I wrote a little bit about the ongoing anti-trans pogrom in America, in light of a 6-3 fascist dominated Supreme Court ruling upholding a Tennessee ban on gender affirming care for trans youth. While everyone agrees that this is a horrible decision that will definitely result in more dead trans kids, a lot of folks are relieved that at least the Roberts Court didn't directly legalize anti-trans discrimination. I'm less sure; the vagueness and disingenuous logic of the fascist majority's ruling in theory can be replicated over and over to deny rights to trans people while pretending the laws you write have nothing to do with trans people at all. Furthermore, this pattern is likely replicable to target other marginalized or disadvantaged groups the fascists want to isolate and repress; particularly I fear, in the context of women's rights and patriarchal domination.

https://www.ninaillingworth.com/2025/06/19/on-pogroms-trans-youth-and-the-supreme-court/

On Pogroms, Trans Youth, and the Supreme Court

"This is all basically crass prejudice and transphobic fuckery, delivered by the Roberts 6-3 fascist dominated court with the thinnest veneer of legality and a poison smile towards trans people, and in particular trans youth, in America. The devil is however in the details as always, and it’s ultimately the disingenuous, circular logic employed by the court majority that represents perhaps the greatest danger to equal protection law in the modern history of this country. How exactly do you argue a ban on gender affirming care for trans kids whose drafters specifically state the purpose of the law is to “encourage minors to appreciate their sex,” neither targets transgender people specifically, nor qualifies for sex-based classification? Well if you’re John Roberts, you repurpose some of the worst obsolete rulings in legal history to argue that trans people are not the droids you’re looking for."

#SCOTUS #Fascism #TransRights #AntiTransPogrom #Skrmetti #CivilRights #GOP #JohnRoberts #TransGenocide #TransYouth #MentalHealth

As we approach the fifth month of the Swine Emperor's second presidency, it is now crystal clear that the Trump regime is committed to discriminating against and reducing the quality of life for, as a matter of policy, anyone the regime regards as its enemies; a ever-growing body of people that includes his actual political opponents, Americans whose life choices Christian fundamentalists don't agree with, and marginalized people the white nationalist regime hates simply for who they are. Furthermore, the policies designed to conduct this discrimination against, and dehumanization of, those Trump considers enemies or the fascist right considers undesirables, usually have elements of both open targeted discrimination, and vague wording that allows for a mind-numbing expansion of who can be targeted for that discrimination at a later date.

For an example of what this looks like in practice, let's take a look at this story about U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs changes to care guidelines that now allow for a broad swathe of discriminatory practices, and were undertaken in response to Trump's anti-trans executive order in which the government officially denied that trans people exist.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/veterans-trump-executive-order-rules

'Disgusting': VA Doctors Can Now Reportedly Refuse to Treat Unmarried People, Democrats

"U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is a senior member and former chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, issued a sharp statement in response to the news.

"Healthcare isn't just a special privilege Trump gets to dole out to veterans who agree with the president—it's a moral obligation our country owes to every single man and woman who serves in uniform. Anyone who doesn't understand that has no business leading our armed forces in any way," wrote Murray in a statement on Monday.

"It's disgusting that this policy was ever allowed to go into effect, and I will not let it fly under the radar," she added.

"This isn't healthcare. It's political purity tests for people who risked their lives for this country. It's unethical, authoritarian, and every one of us should be outraged," wrote VoteVets, a progressive veterans group, in a Bluesky post on Monday in response to The Guardian's reporting."

To be clear, I could probably live with a little less nationalistic troop-worship from the folks criticizing this bald-faced authoritarian bullshit; this is fundamentally a story about ideological policing, civil rights, and access to healthcare. The fact is the Trump regime has power over the VA, and by extension VA hospitals, and as such they have the power to enforce their foundationally fascist worldview on veteran's care facilities first; their attacks on standards of care (particularly for trans youth) in private medical settings make it clear that they want to take this fascist bullshit national and enforce it by state authority.

Furthermore, while I am certain that the vagueness of these guideline changes is by no means an accident, it's important to understand that they were foundationally instituted to discriminate against trans veterans as part of the fascist right's larger anti-trans pogrom; which nobody in power in the US really seems to have a problem with despite the fact that it's objectively part of an open government scheme to end the existence of trans people in American life.

"The rule change, according to The Guardian, stems from the January 30 executive order called "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

The outlet reported that the "primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including 'gender affirming' and 'transgender,' from clinical settings." The VA is currently led by former Republican congressman Doug Collins."

Despite this however, the fact is that the care guideline changes at the VA go far above and beyond what the government would need to discriminate against trans veterans, and would in fact allow the VA to deny medical care to an alarmingly large number of people the Hertigage Foundation considers godless enemies of all that is pure and good in American life. Furthermore, smiling assurances from VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz that while yes the rules do allow for discrimination based on political affiliation, martial status, or any number of other fascist hobby horses, he pinkie swears the VA is just going after trans people, are doing little to beat the nazi ideological policing allegations this change in VA policy brings up. As is the case with the anti-trans pogrom, and Trump's fascist war on immigrants (including legal immigrants), a VA built to discriminate against trans people is a VA that can discriminate against anyone the Swine Emperor wants to punish.

#Fascism #Trump #VA #Healthcare #IdeologicalPolicing #AntiTransPogrom #USPol

Unfortunately, some recent interactions with well meaning cis-het people have lead me to believe that the reality of just how far mainstream, ostensibly anti-Trump figures in our media and political discourse are going to effectively aid the fascist anti-trans pogrom in progress today. I assume this is the result of a lack of knowledge, because the alternative is a lot more unflattering for all parties involved in these conversations. Okay, fair enough; obviously we have to spend more time talking about these egregious betrayals of human and civil rights by influential self-identified liberal institutions, when those targeted happen to be trans.

Let's start with the nationally-read "liberal" paper of distinction in the city that sits at the heart of the US federal government: the Washington Post. We've previously talked about HHS Secretary RFK Jr's sham review on trans care report that among many other horrors, embraced fascist pseudoscientific theories about trans people and promoted conversion therapy (also known as torturing the trans out of people) as a treatment for gender dysphoria; if you want to know more about why the entire report is anti-trans, eliminationist garbage you can find that post up in this thread. The short story here is that the HHS review is objectively an attack on trans existence in America, and is being widely rejected by pretty much every scientific or medical body that has cared to comment on it.

All of which apparently wasn't enough for the Washington Post to come out on the right side of this issue; in a May 11th, 2025 Op-Ed, the paper's editorial board fully embraced the report, and with it the harmful anti-trans propaganda and pseudoscience it was built on.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/washington-post-shamefully-endorses

Washington Post Shamefully Endorses RFK Jr's Pseudoscience Report On Trans People

"The Washington Post editorial board describes the HHS report—laden with disinformation and distortions about transgender care—as “careful” and “thorough.” While the op-ed concedes that the report was born out of executive orders that deny transgender people even exist, it fails to grapple with the obvious: the report was constructed to reach a predetermined conclusion. There is no world in which the study’s authors could have released any report affirming transgender healthcare’s importance, given the executive order that made it possible and those in charge of selecting the authors, whose names were kept anonymous. The editorial calls for “neutral, unbiased studies” on transgender health care, yet in the same breath treats a 400-page screed—designed explicitly to justify banning that care—as if it meets that standard. The contradiction is as glaring as it is dangerous.

Almost none of the content from the HHS report actually makes it into the Washington Post editorial. The piece largely ignores the avalanche of criticism from scientists, medical experts, and transgender people over the report’s glaring falsehoods. Nowhere in the editorial will readers learn that the report endorses thoroughly discredited theories like “rapid onset gender dysphoria” and “social contagion” to explain trans identity. It deadnames some of the earliest known transgender patients—seemingly out of spite—and classifies social transition, something as simple as a haircut and a new name, as a medical intervention requiring regulation. It leans heavily on fringe, debunked studies and repeatedly cites known anti-trans ideologues like Jesse Singal, Ray Blanchard, Paul Hruz, James Cantor, Michael Laidlaw, and Quinten Van Meter—figures courts and experts have ruled unqualified to speak on transgender health care. None of this, nor the hundreds of factual distortions and pseudoscientific claims littering the report, are addressed in the Post’s editorial."

