Queering Medicine

QM’s weekly update on LGBTQ+ health issues impacting those living in the Lansing area 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️⚕️

*🏳️‍⚧️🗳️ On Tuesday, it was reported that the Wayne County Clerk rejected a challenge by Michigan House of Representatives candidate Frank Liberati to remove his primary opponent, a trans woman named Joanna Whaley, from the election due to not listing her deadname on the ballot despite having legally changed her name.

*🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🌐A report published last week ranked six major social media platforms in regard to LGBTQ+ safety and free expression, finding that none earned a passing score and all platforms but one declined in their scores from the year prior. In particular, Meta’s platforms and YouTube dropped in their scores due to removing significant hate speech protections from LGBTQ+ users and suppressing LGBTQ+ content.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚖️ On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled against the U.S. Department of Justice in its attempt to obtain information on trans youth who received gender-affirming care from a hospital in Rhode Island, stating that the DOJ had misrepresented and withheld information from the court.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚕️On Monday, NYU Langone notified patients that it and several other healthcare institutions received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas demanding information about trans youth patients receiving gender-affirming care, as well as information about their doctors. This is the first known instance in which the Trump administration has used criminal subpoenas against a healthcare institution to target trans youth healthcare, rather than merely civil subpoenas.

*🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏫On Wednesday, hundreds of high school students in Watertown, Wisconsin staged a walk-out when an instrumental piece dedicated to the Stonewall veteran and LGBTQ+ advocate Marsha P. Johnson was cut from the school's spring concert by the local school board.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚕️🍁Since March, at least two American students under age 19 attending McGill University in Quebec have been denied HRT by the university's healthcare system. These Canadian doctors cited Trump's executive order against gender-affirming care for those under 19 and, seemingly due to a misunderstanding of a related federal reporting form, believed Canadian doctors might also be targeted.

For details, visit https://buttondown.com/QueeringMedicine

QM’s weekly update on LGBTQ+ health issues impacting those living in the Lansing area 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️⚕️

*🏳️‍⚧️⚕️ A study published in March found that the implementation of a DoxyPEP intervention in Seattle was associated with a county-wide reduction in syphilis cases by 53% among cisgender men, 47% among cisgender women, and 33% among trans and nonbinary people.

*🏳️‍⚧️🏀⚖️ On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s refusal to issue a preliminary block against a trans-inclusive sports policy in Minnesota that allows trans girls to continue to compete in high school girls’ sports.

*🏳️‍🌈⚖️ On April 10th, the U.S. government agreed in a court settlement to allow the Pride flag to fly permanently at the Stonewall National Monument after it had previously been taken down, agreeing that the flag qualifies as a historical exemption from the National Park Service’s recent policy of only allowing U.S. agency flags to fly at national parks.

*🏳️‍⚧️🪖 On Thursday, the Department of Defense revealed in a court filing that they have begun involuntary removal processes against trans people in the military.

*🏳️‍🌈⚖️ On Thursday, a man was sentenced to seven years in prison for plotting to commit hate-motivated violent acts against two locations in the city of Owosso, northeast of Lansing, based on perceived ties to the LGBTQ+ community.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚖️In March, a trans woman employee at an Ann Arbor homeless shelter filed a civil rights lawsuit against the shelter foundation, alleging that management downplayed repeated harassment by coworkers based on her gender identity and s*xual orientation, as well as a threatening email that circulated among staff.

For details, visit https://q***ringmedicine.substack.com/

QM’s weekly update on LGBTQ+ health issues impacting those living in the Lansing area 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️⚕️

*🏳️‍🌈🎒 A study released earlier this month found that in the first year and a half of high school, cisgender heteros*xual students experienced a small increase in positive attitudes towards their LGBTQ+ peers, and this change in attitudes was associated with improvements in social well-being.

*🏳️‍⚧️🥇 On Thursday, the International Olympic Committee released a new policy banning trans women from participation in all women’s events at the Olympic games and any other IOC event, and instituting DNA s*x testing to determine eligibility in the women’s category.

*🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇳 Delegates at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women recently voted to block consideration of a proposal by the United States to adopt a definition of gender as binary and based on assigned s*x at birth.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚕️ On Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission upheld a 2015 policy allowing health insurers to limit gender-affirming care coverage for federal workers.

*🏳️‍⚧️⚕️📰 This week, the American Medical Association confirmed that their policy continues to support gender-affirming care as medically necessary, after confusion emerged following an unclear response to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons’ recent statement citing the Trump administration’s HHS report to recommend that gender-affirming surgeries for trans youth be delayed until age 19.

For details, visit https://q***ringmedicine.substack.com/