failure to make legally required accommodations is considered unreasonable.

President Trump is attempting to create another defense. It can be paraphrased as “if making reasonable accommodation cramps your style you don’t have to do it.”

Do you believe this? How petty can the White House be! They are claiming an “undue burden” to provide sign language interpreters!

The Biden Administration provided ASL interpreter services at White House press briefings. The second Trump Administration eliminated them as part of its efforts to root out diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Reasonable accommodation is not “woke” behavior or optional. NAD sued again, in May 2025. The President raised a unique defense, one that was bound to fail. His lawyers argued that ASL interpreters intrude on President Trump’s ability to control his image, i.e., it cramps his style.

Federal District Court Judge Amir H. Ali granted an injunction to NAD requiring the White House to provide ASL interpreters at press briefings. The Trump Administration has appealed and is quibbling over things like what constitutes a press briefing (scheduled and/or spontaneous events).

Where I went to college, every classroom had an interpreter! When CTAC held conferences, we hired interpreters whenever someone needed one. Providing interpreters is not an “undue burden” it’s a matter of respect for others.

This Struck Me!

When I read this headline from Reuters you know what got me?

Kansas invalidates driver’s licenses, birth certificates of over 1,000 transgender residents

So, what caught my attention?

What struck me was “over 1,000 transgender residents.”

What really hit me was that they passed this draconian law for only one thousand people. In the whole state of Kansas, there are only about one thousand trans people! They passed this law for one thousand people! They took time out of their legislative session for one thousand people!

The Kansas state government has invalidated the driver’s licenses and birth certificates of transgender residents who changed the gender on those documents, in accordance with a law that took effect on Thursday.

The move affects more than 1,000 people. The law requires residents to change their gender identification to the sex they were assigned at birth, and also bans residents from changing their gender on those documents in the future.

1,000 people!

Kansas residents were permitted to change their gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates until 2023, when those changes were halted amid litigation initiated by the state’s Republican attorney general, Kris Kobach. Last year, the courts permitted transgender residents to once again make those changes. State lawmakers then introduced the bill enacted into law after the Kansas legislature overrode Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s veto.

How bitter are these Republicans! They are passing all these anti-trans laws for 1,000 people!

From their rhetoric, you would think there were tens of thousands of trans people in the state… not just 1,000!

The Hill writes that,

The GOP-led Kansas Legislature passed the bill last month. While Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) vetoed it, the Legislature overrode that veto earlier this month.

This is all the Republican doing, they have a super-majority in the legislature!

“This bill is about forcing people into the wrong bathrooms and opening up all Kansans to scrutiny and gender policing by strangers,” said Logan DeMond, ACLU of Kansas policy director, in a release. “Bathroom bans are grounded in prejudice and misinformation, and they don’t actually make anyone safer.”

Once again… only one thousand people have transitioned! All this vitriol directed at just one thousand people!

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If you’re trans and living through laws like this, the comparison to Jim Crow probably isn’t an abstract rhetorical exercise. It’s about what it feels like to have the state:

• Reclassify you against your will
• Override how you live and are recognized
• Control where you can safely exist in public
• Signal that your identity is up for debate

The Jim Crow laws and the anti-trans laws share:

• Both both involve government restrictions on a defined group’s rights and autonomy,
• Both singled people out by law
• Both were told by the state that their identity isn’t recognized
• Both experiencing exclusion from public spaces
• Both feared stigma, harassment, or legal consequences

People, you want to know what the Jim Crow laws were like? Well now you know!

When you’re the one affected, you’re not sitting there weighing Dread Scott 1896 Supreme Court* case against modern equal-protection standards. You’re asking: Am I safe? Am I respected? Am I legally recognized?

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*The Dred Scott v. Sandford case said Black people could not be citizens and had no rights the federal government was bound to respect. It wasn’t just wrong; it entrenched dehumanization at the highest legal level. And that runaway slaves had to be returned to their "owners"

Today, there are legal cases before the courts involving transgender people and women seeking abortion who travel across state lines for care and face potential legal consequences in their home states.

They Are Out To Get Us!

Why? What have we done to them, we are only 0.5 percent of the population! Why are they going banana’s over us?

