Parental rights: Last News

“I think that the reason there is so much fervor against trans people, and specifically transgender youth right now is because the opposition is deliberately taking advantage of the public’s lack of familiarity with them,” says Rodrigo Heng-Lethinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, which is celebrating 20 years with a gala on Oct. 27. “Most Americans do not think they know someone who is transgender.

House Bill 675, sponsored by Rep. Caleb Hinkle (R-Belgrade), which sought to ban drag performances and Pride parades in Montana.Hinkle previously sponsored a ban on public performances of a “sexual nature” that was specifically intended to target drag shows and Drag Queen Story Hour-type events (even if they do not contain sexually explicit content).The ban was was struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional in 2023 on the grounds that it was likely to be enforced against not only drag performers, but “any person who falls outside traditional gender and identity norms.”In his most recent version of the bill, Hinkle included a provision to allow private individuals to sue drag performers for $5,000, plus damages and attorney’s fees, if children are exposed to or attend a drag show — rather than relying on the government to enforce the law against performers.Hinkle’s bill described drag performers as adopting a “hypersexualized” persona, often incorporating “sensual dancing, provocative costuming, striptease, and adult humor” in their acts.Zephyr pushed back against that characterization, as well as past comments from Hinkle describing transgender identity as a “fetish based on crossdressing.”“At its very core, drag is art,” Zephyr said.

writing on behalf of the 8-1 majority, found that while “fit parents” have a right to raise their children without government interference, that right is not absolute.The ban on gender-affirming care was approved by Texas lawmakers on a largely party-line vote, with Republicans pushing for the restrictions.Under the law, doctors are prohibited from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to youth suffering from gender dysphoria. Doctors who violate the law are subject to disciplinary action and will have their medical license revoked by the Texas Medical Board.

challenge the law in court last month, were likely to suffer “immediate” harm, in the form of reduced access to health care providers willing to treat their gender dysphoria, if the law — which imposes penalties on doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments — were to take effect.Holbrook found that, because the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their lawsuit, it was best to issue a temporary restraining order “maintaining the status quo while the Court can more thoroughly review the evidence and argument following a full hearing.”Holbrook also noted that the whole law had to be blocked because lawmakers combined the bill banning gender-affirming care with a separate bill banning transgender athletes from women’s sports to gain the necessary votes to pass the Republican-controlled state legislature.In December, Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the bill from taking effect, expressing qualms about infringing on parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their own children.

Agence France-Presse that they are moving due to the far-right government’s crackdown on LGBTQ rights, especially the parental rights of same-sex couples.Civil unions were legalized in Italy in 2016, but the law concerning the parental rights of same-sex couples, particularly non-biological parents, is muddy. Encouraged by several court rulings, local mayors had begun registering biological and non-biological parents on birth certificates over the past few years.However, that was before Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni‘s government — led by the populist, neo-fascist party Brothers of Italy — began cracking down on the practice.Earlier this year, Meloni’s interior minister ordered local governments to stop transcribing certificates of children born abroad through surrogacy, citing a recent court ruling.In response, prosecutors across Italy began contesting the birth certificates of children born to same-sex parents — regardless of whether they were conceived through surrogacy or not.

News Nation, host of the evening.DeSantis claimed Haley supports “gender mutilation of minors” and does not support government intervention to stop these treatments.Haley responded that she had actually criticized Florida’s original “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, for only going as high as third grade.She said it should be expanded to all grades. DeSantis pointed out that the expansion was a different piece of legislation, which was passed earlier this year. “We’re talking about sex change operations on minors,” countered DeSantis.

makes it easier to remove books from libraries that are deemed to have “sexual” content or are considered “inappropriate” for minors.One of the books removed from shelves was And Tango Makes Three, a children’s story based on real-life events about a same-sex penguin couple that hatches an egg together and raises its chick.The book was recently banned by Lake County Public Schools in central Florida, only to be returned to shelves after the book’s authors filed a lawsuit.While Lake County has permitted Tango to return to shelves, the overall law still allows for other titles with LGBTQ themes or characters to be restricted, and the authors’ lawsuit has been transferred to U.S.

