Erin Reed at Erin in the Morning—one of the most essential independent journalists covering this crisis—has been tracking the capitulations in real time: the Trump administration referred Callen-Lorde, the LA LGBT Center, Whitman-Walker, and the Institute for Family Health to the HHS inspector general; Vanderbilt University Medical Center ended gender-affirming surgeries for adults; the updated national legal risk map now places every state at minimum moderate risk for trans youth, with Kansas added to the adult "Do Not Travel" list; and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts announced his organization's intent to ban gender-affirming care at all ages through what he called "radical incrementalism." The resistance has been real: 24 parents and activists blockaded HHS headquarters and were arrested in protest of proposed rules that would make it virtually impossible for any hospital accepting Medicaid or Medicare to provide trans youth care.

The hospital closures continued to mount over the past two weeks. Vanderbilt's decision left patients in the Mid-South with nowhere nearby to turn, with trans Tennesseans calling it "a gut punch"; NYU Langone ended its Transgender Youth Health Program under federal funding pressure, drawing condemnation from the NYC Commission on Human Rights; Baystate Health in Massachusetts will stop prescribing hormones to transgender youth; the University of Utah preemptively ended hormone therapy for all trans youth patients ahead of a legislative ban—despite a state-commissioned review that supported the care; and trans women in Massachusetts had vaginoplasties abruptly cancelled at UMass Memorial with no explanation and no plan to reschedule. In a rare legal bright spot, a California judge ordered Rady Children's Hospital to continue providing hormone therapy and puberty blockers until at least March 10, ruling that the risk to patients outweighs the federal funding threat—for now.

Finally, this week I want to talk about incarcerated trans folks. Uncloseted Media spoke to eight trans inmates who report the Bureau of Prisons is illegally denying them care in defiance of a court injunction, which is awful on its own. But Transitics also reports the Federal Bureau of Prisons has now gone even further—implementing a policy that forces trans prisoners through what amounts to conversion therapy, explicitly aiming to "resolve" gender dysphoria diagnoses in a program analysts say violates seven of the ten points of the Nuremberg Code. This kind of experimentation is not new, but rather rooted in a long history of torture and exploitation of Black queers and radicals. (See the next section for some resources to learn more.)

If you're in New York City, hold Mayor Mamdani to his campaign promises on trans youth care—he has real tools at his disposal, including direct authority over the city's public hospital system, and trans New Yorkers deserve to know he'll use them.

The FDA is going after companies that make chest binders, which means trans guys may soon be back to duct tape and ACE bandages if we don't push back—the 19th has the full story on what's at stake.

Given what we're seeing in federal prisons, two books worth your time right now: Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt by Dr. Orisanmi Burton and Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington—essential context for understanding the history of medical experimentation in and by the United States on Black people, and why what's happening in federal prisons right now is not new.

As governments around the world restrict access to gender-affirming care, a new article in The Conversation summarizes two new Australian studies on the cost-effectiveness of gender-affirming hormones and surgery — and the numbers make a compelling case for coverage: : access to gender-affirming hormones and surgery dramatically reduces mental health service utilization — and saves public health systems millions.