Kansas informs trans residents their driver’s licenses become invalid on Thursday 

Kansas City Star

By Matthew Kelly

February 25, 2026

Transgender Kansans are being informed on the eve of a new state law going into effect that their driver’s licenses will be considered invalid as of Thursday. “Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials. That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential,” read letters mailed by the Kansas Department of Revenue’s vehicles division.

Why did this take effect the same day the law goes into effect? Why not provide a 60-day grace period? It can only be because they want to inflict pain on the community!

There are other states where you cannot change your gender markers, but no state has ever retroactively canceled IDs that already reflect a trans person’s gender identity.

The Democratic governor vetoed the bill, but…

SB 244, which Republican supermajorities in the Kansas Legislature voted last week to enact into law over Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto, will go into effect on Thursday upon the publication of the Kansas Register. The legislation provides no funding to help people who need to replace their licenses. Kansas driver’s licenses typically cost around $30. In addition to invalidating transgender residents’ state identification documents, the new law will require people in government-owned buildings to use restrooms and other multi-occupancy private spaces in accordance with their sex assigned at birth. “The persecution is the point,” said Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat and the only transgender member of the Legislature, who received the KDOR notice on Wednesday.

As the legislator said, this law is punitive! Here is the letter that the DOV sent out...

What does it say about the animosity that Republicans have for the trans community?

But it is not just Kansas that are passing draconian laws!

With New Momentum, Republican States Push Broader Limits for Trans Americans

In states that once focused mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors, debates now revolve around the validity of transgender identity.

The New York Times

By Amy Harmon

Feb. 18, 2026

After a year in which the Trump administration has pressed to limit the ways Americans can identify as transgender in public life, Republicans are pushing the issue at the state level with new zeal.

With legislative sessions underway in most states, hundreds of bills restricting transgender rights are under consideration as social conservatives seek to capitalize on Trump administration tailwinds and a shift in public opinion to codify an understanding of sex and gender as binary and fixed.

[...]

Idaho’s House of Representatives this week advanced a bill that would allow people to sue private businesses that allow transgender people to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity.

In Utah, legislators are weighing removing transgender people from groups protected by a state law barring discrimination in housing and employment.

Oklahoma lawmakers are considering expanding the state’s ban on gender-transition medical treatment for minors to include adults, and a Florida House panel has advanced a bill prohibiting public sector employers from requiring workers to use the preferred pronouns of transgender co-workers.

The barrage of bills follows a six-year stretch in which 27 state legislatures controlled by Republicans focused restrictions mainly on health care and sports for transgender minors. This year’s proposals are more sweeping: They address trans adults as well as youths, seek to close loopholes in earlier laws and mandate harsher penalties for violations.

I keep asking "Why?" And I think I know the answer but I don't want hear the answer.

Supporters of transgender rights say they view this year’s state proposals as a concerted effort to chip away at protections of trans people at the state level to build support for even broader limits at a national level.

“There’s a clear pathway between the states and federal policies under this administration,” said the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of Campaign for Southern Equality, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization based in North Carolina. “Our general analysis is that they will go as far as they think they can in enforcing what’s fundamentally a very narrow ideological position — that being transgender does not exist. That it is not a reality.”

[...]

Over the last decade, many Democrats have argued that gender identity is central to who someone is, and that excluding transgender people from sports and public accommodations is a form of discrimination. Starting in 2015, Democrats sought to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include gender identity as a protected class.

And this was done last February and we are just finding out about it now...

Trump Administration Removes Trans Individuals From LGBTQI Travel Information Resources

The U.S. State Department has removed letters "TQ" from its official travel website, which now reads, "LGB."

Travel + Leisure 

By Stacey Leasca

February 4, 2025

Just days after President Donald Trump took office for the second time, he signed an executive order making it U.S. government policy to only recognize male and female sex. Quickly thereafter, the U.S. State Department suspended the processing of passports for applicants who selected “X” as their preferred gender. Now, the State Department has also removed the letters "TQ" from its official travel website, which now reads, "LGB." 

"LGB travelers can face special challenges abroad. Laws and attitudes in some countries may affect safety and ease of travel," the website reads, closely mirroring what it did just a few weeks ago, only this time, without the recognition of transgender and queer travelers. "Many countries do not recognize same-sex marriage. Many countries also only recognize the male and female sex markers in passports and do not have IT systems at ports of entry that can accept other sex markers. About 70 countries still consider consensual same-sex relations a crime. In some of these countries, individuals who engage in same-sex sexual relations may face severe punishment." 