The News & Observer.The law bans minors from accessing gender-affirming treatments and threatens medical providers who assist transgender minors in accessing them with the loss of their license. It also prohibits state funds, including Medicaid dollars, from being used to cover the cost of gender-affirming care.

expanded “Don’t Say Gay” law.Charlotte County Schools Superintendent Mark Vianello and Michael McKinley, the attorney for the Charlotte County Schools, recently responded to questions from the district’s librarians at a July meeting asking whether the law required the removal of books with LGBTQ characters but contained no explicit sex scenes.“Books with LBGTQ+ characters are not to be included in classroom libraries or school library media centers,” Vianello and McKinley said in response, according to a district memo obtained under a public information request by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.The nonprofit group, which opposes the law’s provisions making it easier to challenge or remove books from schools, provided the memo to The Associated Press last week.After receiving negative press, the district backed off slightly from an across-the-board ban, clarifying that it primarily applied to elementary and middle schools.The district said that high school libraries could keep non-explicit books with LGBTQ characters and themes in their collections, but could not use any of those books in classroom instruction, according to the investigative journalism website Popular Information.The expansion of the “Parental Rights in Education” law — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics — passed earlier this year after conservatives said the original 2022 law didn’t go far enough in stopping LGBTQ-themed materials from being accessed by minors.Under the new restrictions, the ban on LGBTQ content was applied to all grades — except in rare instances for some high school biology or health classes.The law also allows any county resident — regardless of whether they have children enrolled in school — to demand the removal of books

vacated a lower court’s injunction blocking state authorities from enforcing a similar law in Alabama.In a decision criticized by LGBTQ advocates, Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, ruled that the district court had applied the wrong standard when determining whether to issue an injunction blocking the law.Lagoa argued that there is no constitutional right of parents to “treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards,” as argued by plaintiffs.This comes even though the Supreme Court, in numerous other legal battles, has ruled parents possess a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit.As a result of Lagoa’s opinion, the Alabama law was allowed to go into effect. State authorities can punish doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors suffering from gender dysphoria.

Texas Tribune.The law was challenged by a group of plaintiffs, including five families with transgender children, three doctors specializing in transgender care, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, and an organization for LGBTQ health professionals. The plaintiffs argued that the ban on gender-affirming care discriminates against transgender youth, infringes on parents’ right to make medical decisions they believe are in their children’s best interests, and violates doctors’ freedom to practice medicine.In her ruling, Cantú Hexsel agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in proving the law “interferes with Texas families’ private decisions and strips Texas parents … of the right to seek, direct, and provide medical care for their children.”“The evidence before the Court does not support the conclusion the Act protects the health or wellbeing of minors,” Cantú Hexsel wrote.

order issued Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty, of the Northern District of Georgia, said the law’s provision prohibiting medical professionals from prescribing hormone therapy for such patients was “substantially likely to violate the Equal Protection Clause,” reports CNN.Under the law, which went into effect on July 1, medical providers are prohibited from recommending gender-affirming care to any minor, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or gender confirmation surgery — the latter of which is rarely performed on minors.

law, which was approved by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Lee earlier this year.A federal judge subsequently issued an injunction blocking the state from taking any adverse action against doctors who recommend non-surgical gender-affirming treatments, on the grounds that the plaintiffs in the case were likely to succeed in proving their claim that the law is unconstitutional and should be overturned.The plaintiffs have argued that the Tennessee law runs counter to federal laws prohibiting discrimination in health care and violates both the rights of trans minors and the rights of their parents to make whatever medical decisions they believe to be in their children’s best interests.But in a July 8 decision, the 6th U.S.

Daily Wire, the page was removed at the direction of a cabinet-level agency, according to reporting from The Washington Post.Subsequently, the removal of the page of LGBTQ resources prompted questions from Health Department leaders and state employees over why subject-matter experts hadn’t been consulted or forewarned.Some of those same employees also noted that the Youngkin administration had removed information from the website without consulting those experts at least three other times, targeting primarily resources on abortions, sexual health, or pregnancy.All the decisions that have been called into question appear to pertain to the Youngkin administration’s efforts to reverse course or end policies that were in place for eight years under former Democratic Governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam.In response to an inquiry about the removal, Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, framed the issue as one of parental rights — the rallying cry that helped him first get elected due to voters’ anger over school closures stemming from COVID-19 lockdowns, and objections from conservative parents about curriculum content, books on library shelves that aren’t part of official curricula, or district policies — especially those pertaining to race or LGBTQ identity — that they viewed as overly “woke.”Porter also appeared to raise concerns about some of the helplines and chat spaces provided by the LGBTQ organizations and the possibility that youth may be vulnerable to grooming or exposed to sexually-explicit content if they access such spaces.“In Virginia, the governor will always reaffirm a parent’s role in their child’s life.

statement announcing his veto of the bills, Cooper accused Republicans of “scheming for the next election” by “hurting vulnerable children” and pushing “political culture wars.”He likened the measures to the state’s infamous HB 2 “bathroom bill” restricting transgender access to certain public multi-user facilities, which passed in 2016 and led to a large-scale economic backlash against the state.“A doctor’s office is no place for politicians, and North Carolina should continue to let parents and medical professionals make decisions about the best way to offer gender care for their children,” Cooper said of the restrictions on gender-affirming care, which prohibit rarely-recommended surgical procedures, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers, as well as mental health therapy that affirms a trans-identifying youth’s gender identity.“Ordering doctors to stop following approved medical protocols sets a troubling precedent and is dangerous for vulnerable youth and their mental health,” Cooper added.

WABE that the attorney general will do his job, which includes defending any law passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, including the ban on gender-affirming care. At least 20 other states with Republican-dominated legislatures, in addition to Georgia, have passed laws restricting gender-affirming care. But several of those laws have been blocked by the courts.

slammed by LGBTQ advocates as one of the worst bills targeting the transgender community, in part due to its provisions that extend well beyond the realm of transgender health care.In addition to banning gender-affirming medical care for minors, it restricts what bathrooms students may use in schools, limits the scope of sex education to exclude LGBTQ-related topics or information on sexually transmitted diseases, and allows school administrators, employees, and students to misgender trans-identifying minors. None of those other provisions have been challenged in court. The plaintiff families sued last month, alleging the law’s provisions barring transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming treatments infringe on their parents’ right to autonomy in terms of how they choose to raise and make medical decisions for their children and on the youths’ right to equal protection under the law.Corey Shapiro, the legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement that the families “should be able to begin or continue essential medical care” for their children, arguing that the law is an egregious form of government overreach into personal family decisions.They also argue that it is inconsistent with leading medical organizations’ recommendations for treating children suffering from gender dysphoria.“Banning medically necessary care for trans youth is not supported by science or reputable major medical organizations,” Shapiro said.

bar them from participating in some school activities — or will shame students who are being raised by same-sex parents.“This policy will escalate the government censorship sweeping our state, exacerbate our educator exodus, drive hardworking families from Florida, and further stigmatize and isolate a population of young people who need our support now more than ever,” Equality Florida, the state’s top LGBTQ advocacy group, said in a statement posted to Twitter.“Shame on the DeSantis Administration for putting a target on the backs of LGBTQ Floridians.”The new rule will take effect in one month after it goes through a procedural comment period, according to The Associated Press.The law’s expansion marks the latest move by the DeSantis administration targeting the LGBTQ community as the two-term governor seeks to elevate himself as a potential presidential contender in 2024.

injected itself into culture-war battles over curriculum content, student privacy policies, special accommodations for LGBTQ students, and what books or materials are accessible in school libraries.The House approved the bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep.