LGBTQ+ News Weekly Update

Week of March 1 - 7

With a constant barrage of news from multiple outlets, it can be hard to keep up. This year, we began doing monthly LGBTQ+ news rundowns, highlighting stories you may have missed. However, these monthly rundowns have ended up particularly long, which can still be pretty overwhelming, so we are testing out a weekly model for the month of March instead. Let us know what you prefer!

Also, something incredibly important to me is citing the work of dedicated journalists, especially smaller local publications doing outstanding reporting. In this newsletter, I am not the one doing the initial reporting; I just hope this is a helpful resource that condenses LGBTQ+ news, and I highly encourage you to click the hyperlinks and check out the full stories.

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The Stories

Monday, March 2 - “The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for California schools to tell religious parents if their children identify as transgender without getting the student's approval, granting an emergency appeal from a conservative legal group.”

Monday, March 2 - “Mental health providers licensed by the state cannot provide gender-transitioning care to minors, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.”

Tuesday, March 3 - “Between 2021 and 2025, Black nonbinary artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson visited 91 locations across 15 states – in all of these sites a trans, gender nonconforming, or intersex individual had died, either by murder or suicide. At each site they conducted a ceremony of their own to bear witness to what had happened there. Currently showing at Los Angeles’s California African American Museum (CAAM) is These Waking Glories, Whitson’s solo show displaying a variety of photos and other pieces in conjunction with these ceremonies.”

Tuesday, March 3 -  “Attorneys (in Kansas) will argue Friday in court over whether a judge should delay enforcement of a state law that restricts bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth and invalidates driver’s licenses and birth certificates for those who changed their gender marker.”

Tuesday, March 3 - “New York Attorney General Letitia James is ordering one of Manhattan’s largest hospitals to resume providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, weeks after the hospital ended such treatments amid funding threats from the federal government.”

Wednesday, March 4 - “A small group of protesters gathered at an Elk Grove Unified School District meeting Tuesday to urge the board to reject a resolution to recognize Transgender Day of Visibility.”

Wednesday, March 4 - “Hours before the crossover day deadline, West Virginia senators passed two bills that target LGBTQ+ people on Wednesday.”

Thursday, March 5 - “A Kentucky Republican lawmaker wants to ban people from using bathrooms in public buildings that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.”

Thursday, March 5 - “Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, President Donald Trump’s next pick for Homeland Security secretary, consistently uses his social media platforms to share anti-abortion and anti-trans content.”

Friday, March 6 - “A Maryland man detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during what his family believed would be a routine compliance appointment now faces possible deportation to Cameroon, a country where same-sex relationships are criminalized, and LGBTQ+ people face widespread persecution.”

Friday, March 6 - “When Reed Peggram met Arne Hauptmann in Paris in 1939, neither could have imagined their love would carry them through imprisonment, escape, and survival behind enemy lines in wartime Italy.”

Friday, March 6 - “Two federal judges have denied the Trump administration’s request that they recuse themselves from its lawsuit against Maine over transgender athletes.”

Friday, March 6 - “Iowa House Republicans passed a bill barring local governments from enacting protections against gender identity-based discrimination, sending their expansion of a landmark 2025 law to the Senate with new limits on local civil rights panels' powers.”

Friday, March 6 - “ Kansans won’t know until at least Tuesday if a judge will delay implementation of the state’s new “bathroom law,” but a concession by Attorney General Kris Kobach means key components of the law can be delayed until March 26.”

Friday, March 6 -  “Kansas was the first to act, passing a bathroom bounty hunter system and invalidating transgender people's IDs. Idaho and Missouri began advancing their own bills. Now, the New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed its own version—one of the most extreme in the United States, which states that a trans person using the bathroom of their gender identity is a crime under the state civil rights act, violations of which carries hefty penalties. The bill passed 181-164 on Wednesday night, just weeks after Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoed a separate bathroom ban. Republicans are now sending her something far more aggressive—raising the question of whether they are trying to move the goalposts or simply daring her to veto again.”

Saturday, March 7 - “Senate Bill 351 uses decades-old criteria to ban anyone diagnosed with or treated for gender dysphoria from applying for or renewing a teaching license. House Bill 867 requires transgender people to use bathrooms associated with their birth sex in government buildings.”

Final Thoughts

This week’s articles are a reminder of the trying times we are in, particularly with legislation impacting transgender people, especially transgender students. It’s scary and disheartening that a population so small is under attack by the government when all they want is to live their lives. What these stories also show me, though, is that the government’s attempts to legislate away transgender people aren’t without resistance. From an exhibit honoring the lives of trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming lives lost, to New York Attorney General ordering one of Manhattan’s largest hospitals to resume providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, and so much more—it’s a reminder that while things are bleak, there is always hope and resistance if we look for it.

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