NEWS

The week brought a cascade of institutional capitulation alongside escalating legal and legislative threats, as families and providers navigate an increasingly hostile landscape for transgender healthcare.

Fenway Health ceased providing puberty blockers and hormone treatments to transgender youth under 19—affecting even 18-year-old legal adults—citing vague "federal requirements" despite no law banning such care.

Twenty-six Senate Democrats joined Republicans to pass the National Defense Authorization Act containing provisions banning transgender participation in sports at military academies and prohibiting Defense Department funding for gender-affirming surgeries.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed several bills strengthening privacy protections for transgender Californians while simultaneously vetoing Senate Bill 418, which would have allowed transgender people to maintain a 12-month supply of hormone therapy.

The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments over Attorney General Ken Paxton's demand for PFLAG records on transgender youth care. The Justice Department issued subpoenas to healthcare providers demanding extensive personal information on transgender minors, prompting legal organizations to file motions to quash them.

Three Supreme Court cases targeting LGBTQ+ rights saw movement this week, including oral arguments in a challenge to Colorado's conversion therapy ban and cases on Trump's passport policy and sports bans. The fringe group Genspect called for re-labeling transgender identities as mental illnesses, a move psychiatrists uniformly rejected as lacking research basis and expert backing.

In Canada, Alberta families are bracing for Premier Danielle Smith to invoke the notwithstanding clause to enforce bans on gender-affirming care for minors, with one mother saying "we'll be moving if she enacts that, for the safety of our child." British Columbia defeated a bill that would have allowed parents to sue doctors for providing puberty blockers up to 25 years after treatment.

Rx RESIST

1. Register for "Anatomy & Physiology of Sex for Affirming Clinicians" workshop (October 17, 2025).

2. Print and share travel safety plans with community members considering winter travel.

3. If you are contacting your representatives like we talked about last week, watch the Mamdani ad. This is what we could be expecting from folks in defense of trans people.

GOOD READS

• '[He] Helped Me ... Hate Myself': Conversion Therapy Survivors Speak Out — Survivors share stories of trauma and self-hate as the Supreme Court considers overturning Colorado's ban on the discredited practice.

• A call for greater attention to embodied change in trans health research — Researchers emphasize how understanding patients' expectations about gendered embodiment can improve care quality.

• On medical ideology and the production of docile doctors: The politics of care in an age of authoritarianism — A critique arguing for social medicine, ethical dissent, and solidarity to address how profit-driven healthcare exacerbates inequalities and provider burnout.

• The clinical and the political: care under authoritarian threat — Healthcare providers must navigate ethical duties while engaging in political action for social justice, particularly for marginalized communities.

• The Unscientific Nonsense of Conversion Therapy — Research shows conversion therapy increases distress and suicide risk, while ethical therapy favors affirmative approaches supporting clients' identities.

• Two years on, Oregon's transgender health care law faces obstacles — Provider shortages and federal hostility challenge the law as approximately 160,000 trans individuals flee restrictive states.

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RESEARCH

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