I confess that I don't share Erin Reed's excellent journalism and analysis as often as I wish I could; the remarkable legwork she puts in to laying out and proving an argument is the same thing that often renders my additional commentary redundant. This article for example lays out an airtight case that for whatever reasons (latent transphobia, in my opinion) the WaPo editorial team has gone out of its way to embrace fascist pseudoscience that justifies harming trans Americans, in complete violation of their stated principles and how they've treated similar ideological junk science positions forwarded by RFK Jr, the HHS, and the Trump regime in general. I fully endorse every word of this piece and strongly encourage you to simply read all of it.

Finally I would like to remind all the well-meaning, trans-embracing liberals in my life and online, that I'm not saying you or even the vast majority of liberals in America hate trans people; it may rather be the opposite. But the traditional pillars of the liberal establishment *are* actively abandoning trans folks to our fate, in the face of a fascist GOP pogrom.

#Media #TransRights #RFKJr #GOP #AntiTransPogrom #Trump #WaPo #HHS #Propaganda

While it's certainly not the most devastating way the Christian Nationalist Trumpenreich is making the world a demonstrably worse place, Downmarket Mussolini's fascist war against all things "DEI" is having splash effects on one of the world's largest and most famous Pride celebrations, in Toronto Canada. Mere weeks before the annual parade to celebrate LGBTQ joy and existence, US-based corporate sponsors Google and Home Depot dropped their support for Toronto Pride in one line emails; which now brings the number of major Pig Empire corporations withdrawing from the festival because they're sniveling worms terrified of Trump to five, after Nissan, Adidas and Clorox pulled out earlier this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/30/toronto-pride-google-home-depot-sponsorship-drop

Google and Home Depot drop Pride Toronto sponsorship amid Trump’s DEI war

"The White House’s condemnation of diversity and inclusion efforts has resulted in corporations shirking away from festivals that they once loudly supported, said Sui Sui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on DEI initiatives.

Sui said that the move also signals that commitments large sponsors made in the past were tenuous and motivated not because of genuine support, but because of the perceived profitability of aligning with such causes."

The article goes on to note that Google, Home Depot, and Nissan all have a myriad of excuses for their supplication before Trump's crusade to protect straight white Christian men from knowing other people exist, but those excuses aren't worth the (digital) paper they're printed on. These gutless mutherfuckers are scared Trump is gonna come after them for crimes against normative heterosexuality, even if their presumed diversity atrocities are committed across the Canadian border.

Of course, we could also talk about why corporate sponsored Pride events really aren't doing that much to further the cause of LGBTQ acceptance in an increasingly fascist world, or why corporate support for these types of events was always performative pinkwashing; these large corporate actors can withdraw their financial support from Pride festivals, but they can't withdraw a commitment to diversity and equality they never really shared. Still, in the final analysis, even performative support is an improvement over actively submitting to an Christian Nationalist agenda and the fascist President openly dedicated to running LGBTQ people of public life. Queer people don't need Home Depot and Google to sanction their celebrations, but you'd best believe we aren't going to forget which side the larger Pig Empire establishment chose when our right to exist became a political football, in an increasingly fascist "West."

#Fascism #VichyAmerica #Pride #Toronto #Trump #DEI #ChristianNationalism #AntiTransPogrom #Homophobia #PinkWashing #Google #HomeDeport #Corporations #Clorox #Nissan #Adidas

As more information leaks out about how objectively horrifying the Big Billionaire Bill the GOP is ramming into law and hoping nobody notices it will kill their own voters actually is, it's becoming clear that the Act is also a way to prosecute the Trump regime's eliminationist agenda at the same time. We've already uncovered a GOP plot to defang judicial oversight over Trump's illegal and unconstitutional mass deportation campaign, and now observers have exposed another last minute change that would deny gender affirming care to, and likely cause the forced detransition of, hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans.

