A week after returning to office, President Trump issued an executive order threatening to withhold all federal funding from any medical provider who offers gender-affirming medical care to transgender people under 19. The order was soon after challenged by families, medical providers, and organizations that serve them in PFLAG v. Trump, a case filed on their behalf by the ACLU, the ACLU of Maryland, and Lambda Legal.

• On Tuesday March 4, a federal district court in Baltimore granted a nationwide preliminary injunction in PFLAG v. Trump preventing the Trump administration from conditioning, withholding, or terminating federal funding based on the fact that a healthcare entity or health professional provides gender-affirming medical care to a patient under 19 under the executive orders or from “tak[ing] any steps to implement, give effect to, or reinstate [the EOs] under a different name.”
• On March 5, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) issued a notice to providers stating that it “may begin taking steps to align its policies and regulations” with the Trump administration’s order.
• On March 6, the federal Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued similar notices to grantees which specifically stated those steps could include terminating or “rescoping” grants.

Today’s motion asks the court to order the agencies to rescind the notices, provide the recipients of the notices with copies of the court order, and submit to the court signed acknowledgments by the agency heads that they have personally received a copy of the order.

The following is a joint statement from the ACLU and Lambda Legal:

“These notices are a transparent attempt to coerce medical providers to ignore their best medical judgment and instead follow politically-charged edicts from the President, injecting his ideology into the medical lives of thousands of transgender people and their families. The Trump administration is not above the law. Like anyone else, it must abide by and respect federal court orders. We are asking the court to enforce the preliminary injunction and make clear that the Trump Administration cannot threaten medical providers or hospitals’ federal funding for providing necessary gender-affirming medical care while the injunction is in place.”

Originally Published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — https://www.aclu.org/

By Arin Waller Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Dr. Mary Brinkmeyer resigned from her job as a psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs after a sweeping executive order issued by President Donald Trump eliminated federal recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities.

The mandate that federal agencies purge any practices promoting “gender ideology” made it no longer possible for Dr. Brinkmeyer to care for trans, nonbinary, and other LGBTQ+ veterans, leading her to resign in protest.

Dr. Brinkmeyer received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Florida in 2006. She started her career in 2008 at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) and has worked with veterans and military personnel ever since. Among her achievements was establishing the first military support group for transgender military members. In 2016, she was named Navy Psychology Civilian Psychologist of the Year. 

She served as the NMCP’s Associate Training Director from 2015 until her June 2022 appointment to the Hampton VA Medical Center as the LGBTQ+ veteran care coordinator and behavioral health interdisciplinary program psychology program manager.

Because of her clinical work and research into transgender mental health issues, Trump’s executive order deeply upset her.

“The VA put out a statement saying things should stay the same during the review period, but that’s not what’s happening,” Brinkmeyer told Advocate. “Staff were told to start identifying anything in medical records, training materials, or patient resources that could be considered ‘gender ideology.’”

“Transgender patients are terrified of losing their medical care,” she added. “Many rely entirely on the VA and don’t have alternative options.”

Dr. Brinkmeyer said frustrations arose when the Hampton VA administration began ordering the removal of all LGBTQ+-affirming materials from public areas and private workspaces. Clinicians allegedly reported that their offices were inspected to confirm they complied.

“Without consulting me, the director of my mental health department ordered that every single gender-affirming sign, poster, flyer, and brochure be taken down,” she said. “That included banners we had obtained through grant funding to create a welcoming space for LGBTQ+ veterans… It sent a clear message to LGBTQ+ veterans that they are no longer welcome.”

Though Dr. Brinkmeyer held a supervisor role at Hampton and was expected to enforce these new restrictions, she refused. 

“I would not tell anyone to take things out of their offices — I refused to remove anything from mine. They took my magnet off my door, and I put it right back up.”

Dr. Brinkmeyer confronted her supervisor, too.

“In our morning supervisor huddle, I said, ‘For the record, this shouldn’t have happened, and I’m not taking anything out of my office. I’m not telling anyone to remove anything from theirs. If someone wants me to take something down, they need to put it in writing so I can refuse in writing.”

