For many years, the social services have been an under-reported battleground in the fight over LGBTQ youth. Spanning adoption, foster care, and the systems most frequently referred to as “child protection” and “child welfare”, social services straddle the line between public and private more than any other domain of government. Despite the widespread attention focused on attacking inclusive education and gender-affirming care, battles over the social services predate much of the current moral panic.

Within less than 24 hours, the Trump regime began doing exactly what it promised and enacted an immediate and comprehensive campaign of erasure of transgender people unlike anything in United States history.

Within days, any mention of transgender and nonbinary people was eliminated from government systems, with multiple executive orders demanding the removal and opposition of transgender people in all spheres of life.

The data requirements ask for age, demographics, any diagnoses and prescriptions, as well as the provision and duration of gender-affirming medical intervention which broadly speaking includes a very large list of potential interventions. It additionally seeks information on people who discontinue treatment or detransition. The data is exhaustive, and the Governor intends to publish it in aggregate every six months. While the government assures anyone reading this that the information thus collected will be de-identified, there’s ample reason to distrust that this will be true.

At any given time for the past two years, dozens of bills have been proposed before state legislatures which seek to overturn privacy policies which have been enacted in the past decade to facilitate safe social transitions at school without “outing” students either to their peers or parents. One recent example, Missouri Senate Bill 827 introduced on January 3, 2024 by Republican state senator Andrew Koenig, would require school personnel to notify parents within 24 hours if a student requests the use of a different pronoun or name.

For trans people in Ohio, the last several days have been, to be blunt, terrifying. On December 29th, after concerted public pressure, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine vetoed HB 68, a combination gender-affirming care ban and ban on trans girls participation in sports. The response was enormous, prompting conservative groups like the Center for Christian Virtue, a key driver of the Ohio SAFE Act, to call for an emergency veto override alongside bill sponsor Gary Click. At this time, Click and colleagues intend to hold an emergency session to push the override through.

There is an emergency in Florida right now, but you wouldn’t know it if you opened the average news website. While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which institutional failing made it possible for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to implement a near-total ban on gender-affirming care for all ages across the state, I suspect at least some of the blame should land at the feet of the very same media that has since completely failed to cover it.

Monday, Republican Florida state representative Webster Barnaby made headlines after an unhinged tirade during a hearing on HB1421 where he referred to trans people as “mutants”, “demons” and “imps”. Then it went downhill from there.

While more than 1 in 5 U.S. states having passed laws or enacted policies banning live-saving medical care for trans youth, nearly 1 in 12 states have passed laws banning trans students from bathrooms in accordance with their gender. By the end of this legislative session, that proportion has the potential to reach 1 in 4.

A week ago someone asked me who I would support for president if it wasn’t Joe Biden. To be quite honest, try as I did I literally couldn't answer the question because I'm so perpetually unimpressed with the American political landscape. I finally have an answer. I would follow Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh to the freaking moon if she asked me to.