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/22/big-beautiful-bill-trans-medicaid-healthcare-minors-adults/

Republicans Launch Midnight Attack on Health Care Access for Trans Americans

"Late Wednesday, Congressional Republicans amended the bill to prohibit the use of Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care, potentially ripping healthcare access away from hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans.

An earlier version of the legislation targeted Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care for minors. In a midnight-hour maneuver, Republicans removed the word “minors” from that provision, prohibiting the use of Medicaid funding for “gender-transition procedures” for children as well as adults.

The legislation broadly defines “gender-transition procedures” as everything from surgery to hormone therapy. It needs only a simple majority to pass the Senate.

Experts on transgender health care said that if this provision advances, it could make an already-dire landscape for transgender care significantly worse. They described devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of transgender Americans who rely on Medicaid that will be further compounded by the roughly $700 billion in cuts to the health program in the GOP bill."

For the past three years, and in response to a dangerous shift in rhetoric and tactics by the fascist Pig Empire right, I've been trying to explain to cis het people that Trump and the GOP's anti-trans policies are unquestionably part of a larger anti-trans pogrom designed to eliminate or otherwise end by any means possible, the existence of trans people in America. The accuracy of that analysis was demonstrated on day 1 of Downmarket Mussolini's second term as President when Der Leader issued an executive order declaring there were only two legally recognized "biological sexes" in America; thereby decreeing that trans people effectively don't exist. This should have been a massive wake up call for cis people who don't want tens of thousands of dead trans people, particularly trans women, on their hands, because historically when a state says that you do not exist, it's because they mean to make it so.

Unfortunately, this warning, which was also supported by multiple leaked GOP and far right strategy sessions in which elected Republican politicians and think tank minions openly admitted their ultimate goal is ending trans care in American entirely, and Donald Trump's repeated public campaign promises to do the same, has largely gone unheeded; particularly by a Democrat establishment much more interested in blaming Harris's 2024 US election loss on her utterly nonexistent defense of trans rights. Well folks, we're here in the exact place I always told you would be arrive at, and my only question is "what now, wise centrists?"

The fact is this article doesn't even come close to properly articulating what a horrifying development this is for both trans people, and anyone who doesn't want to live under a fascist dictatorship where a reality TV show nazi President gets to decide who has a right to merely exist. The Republican Party knows full well that the US Constitution and international human rights law will make it extremely difficult to just round up trans people in concentration camps to force detransition them and start murdering folks, so they've settled on a subtler but no less homicidal strategy. The fascist right is thus working to eliminate gender affirming care for trans people entirely, while threatening anyone who employs or financially supports trans people to drive us out of the work force. These guys know all about the mental health problems and suicide rate increases brought on by untreated gender dysphoria, community isolation, and poverty; in fact, they're counting on it to allow them to wipe out trans people without getting any blood directly on their hands as they let "nature take its course."

Of course, I expect this warning to once again fall on the deaf ears of Very Serious People TM in the American liberal establishment, where transphobia runs almost as rampant as it does inside GOP war rooms. Who cares if labor class trans people die without gender affirming care when the point here is to signal to suburban white crackers who will never vote for you that you're just as anti-trans as the Pork Reich, right?

#Fascism #Trump #GOP #AntiTransPogrom #TransRights #Medicaid #GenderAffirmingCare #Budget #ReconciliationBill

With much of Democratic Party leadership playing dead and apparently hoping Trump dies from embarrassment after reading his polling numbers, there hasn't been a lot of political opposition to Trump's fascist regime to talk about. One noted exception however, has been Maine Governor Janet Mills and her refusal to cave to Trump's anti-trans pogrom on behalf of transgender athletes in the state's school system. Some of you may remember Mills from her contentious encounter with Downmarket Mussolini in the White House where the president threatened federal funding for Maine and tried to intimidate the Governor into enforcing his (unconstitutional) anti-trans executive order. Mills famously responded "I'll see you in court" and now she has; winning a decision to block the Trump administration's attempts to withhold federal funds for school lunches in the state unless Mills agrees to discriminate against trans kids.

