I’ve been messaging with a friend this week who is in the process of fleeing the United States to find a safer home here in Mexico. Another friend with residency here has to go back to tie up some loose ends. I've been doing what you do in those moments — texting, helping with logistics, sitting with the fear alongside people I love — while also trying to write clearly about the political conditions that are making all of it necessary. It's a strange and heavy thing to be writing and speaking about a genocide that is happening to your own community, to your friends, to people whose phone numbers are in your pocket.
I've been spending a lot of time lately with BIPOC writers who have been doing exactly this for generations — documenting violence from inside it, staying the course, building something durable out of the wreckage of each day, each week. So many have dedicated their lives to documenting the suffering and fighting for the liberation of their people, and I hope to take some strength and courage from them, from our revolutionary ancestors, from all those who have faced down empires and survived to tell the tale. (And some who didn’t.) I don't have it figured out yet. But I'm learning.
In Oaxaca, I've been making time for meals and gatherings and just being present with people. Community is doing real work for me right now. I hope you have something like it too — and I want this newsletter to be part of that for you. If there's something you need from Well Beings News, something you wish I covered, something that would make your membership more useful to your practice or your life, please reach out. I read every reply.
On to the news.
The Kaltiala study I covered in the latest Well Beings News Rx Resist column is continuing to make waves, with Erin Reed at Erin in the Morning breaking down why its headline finding is a textbook case of surveillance bias, immortal time bias, and a binary outcome measure that cannot distinguish a routine monitoring referral from a psychiatric hospitalization. Evan Urquhart at Assigned Media makes the case that the study reflects the failures of Finland's own hostile clinical model — not gender-affirming care as practiced elsewhere — and that allowing Finnish researchers to present their findings without that context is a mistake with real policy consequences.
There's a small but significant clinical win to note: Children's Minnesota has reinstated gender-affirming care for trans youth after pausing it in February, following a federal court ruling that found RFK Jr.'s HHS declaration exceeded his legal and scientific authority.
The surveillance picture is grimmer. Prism Reports documents how Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, and other states are quietly building lists of trans people, tracking who changed gender markers on documents and who sought gender-affirming care. Tennessee's SB 676/HB 754 passed the state Senate today and heads to Gov. Bill Lee, requiring providers and insurers to report the number and nature of gender-affirming treatments to a public state website, while also blocking local governments from prohibiting talk therapy as a treatment for gender dysphoria.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed the Pediatric Secretive Transitions Parental Rights Act, requiring teachers and health care providers to notify parents within 72 hours if a minor uses a different name, pronouns, or facilities — with no safety assessment mechanism and civil penalties of up to $100,000 per violation. Oklahoma's SB 904 advanced through committee, prohibiting the use of public funds for any entity or individual that provides gender transition procedures and barring the use of state property for that purpose.
New York State Senator James Skoufis has introduced S9817, legislation that would allow survivors of conversion therapy to sue practitioners for civil damages — a direct response to the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down state enforcement bans.
India
The Kerala High Court has allowed two transgender petitioners to continue hormone replacement therapy while their challenge to India's Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026 proceeds, after hospitals stopped treating them following the law's enactment.
Writing in Outlook India, scholar Anand Teltumbde argues that the 2026 amendment — which removes self-identification, mandates state certification, and requires hospitals to report gender-related surgeries to district magistrates — is not merely flawed legislation but the legal expression of a project of social discipline that treats trans identity as a problem to be managed rather than a right to be protected.
Register for Beyond the Rainbow: Health Equity for Lesbian and Queer Women, a free virtual event from the Curve Foundation focused on health disparities and access gaps for lesbian and queer women — general admission is free, with optional pay-it-forward donation tiers to support Curve's programming.
How HRT Affects Fertility for Trans Women: Point of Pride, in collaboration with Dr. Izzy Lowell of QueerMed, breaks down how estrogen affects sperm production, what timing looks like for fertility preservation before and after starting HRT, and how to have these conversations with patients who haven't yet decided what they want.
A Guide to PTO, FMLA, and Disability Leave for Gender-Affirming Care: Also from Point of Pride, a practical breakdown of workplace leave options for patients navigating time off for gender-affirming procedures — including ready-to-use scripts for approaching HR without disclosing more than necessary.
For trans San Diegans, lack of public restroom access is causing lasting medical harm: Mission Times Courier reports on how bathroom inaccessibility is directly contributing to pelvic floor dysfunction, kidney damage, and incontinence among trans San Diegans — grounding in local stories what Well Beings News has covered as a growing public health crisis.
Journal Club: A Genuine Broad Study of the Effects of HRT: Assigned Media's Veronica Esposito digs into a new Australian study of over 30,000 people that uses a difference-in-differences design to show that access to HRT led to sustained reductions in mental health service utilization — with trans men falling below their baseline within the first year, and trans women within five.
The Laundering: How Western Media Built the Permission Structure for Anti-Gender Authoritarianism: Alejandra Caraballo at The Dissident argues that the American press has consistently reached for UK and Nordic comparators when covering restrictions on gender-affirming care — when the honest comparators are Russia, Hungary, Georgia, and Turkey, where crackdowns on trans rights have tracked precisely with democratic backsliding.
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No original reporting or column this week — the news cycle had other plans. Coming up for next week, though, I have two columns in the queue, and I'll be back to regularly scheduled reporting before the end of April. I'm also deep in development on the first Rx Resist course material, which will be available to paid subscribers — if you've been thinking about upgrading, now is a good time to do it so you don't miss what's coming.
Stay safe and stay informed — and reach out if there's a story you want me to cover.
BJ Ferguson
Founder, Well Beings News
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