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A preview of what I'm chasing this summer: the money. (And I don’t just mean making this newsletter sustainable!)

As federal and state dollars vanish, I'm reporting on the community foundations and affiliate funds stepping in to keep LGBTQ+ health afloat — who pays for care when the government won't, and whether private money can hold the line. (You'll see one example below.) From there: the providers still delivering gender-affirming care under legal threat, and what shield laws actually protect when the subpoenas come.

Now, the news this week.

The Federal Trade Commission and four Republican-led states filed suit against WPATH, accusing the body whose Standards of Care anchor transgender medicine, especially in North America, of deceiving families about gender-affirming care for minors. (I really appreciated this Thread from @LeftistLawyer Sheryl Weikal as an explainer not just of the case itself but its potential implications for all US Americans.)

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's law department filed an amicus brief backing the ACLU, NYCLU, and Lambda Legal fight to quash a DOJ criminal subpoena for trans youth records at NYU Langone. And despite a state Supreme Court order to resume care, Children's Hospital Colorado is still refusing, telling the Colorado Sun its gender-clinic staff "independently" declined to treat anyone under 18.

Two states made moves to support LGBTQ+ families: Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed a parentage bill giving children born through assisted reproduction or surrogacy clearer legal ties to their parents, and New York's legislature passed a measure swapping "mother" and "father" for "gestating" and "non-gestating parent" across family law, now awaiting Gov. Hochul's signature.

In Ohio, the Community Foundation of Lorain County launched an affiliate fund for the county's queer residents amid mounting funding and legislative strain. And as the U.S. is no longer a refuge for LGBTQ people fleeing persecution — more than 30% of Rainbow Railroad's 2025 requests came from inside the country — that displacement is fast becoming a funding emergency.

International

Across the border, a Canadian charity is fielding record numbers of LGBTQ+ refugees, among them a trans woman who fled Jamaica to start over.

In Europe, after years of effort, the Dutch Senate approved a conversion-therapy ban carrying prison terms and fines, alongside a government pledge to strengthen trans and intersex protections.

West Africa moved the other way, as a wave of new laws criminalized same-sex relations across Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, and Ghana. In Tamil Nadu, a government hospital in Tiruchirappalli will hire a trans staffer and convened an eight-member panel to fix its understaffed transgender clinic after patients raised concerns.

And in Dunedin, around 1,000 people rallied against New Zealand legislation that would legally define "man" and "woman."

Submit a Creating Change proposal — Creating Change, the national LGBTQ+ organizing conference, lands in the Midwest in 2027, and its call for session proposals is open now.

Save trans stories before they vanish — QueerAF walks through how to archive and preserve trans history in an age when records can be erased with a click.

Back No Hate in WA State — Rep. Pramila Jayapal and 400-plus Washingtonians launched a campaign against two November ballot measures: one mandating the outing of trans students, the other threatening student athletes with genital exams.

Leor Sapir's Buddies Say You're Wrong About Trans Healthcare, Actually — Assigned Media — Aly Gibbs's TWIBS column skewers the Manhattan Institute crowd around Leor Sapir — lead author of the Trump HHS report — for dressing up the assault on trans medicine as sound science.
Idaho Is Both the Front Lines and the Blueprint — The Advocate — How one state became the testing ground and template for the anti-trans policy spreading nationwide.
Teaching Through an Era Determined to Erase Trans Lives — The Advocate — An educator on the cost of showing up for students while the culture works to disappear people like them.
Restroom Restrictions: Impact on Transgender Students — TransVitae — How bathroom bans erode trans students' mental health and access to education.
A Toledo Native Builds a Black LGBTQ+ Safe Space — The Buckeye Flame — The Collective, a new home for Black queer community in northwest Ohio.
Forty Years of AIDS Walk San Francisco — The Advocate — Looking back on four decades of the walk that helped define the community's response to the epidemic.
'We Have to Rebuild the Sexual and Gender Diversity Movement' — Venezuelanalysis — Activist Joseph Soto on organizing for queer and trans Venezuelans amid an evangelical surge and NGO dependence.
Transgender Hormones Changed My Child's Life — HuffPost — A parent's first-person account of watching their kid come into themselves on gender-affirming care.
You Belong Here: A Letter of Love to the Trans Community — QNews — A mother's open letter of affirmation to trans people who needed to hear it.