For more details about this story, I'd like to share this fourteen minute video by Mike Figueredo of the Humanist Report. I picked this admittedly broad discussion because Mike does an excellent job of putting the Trump regime's actions in the proper context of authoritarianism and anti-trans discrimination, while effectively contrasting the activities to resist Trump in the Democratic Party, against the collaborators and surrender muppets who're consistently advising the Party to abandon vulnerable marginalized groups at the precise moment a fascist regime comes for those people.

One segment that really stood out to me is when Figueredo explained that estimates indicated there are as few as two transgender athletes playing high school sports in the entire state of Maine. This of course highlights the unfathomable malevolence of the Trump regime towards trans people, in that they would threaten a school lunch program that serves 170,000 students in the state among other threatened funding cuts, just to discriminate against two trans people; the fact that Mills is willing to fight for the human rights of two people in her entire state when the stakes are this high demonstrates her ability to rise to the moment in the fascist Trump 2.0 era. By contrast however, when Mike asks if anyone believes a guy like Gavin Newsom would make the same choice, I think anyone who is paying attention can agree the answer is no. By contrasting Mills' active resistance to Trump's ongoing war against her state, with the appeasement and collaboration agenda proposed by folks like Newsom, Rahm Emanuel, and Elissa Slotkin, Figueredo also illuminates the likely reason that the public doesn't feel like Democrats are doing enough to resist the Trump agenda, and the Party remains mired in terrible polling even as the Trump regime also craters in popularity.

It's a broad, electoral politics-focused discussion, and I don't want to blow sunshine up your butt about a single court ruling. But if we're going to rip the liberal establishment for collaborating with fascism, it makes sense to talk about what a realistic opposition to Trump's fascist agenda might look like. Nobody is throwing a ticker tape parade here, but a Democratic Party lead by folks like Mills, Van Hollen, Pritzker, Ocasio-Cortez, and Sanders all resisting the Trump regime is an asset to folks who don't like fascism; while one that insists on embracing Trump's fascist agenda and throwing marginalized people to the wolves, is not. It would be nice if for once, The Democratic Party's leadership class made the right choice.

The Humanist Report:
Trump Faces Humiliating Defeat to Democratic Governor He Threatened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKMUqEBmBbU

"Trump publicly attacked Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, back in February after she refused to comply with his discriminatory trans sports ban in schools. She told Trump, “I’ll see you in court,” and he retorted by saying it would be an “easy” win against her. The Trump Administration subsequently launched a probe into her state, and Trump himself demanded an apology from Mills on Truth Social. She never backed down and just had a major victory against the Trump administration in court."

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #DemocraticParty #JanetMills #TransRights #AntiTransPogrom #Courts #Maine #GavinNewsom #ElissaSlotkin #TheHumanistReport #MikeFigueredo

In a ruling that simultaneously demonstrates that "the cruelty is the point" and "the American legal process is designed to work for the oppressor," the Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration an emergency stay of lower court orders blocking their unconstitutional and frankly eliminationist trans military ban; allowing the government to immediately begin discharging trans service members while lawsuits against the ban make their way through the courts.

https://www.advocate.com/news/scotus-allows-trans-military-ban

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to enforce transgender military ban

"LGBTQ+ advocates condemned the ruling. In a joint statement, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which represent plaintiffs in the case, called the decision “a devastating blow to transgender servicemembers who have demonstrated their capabilities and commitment to our nation’s defense.” The groups argued the policy “has nothing to do with military readiness and everything to do with prejudice,” adding that the ban “violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and will ultimately be struck down.”

The administration had sought an emergency stay from the Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit denied a similar request on April 18. In their response brief last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the government’s request was based on a “shocking proposition that transgender people do not exist,” and argued the policy “fails under any level of review.” The brief emphasized that the active-duty plaintiffs have over 115 years of combined military service and over 70 commendations."

Alright, let me state up front that I remain a committed anti-imperialist, peace advocate, and anarcho-syndicalist. I am not for war, militarism, or gunning down brown kids in far away lands on behalf of American oil companies and calling yourself a hero afterwards. If I had my way, there would be no military for trans service members to be banned from. But this ruling isn't about banning military service for everyone, it's about banning military service for trans people specifically because the government has legally declared that trans people don't exist while simultaneously implying that being trans is a type of mental illness that makes folks unsuitable for employment by the Department of Defense. In that regard then, this ruling is a part of the Trump regime's ongoing anti-trans pogrom and the larger fascist right's open attempts to drive trans people out of American public life. There are real people here, who even if I strongly disagree with their career choices are being harmed for nothing more than their gender identity; the fact that this is happening in the US military with the support of a Christian Nationalist-friendly SCOTUS doesn't make it any different than if McDonald's were firing trans people because "they're too unstable to operate a fry cooker." This similarity is of course intentional, because anti-trans fascists don't want to just remove trans people from the military, they want *everyone* to stop employing trans people entirely; that's how a pogrom works.

All of which of course leaves us with the harms themselves, and the lawless, vindictive nature of the Trump regime's war on trans existence. The fact is it remains highly unlikely that the Trump trans military ban is going to ultimately survive the numerous legal challenges against it; and the six fascist or fascist-friendly judges sitting on SCOTUS know that. Unless they're prepared to effectively invent new law, the ban will ultimately be struck down; which begs the question of why they would allow the Trump regime to start enacting the ban in the meantime while the suits against it make their way through the courts? Particularly given that discharge will irreparably harm the careers of trans service members who are likely to successfully sue the government for doing so once the ban is ultimately overturned. The answer of course is that doing so will allow the regime to harm, purge, and demonize some trans people in the interim, and since all these folks would be for simply locking up or eliminating trans people if the law would allow it, they're happy to err on the side of destroying trans lives and careers to feed raw meat to the Christian Nationalist base this movement relies on for support.

#Fascism #Trump #SCOTUS #TransRights #AntiTransPogrom #LGBTQ #ChristianNationalism #TransMilitaryBan #Transphobia #Eliminationism

In between preparing American cops for martial law, and creating a fascist surveillance database of autistic Americans, the Trump regime is still finding time to aggressively prosecute its anti-trans pogrom and ultimately trans-eliminationist agenda. In what is undoubtedly a preparatory move for further assaults on trans existence in American life, the HHS department has released its own sham "anti-trans" study into youth gender affirming care that aligns completely with the sham UK "Cass Report" that is being used to strip trans rights in that country.

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/fact-check-trumps-hhs-review-on-trans

Fact Check: Trump's HHS Review On Trans Care Filled With Pseudoscience, Pushes Conversion Therapy

"On Thursday, May 1, the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, now helmed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., released a report masquerading as science but serving as a blunt instrument of ideological warfare against transgender youth. Commissioned under Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order, the report’s conclusions were preordained, its framing designed to validate a political agenda rather than present credible research. It names no authors, has no peer-reviewed process, and bears no hallmarks of legitimate scientific inquiry—just a faceless document no one was willing to claim. Among its recommendations: conversion therapy for trans youth, the reclassification of social transition as medical treatment, and an absurd assertion that transgender care should be judged not by patient well-being or satisfaction but by “employability” and the presence of “romantic partners.”

At more than 400 pages, the document is poised to draw a wave of fact-checks and scientific rebuttals. The American Academy of Pediatrics has already issued a sharp condemnation, calling it “inaccurate,” “misleading,” and a distortion of “the current medical consensus.”

There is something entirely unnerving about feeling like you have to explain to cis society at large that a blatant piece of fascist anti-trans propaganda, which is what this HHS report is, is not a credible work of science, medical policy, or academic rigor. Medical associations and trans rights groups are already coming forward to point out this is junk science and propaganda written to achieve an objective, rather than solve a real problem. That objective is clearly the dehumanization and medicalization of trans existence, while ominously promoting literal fucking conversion therapy as acceptable medical practice to "treat" youth gender dysphoria.

Furthermore, given that the report seems to define trans "youth" as anyone under the age of 26, the regime's open threats against even adult trans medical care, and the decision to cloak this entire anti-trans agenda under the framework of anti-genital mutilation laws, it shouldn't take a degree in gender studies to figure out this report is going to be used to go after trans rights and the public existence of trans people of all ages; particularly given that the Cass Report it was modelled after has been used to accomplish some of those same goals in the UK. In fact I'm so certain that this report is the tip of the spear for an American state attack on trans existence as a whole, that I'm mostly sharing Erin Reed's debunking of its most egregious and appalling arguments for future reference, because I'm sure the regime itself is going to refer back to it early and often.

While I certainly recommend you read the entire piece, I'd like to highlight her notes on the conversion therapy issue; otherwise known as legalizing and normalizing "torturing the trans out of your kids."

"The review flounders when attempting to present viable alternatives to gender-affirming care—chief among them, psychotherapy. There is no comprehensive evidence that talk therapy alone can treat gender dysphoria. On the contrary, the documented harms of conversion therapy are extensive: LGBTQ+ youth subjected to it are more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts in the past year. The report attempts to have it both ways—insisting that psychotherapy for gender dysphoria isn’t conversion therapy, while also suggesting, in the same breath, that conversion therapy (“psychotherapy” or “psychiatric care” in the report) might actually be effective in curing gender dysphoria."

Folks, I don't know how to say this any more clearly; gender ideology is a conspiracy theory, social contagion is a winger cope to explain away their trans children without acknowledging their kid's agency, and none of this is about protecting children. The Trump regime's Christian Nationalist agenda openly includes ending gender affirming care and driving trans people out of public life. Among the very first things Trump did when he got back in office is issue an executive order decreeing that trans people don't exist. These freaks are serious, and they're coming for trans people at pace.

#Fascism #Trump #HHS #RFKJr #AntiTransPogrom #TransRights #LGBTQ #ChristianNationalism

In a move previously signaled by a Marjorie Taylor Green fact-finding hearing that resembled nothing more than a HUAC trial from the darkest days of McCarthyism, the Klepto Kaiser finally snapped and is attempting to defund PBS and NPR for the high crime of broadcasting "woke ideology" - which at this point clearly means anything Trump and other rich white nazis don't like.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/blatantly-unlawful-trump-slammed-for-trying-to-defund-pbs-npr/

Trump demands defunding of PBS and NPR over “woke propaganda”

"President Donald Trump escalated his attack on NPR and PBS on Thursday when he signed an executive order demanding the end of all federal funding supporting the news outlets.

In his order, Trump claimed that unlike in the 1960s, when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was funded to ensure Americans had access to critical news, there are plenty of news options today. He has joined other Republicans accusing NPR and PBS of promoting a left-leaning bias. In a White House statement, he ordered any agency directly or indirectly funding the outlets' allegedly "woke propaganda" to "end the madness" as soon as possible, cutting off current funding "to the maximum extent allowed by law" and declining "to provide future funding."

There's a lot to unpack here; while I may not always ideologically agree with the folks at Ars, they do still produce deep longform investigative dives into the stories they cover - a rarity in the modern media environment. Firstly, no Trump probably can't legally do this, and yes he's just yolo-ing it out into the world anyway; also, it's Friday. As the article notes, it's unclear how Trump can order the CPB to cut already-approved funding for the next two years, and we haven't even gotten into how the "whys" Trump wants to do this all violate free speech and freedom of the press rights. This is petulant manbaby dictator shit.

Additionally, it's not at all clear that Trump's illegal tantrum is going to meaningfully affect his targets, NPR and PBS, anyway. Only 1% of NPR's funding actually comes from the US government, and PBS only receives 15% of its funding from the CPB. Since Der Führer has not yet granted himself the authority to simply throw members of the media in jail for expressing opinions and criticisms he doesn't like, the funding cut is as far as he can go for now. Unfortunately however, Trump's tantrum will definitely have victims and impoverish an already appalling American media environment; particularly in rural communities where smaller stations can rely on the CPB for as much as 50% of their funding.

"Cutting off funding, Kreger said last month, would have a "devastating impact" on rural communities, especially in parts of the country where NPR and PBS still serve as "the only source of news and emergency broadcasts," NPR reported.

For example, Ed Ulman, CEO of Alaska Public Media, testified to Congress last month that his stations "provide potentially life-saving warnings and alerts that are crucial for Alaskans who face threats ranging from extreme weather to earthquakes, landslides, and even volcanoes." Some of the smallest rural stations sometimes rely on CPB for about 50 percent of their funding, NPR reported."

All of which leaves us with the "whys" which really don't require us to read many tea leaves before we find the fascist ideological policing and reactionary bullshit. Downmarket Mussolini more or less just said the quiet part out loud:

"While Trump opposes NPR and PBS for promoting content that he disagrees with—criticizing segments on white privilege, gender identity, reparations, "fat phobia," and abortion—the networks have defended their programming as unbiased and falling in line with Federal Communications Commission guidelines."

I confess that on some level it's probably amusing to picture Trump sitting in front of a TV and getting big mad when it tells him Black and trans people exist, he shouldn't bully overweight people, and the abortion bans he facilitated are hurting American women. The reality here however is that in signaling what the president doesn't want to see in publicly-funded media, he's effectively articulating a Christian Nationalist agenda. As we've discussed numerous times on this blog, the regime is not just fighting a material war to install a fascist dictatorship in our society; they're also fighting an authoritarian cultural war on our discourse, our history, and who is allowed to matter in our media entertainment complex. The ideological war Trump is trying to use state power to enforce here, is just as important to the Trumpenrich project to create a white ethnostate dictatorship under the Kelpto Kaiser, as its material expansion of the American fascist police state is.

#Trump #Fascism #PBS #NPR #Media #ChristianNationalism #IdeologicalPolicing #CPB #Racism #TransRights #AntiTransPogrom #Abortion #Mysogyny #PoliceState #WhiteSupremacy #USPol

This is an older article from February 2025, but I thought it might be worth sharing here in the wake of Trump's attempts to transform the civil rights section at the Department of Justice into a fascist attack dog that works only to further his authoritarian ideological goals. Within three weeks of Downmarket Mussolini's inauguration, the regime had already repurposed the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights towards prosecuting Trump's Christian Nationalist agenda, while actively sidelining investigations into racial abuse, disability access, and even sexual assault.

https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-civil-rights-office-investigations

“We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump

"In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt.

At the same time, there’s been a dramatic drop in the number of new cases opened by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and the few that attorneys have been directed to investigate reflect some of Trump’s priorities: getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students."

I don't really think it's a coincidence that Trump and his Education Secretary Linda McMahon (a woman extremely active in the cause to privatize education and promote religious voucher schools) immediately prioritized the same winger bullshit at the DOE as the regime is now trying to force the DoJ's civil rights division to pursue; namely discrimination against white people, alleged antisemitism, and women's rights - but only in the extremely narrow context of keeping trans women out of women's sports and bathrooms. This is a Christian Nationalist government, actively working to install a Christian Nationalist political and social order on the United States by whatever means legal, or extralegal, it requires to do so.

#Fascism #Trump #LindaMcMahon #CivilRights #ChristianNationalism #DepartmentOfEducation #USPol #AntiTransPogrom #Racism #DoJ #WhiteSupremacy #Patriarchy #DisabilityRights