The director ultimately dismissed her concerns, reasoning that whether anyone agrees or disagrees with these policies, the hospital is simply following orders and that no real harm is being done.  

Dr. Brinkmeyer reached her breaking point upon learning of the hospital administration’s apathy, arguing that this is a real issue with real damaging effects.

“By Friday, veterans had already heard about what was happening, and one of my patients asked me directly why the VA was doing this,” she said.

She ultimately decided to resign.

“I was in disbelief that this was happening, and when I raised concerns, I felt they were minimized or ignored,” she said. “I didn’t want to be complicit in something that I knew was wrong.”

She had initially planned to transition into another job in May, but the enforcement of these directives moved her departure to February 12th.

Brinkmeyer was sad to leave her colleagues behind but knew she couldn’t keep providing her patients with what she felt was “false reassurance.” She is especially concerned about having to leave the interns behind without proper guidance. 

“I had created this LGBTQ+ rotation for interns and one for our practicum students. I had planned to get my interns through their rotations, but the way things unfolded, I had to leave earlier than expected. It was heartbreaking knowing they were going to be left without the guidance and training they signed up for.”

It is reported that Dr. Brinkmeyer will continue practicing medicine at an affirming private practice. She urges providers to keep serving veterans as best they can and encourages veterans to establish contingency plans by seeking care through other parties, including Planned Parenthood, online providers, or other community-based clinics.

“Don’t ask permission — just keep doing what you know is right until you’re told otherwise, and if you are told otherwise, get it in writing,” she advised. “What happens in the therapy room is between you and your veteran.”

Originally published by LGBTQNation — https://www.lgbtqnation.com/

by Gillian Branstetter | January 22, 2025

Donald Trump was re-elected president on a wave of attacks against women and transgender people. Anti-transgender politicians spent more than $215 million on ads scapegoating trans people and promoting a Project 2025 agenda that threatens to rollback reproductive freedom and punish people for departing from archaic gender roles. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed a far-reaching executive order requiring federal agencies to discriminate against transgender people by denying who they are and threatening the freedom of self-determination and self-expression for all.

In 2020, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County affirming that discrimination against someone because they are LGBTQ is sex discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said: “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Trump also withdrew an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden directing federal agencies to enforce this court ruling as applied to all laws prohibiting sex discrimination.

We all deserve the freedom to be ourselves, including the right to determine what’s right for our bodies and lives. Trump’s sex discrimination mandate threatens to deny that freedom to transgender people across the country while forcing everyone else to sacrifice their own freedom and privacy, too.

What Does the Order Say?

Trump’s signed order states: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.  These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” The order defines terms like “man” and “woman” based on whether a person “at conception” belongs “to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” or that “produces the small reproductive cell.”

Trump’s order then directs federal agencies to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations” using his cramped definitions, including designating sex on passports and other federal identification documents, or determining where transgender people are confined in federal custody. The order also includes a sweeping mandate to all agencies to “end the Federal funding of gender ideology.” Of course, the order does not explain what that means or how agencies would accomplish such a task.

For decades, feminist legal scholars and women’s rights advocates have opposed efforts to define gender based strictly on biology. Recent state laws that use these definitions to discriminate against transgender people have resulted in invasive and traumatizing efforts to determine who “counts” as a man or as a woman, targeting youth who are even suspected of being transgender because they do not conform to sex stereotypes. This order likewise ignores the existence of intersex people and others with variations in sex characteristics beyond the overly-simplistic definitions Trump endorsed.

What Does the Order Do?

Very few executive orders change policy immediately, and they cannot change laws passed by Congress or protections guaranteed by the Constitution. As of January 21, 2025 it is unclear how the Trump administration will enforce this order as applied to educational settings, health care access, housing, federally-funded programs, and many other areas where federal law or policy references “sex” or “gender.”

Some of the most immediate impacts will likely be felt by the more than 2,000 transgender people currently held in federal custody. The order specifically calls on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to ignore the guidelines of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and enforce a blanket policy forcing transgender women into men’s prisons and detention centers against their will. This puts them at a severely heightened risk of sexual assault and abuse by other incarcerated persons and prison staff. The order also mandates that BOP withdraw critical health care from trans people in federal prison.

