Tag: conversion therapy

March 18, 2025: The United States is a deeply transphobic and increasingly uninhabitable country

Last week, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed what he called the Riley Gaines Act; a law that defines the difference between a man and a woman. His reason being, to protect the women in West Virginia.

“It’s common sense that women’s spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centers should be kept private for women only,” he said at last Tuesday’s bill signing. “The bill that I have before me defines terms like sex, male, female and the state code to allow for single sex private spaces.” […]

Others like Natasha Kerensky have decided to leave the Mountain State in hopes of feeling safer in a different environment.

“I’m heading to an area of an actual non-discrimination ordinance in place out of state mainly because I feel safer and have a place that you know isn’t going to discriminate against me and housing or employment,” she said.

She said she feels as if her identity is being taken away from her by the government.

“I don’t exist according to the government, they’re trying to erase me,” she said.

 

House Republicans ended debate early for two bills that would limit gender-affirming health care in the state after Democrats begged their colleagues not to vote for the legislation. Senate Bill 2 would end hormone treatments for 67 transgender inmates in Kentucky prisons and House Bill 495 would undo Beshear’s executive order to limit conversion therapy and, thanks to a late addition in the Senate, ban Medicaid from paying for gender-affirming transgender treatment and procedures.

Democratic Rep. Lisa Willner of Louisville said ending Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care would put patients already receiving treatment in medically dangerous situations, including withdrawal symptoms and severe mental health repercussions, with some treatments requiring patients gradually wean off the medication over a multi-month period.

Some Republicans have said that they do not believe any state Medicaid providers currently cover such therapies, but Willner said she knows that is not the case. State Medicaid covers hormone replacement therapy that a doctor deems medically-necessary, and Willner said she has personally spoken with some recipients.

“People are begging us for their lives, for their children’s lives. Please, I beg you,” Willner said. “Please understand that these folks we’re talking about who we may be right now about to deliver a death sentence to — they’re somebody’s child, they’re somebody’s siblings, they’re someone’s parents … Please, folks, please, let’s show some mercy.”

 

Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill that protects widely discredited conversion therapy and prevents Medicaid from covering transition treatment.

 

“I’m in a one-income family household, so money is tight for us,” said Carma Bell Marshall, a 35-year-old trans woman living in Louisville. “It’s done wonders for my mental health. It’s done wonders for my outlook on life. It’s something that I think if I didn’t have it, my life would be in a so much darker place right now.”

For several months, Carma Bell Marshall’s hormone treatment has been covered by Medicaid. But soon that could all be changing, and she could be coming out of pocket a couple hundred dollars a month. […]

The vote to pass House Bill 495, one of the more contentious pieces of legislation this year, was divided along party lines. It’s set to protect conversion therapy, a widely discredited form of counseling, in Kentucky and prohibit the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender transition treatment. […]

“We have Kentuckians who are actively contemplating suicidality, who are contemplating leaving a state that they have called home their whole life. I’ve even thought about — is Kentucky a safe place for me to continue living and existing?” she said.

 

A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others. The Trump administration’s barrage of attacks on trans people can seem haphazard, but as elements of a denationalization project, they fall into place. In his Inaugural Address and one of his first executive orders, President Trump asserted that only two sexes exist: male and female, established at conception and immutable. Trans people, in other words, do not exist. Executive orders aimed at banning any mention of transgender people from schools, banning trans athletes from women’s sports, ordering a stop to gender-affirming medical care for people under 19, and barring trans people from serving in the military followed.

The State Department stopped issuing passports with the “X” gender marker and began issuing passports consistent with the sex the applicant was assigned at birth, even if the person had legally changed gender. In his executive order on the military, Trump asserted that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle.” During an address to Congress in February, Trump recognized a young woman who apparently suffered a brain injury during a volleyball game. Serious volleyball injuries are surprisingly common, but what stood out about this one was that the player who spiked the ball that hit her, the young woman said, was trans.

The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation.

 

As previously reported by The Advocate, German officials have issued a warning for trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals traveling to the United States, saying that transgender people “should contact the responsible U.S. authorities prior to travel to the U.S. to inquire about current entry regulations,” German officials told Erin in the Morning.

Meanwhile, InterPride — a global association of over 400 Pride organizations from over 70 countries — issued a similar notice on its social media pages. “Due to an executive order issued by the U.S. president on Jan. 20, all travelers must select either ‘male’ or ‘female’ when applying for entry or visas,” the post said, as reported by The Washington Blade. “The gender listed at birth will be considered valid. If your passport has ‘X’ as a gender marker or differs from your birth-assigned gender, we strongly recommend contacting the U.S. diplomatic mission before traveling to confirm entry requirements.”