What remains unclear — and unsettling — to transgender travelers is if the U.S. will join the "many countries" the State Department says only recognize other sex markers. 

Why all the vitriol from Republicans against us? Is it only to rally their base for votes, even if they are causing irreversible harm to our community?

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Updated @ 2PM

The ACLU is challenging the law!

Today’s lawsuit challenging SB 244 was filed in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of anonymous Plaintiffs Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.

“This legislation is a direct attack on the dignity and humanity of transgender Kansans,” said Monica Bennett, Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas. “It undermines our state’s strong constitutional protections against government overreach and persecution.”

“SB 244 is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police. Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”

And remember, there are only around 1,800 trans people in Kansas!

They Want To...

Harm us! They want to inflict pain and suffering on the LGBTQ+ community. Don’t believe me? Then why else would they cut funding to AIDS programs, forcing people off their life-saving medication?

New emergency rules finish an administrative challenge to AIDS drug program cuts

AIDS Healthcare Foundation attorney accuses DeSantis administration of ‘legal subterfuge”

Florida Phoenix

By Christine Sexton

February 25, 2026

The DeSantis administration has filed an emergency rule that restricts eligibility for an AIDS drug assistance program beginning March 1, effectively bringing an end to an administrative challenge filed by a leading AIDS healthcare provider.

But a legal challenge to the emergency rules already is looming. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) said Wednesday it would immediately challenge the emergency rules. Hearings on emergency rule challenges must be heard within 14 days.

State Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins had scheduled an emergency hearing  on AHF’s request to lift an automatic stay that has prevented its legal challenge against the Department of Health from going forward. 

AHF’s underlying case hinged on the argument that the DOH violated Florida law when it announced cost-cutting at the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), including scaling back who’s eligible and what drugs are available. 

DOH claims the changes, announced on its website and in correspondence to affected ADAP clients, need to be made because the program faces a $120 million deficit. About 16,000 people living with HIV and AIDS are expected to be affected by the changes, which include limiting income eligibility for the program from $63,840 annually for an individual to $20,748 annually.

Diseases are not political, if you have funding short fall... Fund It!

Unlike general rules, emergency rules take effect immediately and aren’t required to go through the rulemaking process.

“I think proceeding today on the question that’s teed up on the notice of whether the stay should be lifted or not lifted is, again from our perspective, an academic exercise in light of the emergency rule filed yesterday,” said Lombard, of the Tallahassee firm Lombard Law. “So, our perspective is that, for today’s purposes, there’s nothing to be done. Nothing to be done in the case, period, and all this is moot and subject to dismissal.”

Without treatments, the disease will spread. Republicans keep calling AIDS the “gay disease,” but diseases are equal opportunity infectors — they don’t care what political party you support or who you love. HIV infects people equally.

The reality is simple: this is a disease. Cutting funding doesn’t stop it. The virus is still out there.

WFMZ headline says it all Florida’s proposed cuts to AIDS drug program threaten patient care and public health

More than 128,000 Floridians are living with HIV. The state has the second-highest rate of new HIV diagnoses after Georgia, with approximately 4,500 new diagnoses in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

But access to treatment could be in jeopardy if potential budget cuts, announced in January 2026 by the Florida Department of Health, are enacted.

These changes, set to go into effect on March 1, would cut funding for the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which helps more than 31,000 Floridians with HIV/AIDS afford care.

Without the drugs, those 31,000 people can now spread the disease again! When AIDS/HIV came to the US it was carried by gay men but it has spread far and wide.

They cite budget pressure & federal funding shifts, and rapidly rising drug costs, but the cost of not covering the drugs is much greater!

AHF attorney Louise Wilhite-St. Laurent reluctantly agreed with Lombard on that point but not before she accused the DeSantis administration of “legal subterfuge,” noting the administration had filed a motion asking Watkins to quash seven subpoenas it had served on DOH employees requiring them to appear at the emergency hearing.

The motion to quash the subpoenas was the latest legal maneuver from the DeSantis administration that she insisted were intended to stifle discussion.

Other maneuvers included the DOH noticing that it would publish the rules necessary to cut program, which allowed the DOH to take advantage of a state law that enables agencies to obtain automatic stay in certain administrative challenges involving rulemaking.

Oh, the administration knows exactly what it is doing and what these cuts will cause. They know HIV has spread into Black and Latino populations, and even into the senior population. AIDS is a growing problem in long-term care facilities.

These cuts are targeted at the LGBTQ+ community for one reason only... to punish the LGBTQ+ community!

He Is Not Happy Until...

The economy, healthcare, and crime are the top concerns for most voters, while trans rights tend to fall low down the list. Yet we are often treated as “low-hanging fruit.” Politicians like Trump and his cohorts exploit ignorance about trans people to redirect attention away from more pressing issues, such as government corruption, violence, and the erosion of civil liberties. By stoking fear and misunderstanding about trans people, they create a convenient distraction from the real challenges facing citizens.

Stand up to Trump's SOTU attack on trans kids

Opinion: The president's demonization of trans youth in his State of the Union requires a concerted pushback in school boards, family conversations, workplaces, and everyday speech, writes contributor Josh Ackley.

The Advocate

Josh Ackley

Feb 25, 2026

There is a comforting story many of us tell about progress. We imagine rights arrive because the world improves, knowledge spreads, time passes, and people naturally become kinder. We picture history as a staircase that society slowly climbs together.

Anyone paying attention now understands that is not how this works. Rights survive only when someone decides to hold them in place.

Oh... that is so true. Our rights are only skin deep! One judge, one legislator, and one governor away from loosing them!

Political speeches often elevate individual stories to humanize public policy, but this was something different. Here the young person’s life was enlisted as proof of a broader cultural crisis. Family dynamics, medical realities, and ongoing legal proceedings were flattened into a narrative of urgency and threat. The audience was invited to feel alarm rather than curiosity and certainty rather than compassion. Anecdote became mandate in a matter of seconds, and a child’s vulnerability was transformed into justification for federal intervention.

We can do the same! Our stories are powerful! Our families are powerful!

I have been out in this community for a quarter of a century. I have seen children transition, and I have detransition and get on with their lives. But these children who are poster children for the conservatives who are parading them around the country to go and tell their stories before legislators, I have to wonder what is that doing to them?

Trump uses State of the Union to attack trans rights and calls for ban on schools allowing social transitioning

LGBT+ groups say ‘forced outing’ endangers vulnerable gender nonconfirming teens in unsupportive families

The Independent 

Alex Woodward

25 February 2026

President Donald Trump used a teenage girl’s story to call for a ban on states and schools allowing transgender and nonbinary students to socially transition without parental consent, in what civil rights groups have called “forced outing” that endangers vulnerable children.

Trump singled out the story of a Virginia teenager during his State of the Union address Tuesday to call on Congress to further restrict transgender and nonbinary youth after his administration imposed sweeping bans targeting trans Americans over the last year.

Sage Blair’s mother, Michele, sued the Appomattox County School Board in 2023 over allegations that the district did not disclose information that Sage was identifying as male.

As I said, the harm that they are doing to these children is criminal! They are creating lifelong angst for them. They will always have a deep voice because Trump and his religious cohorts! 

I have seen so many trans people detransition only to retransition. They were under so much family and/or religious pressure that they had to detransition. But in their souls they knew the truth.

Oh... Ohio!

The Republicans in Ohio are trying so hard to be the biggest a*s in passing anti-trans laws!

Ohio ranks fourth in nation for anti-LGBTQ+ incidents, report says

by: David Rees

NBC 4 (WCMH

Feb 23, 2026

Ohio ranked fourth in the nation in 2025 for the highest number of anti-LGBTQ+ incidents, with 51 reported cases, according to a new report from GLAAD.

California ranked first with 198, then New Hampshire with 72 and Texas with 66, the organization said in its 2025 Alert Desk report released in late January. Nationwide, GLAAD tracked 1,042 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 47 states and the District of Columbia between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025. The marks a 5% increase from the 984 incidents recorded in 2024, according to the report.

In Ohio, the 51 incidents included 20 protests, 19 instances of propaganda distribution, five acts of vandalism or damage, two acts of harassment, two bomb threats and three arson attempts.

The report found that 268 incidents occurred last June, making it one of the most dangerous Pride months since GLAAD began collecting data in 2022. That figure represents nearly a 400% increase from the 54 incidents tracked in June 2022.

GLAAD said states at the center of political debates over LGBTQ+ rights led the country in total incidents. In Ohio, the report cited controversy after the City Club of Cleveland invited a lobbyist from the Center for Christian Virtue, designated as an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, to speak as part of its civic engagement programming.

But wait...! The Council on American-Islamic Relations reports,

The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Ohio), CAIR Action, the ACLU of Ohio, the Ohio Divest Coalition, and a diverse coalition of partners testified against Ohio Senate Bill 87 (SB 87), legislation that would codify the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism into state law on Wednesday, Feb. 19.

The coalition included lawyers, doctors, educators, veterans, and faith leaders from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and other communities. Together, the coalition members advocated for free speech and human rights for people of all backgrounds. More than 25 Ohioans from across the state testified against the bill in-person, in addition to more than 67 others submitting written testimony. A letter signed by more than 100 Jewish Ohioans opposing SB 87 was submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and more than 400 Ohioans signed an action alert urging lawmakers to vote no. 

The bill would violate the First Amendment!

If passed, SB87 would expand the net of criminalization for speech using the IHRA definition of antisemitism that has been widely criticized as overbroad. Even Kenneth Stern, the principal drafter of the definition, has opposed its use by government agencies.

But wait — there’s even more. Last summer, Ohio lawmakers wanted to make attacks on politicians hate crimes…

Ohio lawmakers move to classify threats on politicians as hate crimes

The Ohio Capital Journal

By: Morgan Trau

August 28, 2025

A bipartisan group of Ohio lawmakers has introduced a bill making hate crimes illegal, increasing penalties for assaulting or terrorizing someone based on their race, sex, and even political affiliation.

Over the past year, the Ohio Statehouse has had to increase security due to upticks in threats against lawmakers.

The FBI charged a New Albany man in May for sending white powder and a bullet to Attorney General Dave Yost. Along with the threats to the state’s top cop, the suspect sent powder and violent messages to dozens of other public officials, like Sec. of State Frank LaRose and Treasurer Robert Sprague.

A Dayton man was arrested in July for leaving a threatening voicemail to Congressman Jim Jordan.

Over the past two years, Congresswoman Shontel Brown, Yost, and several state lawmakers have been “swatted,” with individuals falsely reporting serious crimes occurring at their addresses. This hoax has the goal of sending a large police presence, or a SWAT team, to approach an unsuspecting victim.

I'm for increasing penalties on crimes. But I do not support redefining them as hate or bias crimes. Hate crimes are about immutable characteristics.

Now they want to make political affiliation a protected class. I don’t know about you, but I have changed political parties in the past, but my gender identity, however, is immutable.

H.B. 306 creates a new provision, protecting race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, familial status, military status, disability, the person’s position in a labor dispute, and political affiliation or position.

“One category that is not explicitly protected by this law, and it was kind of surprising to see that it was omitted given how broad this law is, is sexual orientation and sexual identity, gender identity,” Hill said.

This bill was a compromise, Jarrells said, but he believes that if someone commits a crime against a member of the LGBTQ+ community, it would fall under the “sex” protection.

“We were able to settle on ‘sex’ being kind of the umbrella term that covers all the gamut,” Jarrells said.

Hill acknowledged that in some cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has included sexual orientation under the sex category. Still, this provides an opening to interpret the law as not necessarily including sexuality or gender, she said.

But aren't!

Last Night!

Last night in the State of the Union speech, NPR reported...

Transgender youth

TRUMP: "No state can be allowed to rip children from their parents' arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that we’re even talking about this? We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately."

For the second year in a row, President Trump has brought as a guest a parent with a story about a child who began a gender transition in secret. The children mentioned in both speeches seem to have done some version of "social transition," which involves changing a name, pronouns, clothes, haircuts and the like. All of those things are reversible.

This is a topic he brought up frequently during his presidential campaign, in which he and Republicans spent millions on anti-trans ads.

So far, the Trump administration's efforts to ban trangender [sic] care has focused on medical interventions for youth. Using threats of withheld federal funding, investigations, proposed regulations, and subpoenas, the White House has succeeded in shutting down many gender clinics for youth at hospitals across the country. There are also many lawsuits challenging these actions.

— Selena Simmons-Duffin, Health Policy Correspondent