We also expect to see immediate impacts on access to updated sex designations on U.S. passports. Transgender people frequently update the sex designation on documents like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and passports to reflect their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. Requiring transgender peoples’ passports to show the sex they were assigned at birth effectively outs them as transgender whenever they have to present the document.

Soon after the order was issued, a Trump administration official told a reporter that the policy impacting gender markers on U.S. passports would not apply retroactively for current passport holders. Trump’s order will, however, prevent transgender and intersex people from obtaining new passports, visas, and trusted traveler documents that reflect who they are and how they are perceived in the world.

The State Department recently said that all applications for gender change are “suspended.” Because people have to provide their existing passport and other documents to update their passport, if people attempt to update the sex designation on their passport now, they run the risk of not having a valid passport at all while the passport is out of their possession.

What Happens Next?

We expect the order may be enforced in other contexts, such as in public schools and sex-separated spaces. It may also be used to limit workplace protections and to limit federally-funded programs that provide access for gender-affirming health care. If federal agencies and departments act to make those risks a reality, the ACLU and other LGBTQ rights organizations will fight them every step of the way.

Originally published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — https://www.aclu.org/

Ricardo Martinez, Executive Director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), made the following statement:

Monday’s executive order is a direct attack on transgender Americans, deliberately making it harder for people to live their everyday lives. It is cruel, and it is wrong.

The administration is trying to create fear and sow chaos by its statements and orders, but no executive action can change the fundamental truth that transgender people are vital members of our families and communities. Like all people, transgender people deserve dignity, respect, and the freedom to live without fear of government-sanctioned harm.

A president’s powers are not unlimited—the Constitution, federal courts, and our democratic system serve as bulwarks against government overreach. Implementing today’s order and others that may follow cannot happen overnight.

GLAD Law will use every tool we have to fight for LGBTQ+ people’s rights and for fairness and dignity. We will defend the fundamental principle that equal protection under the law is guaranteed – without exception.

Originally published by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) — https://www.glad.org/

The rally also represented a convergence of many local groups in coalition with each other, organizations that had connections with each other through the Springfield-Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition (SEAIC). Justin Filip, Pacific Green Party (PGP) Congressional candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, spoke at the event, as well as Sam, a member of the local chapter of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and Efron, a member of the University of Oregon chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). 8 other organizations supported the event, including JVP Eugene, University of Oregon chapters of Students and Faculty/Staff for Justice in Palestine (SJP/FSJP) and UO Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Coffee Revolution Eugene, Planet vs. Pentagon (PvP), Eugene chapter of Veterans for Peace (VfP), making 13 supporting organizations in total.

The rally kicked off with a speech from Kamryn Stringfield, which called out corporate pride events, the capitalization on LGBT+ movement, and of course the pinkwashing narratives regarding Palestine, Ukraine and more. On the pinkwashing in Palestine, she said 

“I’ve written before in our publication, the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin, how Israel is a key example of pinkwashing. Israel presents itself to the world as a haven for LGBT+ people, a safe refuge for us just like they promise to Jewish people through Zionism. While LGBT+ rights are somewhat better in Israel than other Middle Eastern countries, they are increasingly becoming under attack by the most extreme forces in the Israeli political arena and this ignores the plight of the Palestinian people and the ways in which apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing, racism, settlement, bombardment, starvation, scholasticide and much more are impacting the LGBT+ Palestinians. They aren’t supportive of us “In the name of love” as one IOF soldier holding a banner in the bloody ruins of Gaza put it, but rather they use it for their propaganda demonizing Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Much of this propaganda is targeted at Americans and other westerners.

They repeat the same old talking points about how Palestinians and Arabs hate gays and how Hamas will throw you off of a roof or shoot you against a wall. They claim you cannot live life openly as LGBT+ in Gaza without violence. Ironically right now, this is true. Life for anyone in Gaza right now is hell because of the genocide. This aside, these claims have very little evidence to them and are based on western colonial tropes about Arab society that don’t fully accurately reflect it and there are plenty of examples of LGBT+ people living in Palestine openly…”

She then called on all progressive LGBT+ organizations to take a stance against the genocide, call for a ceasefire and uplift the voices of LGBT+ Palestinian and Jewish people. She specifically called upon one local organization, saying “Transponder that means you, especially!”

