Lawmakers in Alabama have pre-filed a bill for the 2026 legislative session that would prohibit classroom instruction on “gender identity” and sexual orientation from pre-k through twelfth grade. The bill also contains provisions requiring teachers to use pronouns consistent with a student’s sex and would prevent staff from displaying “flags” or “insignias” associated with sexual orientation or “gender identity.” “This just keeps it out of the classroom,” said State Representative Mack Butler. “If a student needs to talk to the teacher or counselor, they absolutely can do this. This is focused on the school itself to keep the curriculum clean.”
Starting September 12th, the MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, Washington will cease providing sex-rejecting procedures to minors. The hospital announced it has removed its wait list, and will not file any new prescriptions for cross-sex hormones and blockers after the target date, however, patients already receiving care will be grandfathered in. Notably, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital is the same hospital that prompted whistleblower Tamara Pietzke to publicly raise alarms about the lack of safety guardrails and the rush to affirm new patients presenting with gender dysphoria. “While the wait list for medical interventions is no longer available, we will continue to provide new patients with behavioral health care, which includes mental health assessments, counseling and support services” the hospital wrote in an email last month.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Denver Public Schools district is in violation of Title IX for converting all sex-separated restrooms into gender neutral facilities, and for allowing students to use intimate facilities that align with their “gender identity” rather than their sex. “Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX. The Trump Administration will work relentlessly to hold accountable school districts that harbor the ideological fanatics and policies that sully students’ educational experience with sex discrimination” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. OCR has proposed a resolution agreement which would require the district to address the noncompliance findings.
After the University of Michigan announced last Monday that it would no longer provide sex-rejecting procedures to minors, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel condemned the decision as “cowardly” and potentially illegal. Michigan was one of several institutions that received a subpoena from the Department of Justice as part of the federal government’s investigation into “healthcare fraud, false statements, and more” related to sex-rejecting procedures for minors. “The availability of federal funding has no bearing on Michiganders’ right to seek healthcare services without discrimination. Moreover, access to federal funds does not relieve Michigan healthcare facilities and providers of the obligation to comply with Michigan laws, including those that prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their membership in a protected class, such as disability, religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or marital status,” Nessel wrote in an open letter to Michigan health care providers and patients.
In UnHerd, Journalist Ben Ryan provides insight into a scandal in the world of evidence-based medicine, after researchers at McMaster university in Ontario caved to activist pressures and released a statement condemning the “misuse” of their own systematic reviews, which found only “low certainty” evidence for “gender affirming care.” Notably, the researchers did not question the findings or methodology of their reviews, and sources told Ryan that the statement issued by McMaster was a direct response to activist pressure. “Why didn’t the institution defend the science? I see this is an institutional failure. This is obviously a toxic ideological area” said Dr. Paul Garner, an emeritus professor of evidence synthesis in global health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Furthermore, experts in evidence-based medicine took issue with the McMaster statement asserting that “affirming care” is “medically necessary” a claim which is undermined by their own reviews as well as previous statements made by EBM godfather, Dr. Gordon Guyatt. For more reading, I wrote about McMaster’s statement and how it reflects a shortsighted ethical analysis that overvalues patient autonomy at the expense of other medical ethical principles.
In City Journal, Colin Wright explores the role “gender ideology” and the media played in the Annunciation Catholic School shooting, which culminated in the deaths of two children. The shooter, Robin Westman, was a trans-identified male who grew disillusioned with their own transition. Wright argues, however, that reducing the tragedy to “transgenderism” misses the mark and that mental illness is the real culprit. Wright observes that psychic distress often predates the adoption of a transgender identity, and that the identity is often a coping mechanism for preexisting distress. He goes on to argue that the media and medical establishment exacerbate the issue by framing transition as a cure-all, and opposition to transition as discrimination. “But most youth swept up in this ideology are not violent. Rather, they are victims, turned into pawns by powerful institutions that exploit their suffering” Wright adds.
Irish comedian and writer, Graham Linehan, was arrested by five armed police officers at Heathrow airport in the UK for gender critical tweets. Linehan believes someone flagged the tweets for authorities. “The trans lobby has operated by first of all having a ‘no-debate’ policy, and is now cracking down on language. Everyone has to go along with delusion rather than reality” writes author Suzanne Moore. Linehan also noted that the police officers used contested, activist language, asserting that gender is “assigned” rather than recorded at birth. Linehan was ultimately not charged with a crime, although a condition of his bail is that he cannot tweet while in the country. “There is no serious justification for this arrest. It is an alarming authoritarian move which furthers no one's rights” concludes Suzanne Moore.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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