Kamryn closed her speech by talking about how pinkwashing occurs in other areas like Europe, saying:

“I want to briefly tell you that pinkwashing is not just limited to Israel, even in the present moment. This technique is used against plenty of other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, all being bombed by Israel, US and UK as the genocide in Palestine continues. They use it against Iran, China, North Korea, Russia and more as well. NATO acts like it and all of its member states are havens for the LGBT+ community and that it is a vanguard for our rights. NATO and the Banderite government in Ukraine invoke pinkwashing in their war against Russia and the peoples of the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile they ignore the violent oppression of LGBT+ people in Poland, Italy, Turkey and more. Even with Taiwan and Hong Kong can we see pinkwashing playing out as a western tool against China. We have to be cognizant of this international phenomenon and not let the imperialists use our oppression here or anywhere else to justify economic or military consequences against countries or people that won’t conform to our interests. We have to be careful with our solidarity and understand how our voices and bodies can best be used for the LGBT+ struggle here and in the places the west interferes in.”

She also briefly gave a shout out to Cuba and Vietnam for non-western countries that have made strides on the issue that seldom get referenced in mainstream media, and got the crowd to chant “Cuba Si, Bloqueo No!” against the illegal economic blockade of Cuba.

Other speakers touched on different aspects of pinkwashing. The speaker from PSL called out the hypocrisy of religious zealots who are the most ardent defenders of Israel suddenly acting like they care for the well-being of LGBT+ community, and connected the LGBT+ struggle to the struggle against the imperialism as a whole. Justin Filip from the PGP talked about the history of the Green party’s support for Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) and the Palestinian struggle, the history of dehumanization as a tool to justify oppression in the United States, and his experiences with pro-Palestine activism at the University of Oregon and being placed on administrative leave as a result of it. The speaker from Jewish Voices for Peace spoke about the reality on the ground in Palestine and how they felt about that and about pride during genocide, how queer liberation and Palestinian liberation were connected and about how our LGBT+ elders paved the way for our current struggle.

After wrapping up the speeches and Kamryn explaining the next action for the event, the protesters began marching through the Saturday Farmers Market in downtown Eugene, carrying the PLUS Banner in the front and Palestinian flags and pride flags while reciting several kinds of chants. Some were new and LGBT+ based, like “No Pride in Genocide”, “We won’t let you use our pride, as an excuse for genocide”, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Pinkwashing has got to go”, “Queers and allies, we won’t hide, there’s no pride in genocide” and more. Some were standard Palestine chants, like “Free, Free, Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Signs said things like “Silence = Death”, “NATO and Israel are both white and blue, neither of them give a damn about you”, “Gays for Gaza” and more. A table was also brought for literature from different organizations, including the PLUS brochure and Spring-Summer 2024 edition of the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin.

Overall, this rally was a brilliant display of coalition-building, of anti-imperialist solidarity and of the presence of PLUS now as a working-class LGBT+ organization. You can watch the footage below captured by a local videographer. Stay tuned for updates on PLUS at pride events.

The Peoples LGBT+ United Society (PLUS) wanted to have a Pride event that was political but also accessible to the working class and spoke up against pinkwashing especially at a time when it is being invoked by Zionists carrying out a genocide in Palestine to justify their crimes. Our National Director, Kamryn Stringfield – who resides in Eugene, OR – got to work at the beginning of June to organize a rally and helped to build an impressive coalition of over a dozen supporting local organizations behind this for a wide showing of solidarity.

Supporting organizations/coalitions at this time are Springfield Eugene Anti-Imperialist Coalition (SEAIC), Eugene chapters of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Pacific Green Party (PGP), Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), and Veterans for Peace (VFP), University of Oregon chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP UO), Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (UO FSJP), Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP UO) and Young Democratic Socialists of America (UO YDSA), Eugene Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Planet vs Pentagon (PvP), and Coffee Revolution Eugene.

The rally will take place at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in front of the Lane County Courthouse on 8th Ave at 2:00 pm PDT to 4:00 pm PDT and will include speeches from Kamryn Stringfield and representatives of PGP, PSL and JVP UO. (By the way, if you didn’t know, Wayne Morse was one of 2 US Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution during the Vietnam War). We invite attendees to bring signs and flags related to the LGBT+ struggle and the Palestinian struggle. We also highly recommend that our attendees wear face masks.

Pictures and videos will be taken at the event and we will report to all of our members across the country when it is over! We are also going out to Pride Events all across the country this month and throughout the summer! We just gave out brochures at Grants Pass Pride in rural Josephine County, Oregon and are preparing to attend events in California, New York, Oregon and Washington!

We thank LUEL for the fantastic work that they’ve been doing, and we plan to work closer with LUEL as our work goes on, especially where the labor movement and LGBT+ movement intersect.

Website: peopleslgbt.org

Phone: (206) 414-8924

Address: 720 Seneca St. Ste 106, Seattle, WA 98101

Email: [email protected]

One of the primary objectives of PLUS as a working class LGBT+ organization is to combat the imperialist pinkwashing that we see in so much of the western press when we’re hearing of developments in geopolitics. The term “pinkwashing” is one that many people I’ve talked to say they’ve never heard. Right away, however, they understand the meaning. Pinkwashing, like whitewashing or, as a better example, greenwashing, is the use of the LGBT+ community, movement, symbolism or oppression to bolster the interests of the imperialists.

Sometimes, it’s through defending the imperialist institutions and economies, claiming that they’re more LGBT+ friendly than before or are somehow advancing the cause of that community (the military industrial complex and intelligence agencies in the US are particularly guilty of this). Sometimes, it’s through attacking a country or group that opposes the west by implying or claiming that they are anti-LGBT+, and that military action or economic sanctions can be justified on that basis (similar to the cries to “save” the women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc.) In any case, pinkwashing serves the imperialists, but doesn’t actually serve the LGBT+ community.

The war with the most media attention right now is the genocidal war that the Zionist Government of Israel is waging on the Palestinian people. In more than five months, more than 35,000 Palestinian people have been killed. While much of the war propaganda has focused on Hamas and the October 7th attack, there has been a campaign now and for years prior to pinkwash Israel/Palestine.

The term “pinkwashing” was initially used in the 80’s to refer to companies claiming to support women with breast cancer while profiting from cancer, but was actually recoined by a group of anti-Zionist LGBT+ people in San Francisco named “Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT)” in a 2010 piece for the Electronic Intifada publication, pointing to the Holocaust era pink-triangle for the reasoning behind the “pink” suffix. Since then, it has been used time and time again to refer to the Israeli government’s actions and rhetoric regarding LGBT+.

Since October, multiple Israeli publications have invoked pinkwashing to defend the Israeli government and attack Hamas, justifying collective punishment on Gaza. They claim that Israel is a haven for LGBT+ rights and that Hamas is violently oppressive of LGBT+ rights and should be opposed by LGBT+ groups on that basis. This propaganda fails to recognize that LGBT+ people do exist openly and publicly in Palestine and that occupation, blockades, sanctions, apartheid and bombing campaigns don’t help LGBT+ Palestinians or Israelis.

Israel has its own political challenges with the far-right threatening LGBT+ rights in the country, just like the Republican wave of anti-LGBT+ bills in state legislatures across the US. Zionism doesn’t serve LGBT+ people any better than NATO does, and neither could ever be justified in their military intervention against countries or people they claim are anti-LGBT+. We recognize that LGBT+ liberation is only to be found in the liberation of all oppressed people from imperialism, in the liberation of the working class, and that LGBT+ comfort in imperialist states is a privilege we can use and we can lose. PLUS unequivocally opposes the Israeli governments genocide and occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and stands with the Palestinian people, especially our Palestinian LGBT+ siblings.

This article was from the Stonewall Lives! Bulletin Spring Summer 2024 Edition that was just released. You can find the announcement of the bulletin and its full PDF at https://peopleslgbt.org/announcing-the-release-of-the-first-issue-of-stonewall-lives/

Included below is the PDF for the publication: