The old order is gone. Donald Trump didn’t just upset the apple cart of traditional rules and propriety – he set it on fire and laughed as his sycophants ushered his retreat into a fantasy gilded castle where he can be king for life.

Even beloved former First Lady Michelle Obama set aside her famous “we go high” approach to morally withered Republicans and, in the face of the obvious dangers to democracy Trump presented, urged Democrats to get politically practical before the 2024 elections.

“If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our faces, and do something,” Obama said.

Do something.

The grassroots chorus from “We the People” has grown louder and louder since regular, ordinary people took to the freezing, snow-covered streets of Minneapolis to protest the killing of two American citizens trying to protect their immigrant neighbors from militarized ICE agents. Recently, momentum from the massive No Kings rallies has shifted to local, regional, and state races as the critical midterm elections approach, and Democrats have been largely successful in their new “fight fire with fire” strategy.

But Trump seems obsessed with building his $400 million ballroom instead of doing something to help Republicans win elections, including sitting on an unspent $500 million war chest, while, as Alternet notes, his popularity steadily declines among once fierce loyalists.

“Even Fox News is now reporting Trump’s approval rating has plummeted to 33 percent [AP/NORC poll] over his foolish decision to send the US economy into a likely recession over his decision to fight an unnecessary and unprovoked war of aggression,” wrote David Pyne, a former America First Trump supporter and security expert who serves as a Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stick it to the media, which he describes as the “enemy of the people.” That group now includes former conservative allies like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, who he describes as “nut jobs” and “troublemakers” for criticizing him over the still-unexplained war in Iran.

Trump likes using his power to humiliate – especially women journalists of color – and retaliate against his enemies, a key tenet of the Authoritarian Playbook that organizations like Protect Democracy continue to update and explain.

“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” Trump’s post on Truth Social, Sept. 2023, before winning a second term in 2024.

The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025 explains: “A hallmark of any democracy is the freedom to criticize the government without fear of censorship or reprisal. Trump has promised — and has developed plans — to use the regulatory and administrative powers of government to force political loyalty; sow disinformation; and quash speech by journalists and media outlets, businesses, and other private citizens. These plans follow the measures used by Viktor Orbán in Hungary and other 21st-century autocrats to transform government power to serve the parochial interests of the ruler, not the broader public.”

Despite Trump’s support, Orban recently lost re-election, ending 16 years of “electoral autocracy.”

Trump and his administration also expanded attacks on the First Amendment, with the FBI investigating a New York Times reporter who wrote about the director Kash Patel using taxpayer-funded bureau personnel and resources to provide security for his girlfriend. The investigation included searching databases for information on reporter Elizabeth Williamson to see if she broke any federal stalking laws.

“The F.B.I.’s attempt to criminalize routine reporting is a blatant violation of Elizabeth’s First Amendment rights and another attempt by this administration to prevent journalists from scrutinizing its actions,” said Joseph Kahn, the executive editor of The Times. “It’s alarming. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.”

Interestingly, news of the Justice Department’s apparent retaliatory action leaked days before the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday night, April 28. Trump’s acknowledgement of the WHCA invitation is like an obnoxious little boy sticking his tongue out.

“The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge. In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these “Correspondents” now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER! Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree. However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he posted March 2 on Truth Social.

Some enraged journalists called for the fundraising dinner to be cancelled. Veteran ABC News journalists Ian Cameron and Lisa Stark had another idea: get colleagues to sign a public letter to WHCA urging them to do something to protest Trump’s authoritarian tactics.

“We first began thinking about this in late March, as it became clear the President would attend the dinner. We just felt we had to speak out about this,” former ABC News correspondent Lisa Stark told LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters. “The WHCA dinner is held to celebrate the First Amendment and freedom of the press, and yet the guest of honor is the man who, along with his administration, has done everything possible to undermine freedom of the press and destroy trust in the press.”

The response has been overwhelming. After several days of outreach, the ad hoc group collected 414 signatures (including mine as a former journalist for CBS News/LGBTQ press), as well as six press/First Amendment organizations.

“It’s gratifying that so many former journalists see a threat to press freedom and want to speak out,” says Stark. “We know current journalists, those in the media trenches now, aren’t in a position to raise their voices. We feel an obligation to do so on their behalf. We can’t treat this as business as usual – these are not normal times.”

The petition cites 22 instances of Trump’s attacks on the press and First Amendment, not including the most recent involving the NY Times and updates on the Associated Press lawsuit.

“The collective weight of the administration’s actions — retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press — represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president,” the petition reads, in part.

“We understand that some journalists plan to wear pocket handkerchiefs or lapel pins with the words of the First Amendment,” the petition says. “And continuing in that spirit, we believe the White House Correspondents Association should take stronger action by issuing – from the podium – a forceful defense of freedom of the press and condemnation of those who threaten that freedom, followed by a standing toast to the First Amendment and a pledge to continue upholding such a critical cornerstone of our democracy. Speak forcefully, in front of the man who seeks to undermine our country’s long tradition of an independent, strong, and free press.”

The petition concludes: “We also urge the WHCA to reaffirm, without equivocation, that freedom of the press is not a partisan issue and that the Association will not normalize this behavior but instead fight back against any officeholder who has waged systematic war against the journalists whose work the dinner celebrates.”

What now? The Daily Beast reports that “Donald Trump will launch a ‘revenge’ attack on the White House media when he confronts them in person at a Washington dinner on Saturday night—then flee before there can be revenge.”

Might the WHCA DJ play him off stage with Roy Orbison’s “Running Scared?”

But Trump will have cronies in the room who will turn his antics into memes about “crushing” the “lamestream media.” It’s an obvious ploy to excite Trump’s base.

In a scathing column, longtime journalist Margaret Sullivan notes that some media companies and bosses have gone from courtesy to courting, “inviting blatantly anti-press officials, including the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to be guests at their tables, or (in the case of David Ellison, CEO of CBS News’s parent company) even holding a separate dinner to “honor” Trump. Paramount, the parent of CBS News, is said to have invited Brendan Carr to their table; he is the FCC chair who has made a mockery of what should be his independent and non-partisan role; appointed by Trump, he has come down clearly on the side of the president’s allies in consequential decisions – including those involving Paramount’s mergers with other media corporations.”

“It’s akin to a fire department inviting arsonists to a gathering aimed at celebrating firefighting,” Sullivan quotes Oliver Darcy as writing in his media newsletter, Status.

So, gala attendees, as the petition asks, Please Do Something!

This is all particularly jarring for LGBTQ+ journalists. Eric Schultz was the first out gay deputy White House press secretary to give briefings during the Obama administration. Then came the first Black lesbian, Karine Jean-Pierre, during the Biden administration, and the independent WHCA assigned a seat (shared with the Boston Globe) and rotating pool responsibilities to the LGBTQ+ Washington Blade, which still retains the privilege.

But for those of us who remember President Reagan’s Press Secretary Larry Speakes laughing and ridiculing White House reporters when he was asked about Reagan’s position on AIDS, being officially seated was a big deal. When CSPAN started broadcasting the dinner in 1993, we scanned every TV inch to see who might be wearing Red Ribbons to the “Nerd Prom,” who might be gay, and who we knew to be closeted – spinning President Clinton’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy to favor anti-gay Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn.

And then there was the “Golden Age,” as the Washington Post described the gala in 2023. “There was the time Ellen DeGeneres, just days out of the closet, canoodled with new girlfriend Anne Heche right in front of Bill Clinton. The time George W. Bush goofed around with a George W. Bush impersonator. The time Barack Obama dunked on reality TV star Donald Trump to the rapturous shrieks of the media elite. What a time to be alive, and in attendance, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner!”

Last year, post-COVID, WHCA was headed by married Black gay Eugene Daniels, MSNBC’s Senior Washington Correspondent. The stars were the parade of journalists of color, mostly women, who served as co-hosts, presenters, honorees, and award winners.

Daniels addressed the missing orange man in the room. “We don’t only extend invites to the presidents who say they love journalists or who say they’re defenders of the First Amendment and a free press. We invite them to remind them that they should be,” Daniels said.

“When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786 that, ‘Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost,’ he and the other framers of the United States understood the danger unchecked power poses to the ideals and people of this nation,” he continued.

“We journalists are a lot of things,” Eugene Daniels said last year to a ballroom of 2,600 attendees. “What we are not is the enemy of the people, and what we are not is the enemy of the state….Every single day, journalists in this country face threats of intimidation, lawsuits, and violence. Those attacks are meant to do one thing: stop us from sharing the truth with the people…

“I want to leave you with the words of a trailblazing journalist, Ida B. Wells, ‘The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.’ Despite everything, I’m still optimistic about the power of what we do and more assured than ever of the importance of defending it. Everyone in this room can and should stand in the breach. Everyone can and should push for what we know is right. Everyone can and should stand up against government interference in a free press. And a promise I make to you is that the White House Correspondents Association, this board, will always defend your right to do your jobs.”

We’ll be watching CSPAN. Show us you mean it. Do something!

Read the full petition with signatories here.

This is a cross-post from Karen’s LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters Substack.

A right does not need to be banned to be restricted. Sometimes it only needs to be made uncertain.

That is what emerges from a closer examination of adoption access for same-sex couples across different countries. There is no broad legal rollback. What appears instead is a more subtle pattern: rights that remain on paper but become fragile, conditional, and uneven in practice.

Italy provides a clear example.

Since 2023, under the government of Giorgia Meloni, administrative decisions have limited the automatic recognition of both mothers in female same-sex couples, particularly in cases involving assisted reproduction abroad. In practice, many families have been forced into additional legal proceedings to validate relationships already established.

At the same time, Italy has intensified its opposition to surrogacy, extending penalties even to those who pursue it outside the country. Human rights organizations have warned that these measures disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ families, particularly male couples.

The judiciary, however, has pushed back.

In 2025, the Constitutional Court ruled that a non-biological mother cannot be excluded from legal recognition when there is a shared parental project. It also removed a long-standing restriction that prevented single individuals from accessing international adoption.

Italy has not eliminated these rights. But it has made them unstable.

When a right depends on litigation, judicial timelines, or shifting interpretations, it is no longer fully guaranteed.

In the United States, the structure differs, but the outcome converges.

At the federal level, same-sex couples can adopt. Yet the system varies widely across states.

Data from the Movement Advancement Project show that while some states explicitly prohibit discrimination in adoption, others provide no clear protections. In several states, licensed agencies can refuse to work with same-sex couples based on religious objections.

Access, therefore, is shaped not only by law, but by geography, institutions, and applied standards.

Research from the Williams Institute further complicates the narrative. Same-sex couples adopt and foster children at higher rates than different-sex couples.

The contradiction is clear.

Child welfare is invoked, yet the pool of available families is reduced. Faith is cited, yet it is used as a filter within publicly funded systems.

The consequences are tangible
children remain longer in care
processes become more complex
families face unequal scrutiny

What is happening in Italy and the United States is not isolated. Across parts of Europe, conservative governments have advanced legal frameworks that reinforce traditional definitions of family while limiting recognition of diverse ones.

Adoption is not always addressed directly. But the impact accumulates.

Options are restricted while the language of protection is used to justify it.

There is no need to soften it.

This is not only a debate about family models. It is a decision about who is recognized as family and who must continue asking for permission.

That is not neutral.

It is political.

And when a right depends on where you live, who evaluates you, or how hard you are willing to fight for it, that right is already being weakened.

Last year on 4/20, I stood outside Pleasure Med in West Hollywood, surrounded by community, advocates, and organizers, hosting a cannabis justice event where Last Prisoner Project (LPP) was honored by the City of West Hollywood for helping clear more than 200,000 cannabis records across California.

This year, on 4/20, I’m running for West Hollywood City Council.

West Hollywood has always been more than just a city to me. It’s a symbol of what’s possible when people fight for dignity, visibility, and justice. As a queer person, I know firsthand how powerful it is to live in a place where you can hold your partner’s hand without fear, where your identity is not just accepted, but celebrated. But we can’t take that progress for granted, especially today with increasing attacks on our LGBTQ+ community. WeHo can’t wait for the next generation of bold ideas.

This evolution from advocate to candidate is an example of how I have been translating queer joy into queer power.

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Last year, I helped coordinate the Loud & Proud campaign in partnership with Culture Machine and LPP, which was rooted in a simple but urgent truth: the LGBTQ+ rights movement and cannabis justice movement are deeply intertwined. Both were born out of resistance. Both have been criminalized. And both are still fighting for full equity and inclusion.

My work with the Last Prisoner Project has taken me across the country organizing, advocating, and building coalitions to free those still incarcerated for cannabis offenses. I’ve sat with families who have lost decades with their loved ones. I’ve worked alongside directly impacted individuals who turned their pain into purpose. And I’ve seen what can happen when policy finally catches up with people: healing, restoration, and hope.

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But advocacy alone isn’t enough. We need leaders inside government who understand these issues not as abstract policies, but as lived realities.

That’s where this campaign comes in.

West Hollywood is at a crossroads. We are a city that has led on LGBTQ+ rights, on tenant protections, and on cannabis legalization, but leadership means continuing to evolve. It means asking hard questions: How do we ensure our cannabis industry remains equitable and locally beneficial? How do we protect renters in a city where housing costs continue to rise? How do we preserve the cultural vibrancy that makes West Hollywood the creative city?

I believe the answers start with community.

We need to strengthen our local cannabis economy while advocating for state and federal reforms that allow our businesses to thrive. We need to protect and expand rent stabilization tools so that longtime residents aren’t priced out of the community they helped build. And we need to think bigger about what West Hollywood can be. From creating a world-class, large-scale cannabis festival that rivals our iconic Pride celebrations, to investing in small businesses, nightlife, and the creative economy that defines our city.

This is the energy I bring, but this campaign is also about experience.

I’ve spent years organizing at the intersection of policy and people. Whether it’s working with local leaders, engaging state officials, or building national coalitions, I know how to move ideas into action. I know how to bring people to the table. And I know that real change requires both urgency and persistence.

Running for office, especially as a young, queer advocate, comes with its own set of challenges. But West Hollywood has never been a city that backs down from a challenge. We are a community built by people who refused to be silent, who refused to be invisible, who refused to accept the status quo. I am fighting for a West Hollywood where we honor this history, while shepherding a future that works for everybody. 

I’m Stephen Post, and I am running loud and proud to be your next West Hollywood City Council member. Join me by visiting post4weho.com or supporting with a donation here.

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On March 31, 2026, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14399 entitled: “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” Who could oppose election integrity?

That is precisely why Americans should read beyond the title.

Beneath the falsely reassuring rhetoric, EO 14399 is an unprecedented attempt to place new federal barriers between millions of Americans and the ballot box. It doesn’t just tinker at the margins. It tries to rewire the entire machinery of mail-in voting — fast, through agencies that were never built for this job, on a timeline that virtually guarantees error.

What the Order Actually Does

The order does three major things. First, it directs the Department of Homeland Security — working through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration — to build state-by-state “State Citizenship Lists” from federal databases, and transmit those lists to state election officials at least 60 days before every federal election. DHS must stand up this entire infrastructure within 90 days.

Second — and this is the part that should alarm every voter — it directs the U.S. Postal Service to issue rules within 120 days that would make USPS a gatekeeper for ballot delivery. Under the order, USPS “shall not transmit” mail-in or absentee ballots unless a voter is enrolled on a federally mandated state-specific participation list. Miss the list, miss your ballot.

Third, it escalates enforcement pressure by directing the Department of Justice to prioritize prosecutions of officials involved in distributing ballots to anyone deemed “ineligible,” and threatens to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

Supporters say this is simply about ensuring only citizens vote. But noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal — and federal criminal statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 611 (voting by aliens) and 52 U.S.C. § 20511 (criminal penalties under the National Voter Registration Act), already exist to prosecute it. If the goal were simply to enforce existing law, there would be no need to rebuild the entire mail-in voting infrastructure from scratch.

The Brookings Institution has analyzed mail-in voting fraud and found it exceedingly rare, while documenting the significant access advantages mail-in voting provides — especially for working people, seniors, and disabled voters. You don’t respond to a low-incidence problem by building a nationalized gate that creates a far higher-incidence exclusion problem.

The Database Problem Is Real

Here is what gets lost in the political noise: federal databases are deeply imperfect. They contain gaps, mismatches, and outdated information — especially for people who have moved, changed names, naturalized, or had records created in different eras.

A joint investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that SAVE — the federal immigration-status verification system at the heart of this order — has repeatedly produced false flags, including widespread misidentification of citizens born outside the United States. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has likewise flagged SAVE’s accuracy problems and the urgent need for meaningful error-correction mechanisms. Those safeguards don’t exist yet. This order would tie voting access to that flawed system anyway.

A misspelled surname. A missing hyphen. A record that didn’t update when someone naturalized. In most settings, those are fixable administrative errors. In elections — where deadlines are real, and the burden falls on the voter — they become functional disenfranchisement.

Why LGBTQ+ Voters Are Especially at Risk

These barriers don’t fall evenly. They fall hardest on people whose lives are more likely to be out of sync with “official” records. And for LGBTQ+ Americans, that is not a hypothetical concern.

Consider transgender voters. The Williams Institute estimates that in 2024, more than 200,000 voting-eligible transgender people lacked ID documents fully reflecting their correct name and gender. EO 14399 is not a voter-ID-at-the-polls order — it is a record-matching order. And record-matching systems are precisely where mismatches become denials. A transgender voter may have updated their driver’s license but not their Social Security record. A former name in an older federal database could be enough to leave them off the list entirely.

And consider housing instability. The Williams Institute also reports higher rates of recent homelessness among transgender adults than among cisgender peers — and housing instability is one of the most common ways people fall out of sync with official records. When ballot delivery is driven by centralized lists and rigid deadlines, people who have moved, rebuilt, or stabilized after disruption are most likely to be missed.

The same risk extends to anyone whose life doesn’t fit neatly into a database: the college student who just moved apartments, the senior citizen who votes by mail because standing in line for hours is physically difficult, the veteran stationed overseas, the lesbian couple who recently changed their last names, the working parent who cannot take half a day off to vote in person.

What This Means for California

California has built one of the most accessible voting systems in the country. Every active registered voter receives a ballot by mail. Californians can vote from home, return ballots through drop boxes, or vote early in person. That system has meaningfully expanded participation — especially among young people, working people, disabled people, and communities historically excluded from politics.

EO 14399 strikes directly at that model. If implemented, it would allow Washington politicians and federal agencies to decide whether Californians are “eligible enough” to receive the ballot they have long been entitled to.

Why the Courts Are Already Pushing Back

The order is already in court. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued in federal court in Boston to block it, arguing it violates the Constitution and interferes with state election systems. The ACLU and partner organizations filed a separate challenge. Legal scholars across the political spectrum have concluded the order is likely unconstitutional.

The reason is structural. Under the Constitution’s Elections Clause, states — not the President — administer the times, places, and manner of elections, subject to congressional override. The President cannot unilaterally redesign election administration and mail services through executive order. Congress built USPS as an independent establishment (39 U.S.C. § 201) precisely to keep universal mail service from becoming a political lever. Its basic statutory function is to “bind the Nation together” — not to police ballot eligibility.

But Americans should not take comfort in assuming the courts will save us. Even if this order is ultimately struck down, it serves another purpose: creating confusion, fear, and uncertainty around voting. That confusion alone can suppress turnout. If voters begin to wonder whether they are still registered, whether they will receive a ballot, or whether some technical mistake will disqualify them, many will simply give up. That is the point.

What We Should Do

The LGBTQ+ community knows better than most how rights are eroded: rarely all at once, more often piece by piece, under the guise of procedure, bureaucracy, or “integrity.”

Treat EO 14399 for what it is: a power play falsely packaged as integrity. Demand that courts enforce the constitutional boundary lines. Demand that Congress do its job in the open — if election rules are going to change, they should change through legislation, not executive improvisation. Demand transparency from agencies about data quality, error rates, and correction processes before a single election system is forced onto the public. And support the organizations litigating this.

And if you are registered to vote: check your registration, confirm your mailing address, and make sure your records are current. Because the most powerful answer to efforts to make voting harder is to vote anyway.

Real election integrity means making sure every eligible American can cast a ballot and have it counted. What EO 14399 builds is something else: a system designed to treat eligible voters as suspects, and to make participation conditional on perfect paperwork. If we normalize that, IT WON’T STOP HERE.

Edward Campbell is a Los Angeles-based attorney, LGBTQ advocate, and civil rights activist with extensive experience in affordable housing finance and preservation. He has worked on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels and is a longtime advocate for racial equity and democratic institutions. 

Let’s face it, whether you were raised Christian, Muslim, or Mormon, there is a fundamental friction between religion and queer identity. This is one of the pillars of homophobia, pitting religion against queer people. But does this rob us of healthy spiritual lives? 

We are living in crazy times where we are witnessing true evils in the world. Whether it’s war, genocide, famine, or TLC’s MAGA ties (RIP Chilli). The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy, citing religious freedoms. Is the answer for us as queer people to be free to believe?

It’s starting to feel like we’re in a spiritual war. So how do we arm ourselves? How can we heal the sense of alienation from spirituality we got from hateful sermons, homophobic religious zealots in our family, or just plain ignorance? That way, these issues with religion don’t rob us of healthy spiritual lives. After all, if you don’t believe in anything, you’ll fall for anything.

It’s understandable we might reject our religions of origin, growing up being confronted with rejection by our families, communities, or a religion that preaches issues with something we cannot change. To quote The Book of Gaga, we were born this way. 

And yet, without thriving spiritual lives, we can end up susceptible to issues like addiction, depression, or questionable moral quandaries. It begs the question: Is this religious trauma something we can heal? 

Whether it’s a queer-friendly church, the wonders of witchcraft, or a thriving meditation practice, honoring this area of our lives can be so transformative. I define a spiritual life as anything that encompasses all of the mental, emotional, physical, and holistic concepts that govern our lives. Or anything that doesn’t quite fit into it, like what happens when we die? Does our attitude influence the world around us? Aliens?

Spirituality is half of what we fundamentally know to be true, i.e., our values, morals, our intuition, and making peace with what we’ll never understand and control. 

If you think about it, it makes sense. We need to be able to give our ego a rest to deal with the myriad of things that are outside of our control. Our questioning of religion is not that off base, considering how many people live with religions that preach peace and love but allow war, that argue against queer sex but ignore the sex crimes of religious and political leaders. They argue for the lives of theoretical children and ignore starving and abused children. That being said, the issue is with them and not their faith.  

I grew up going to Catholic school for 14 years. It wasn’t until I found myself spiritually questioning that I went out and explored other religions, spiritual practices, and fundamentally learned firsthand the definition of all the stuff that was preached at me growing up: joy, grace, charity, and even prayer. 

I’d argue that half the people out there say all these prayers and don’t even know what they mean. But what are we queer people to do? Atheism isn’t the clapback people think it is. If we don’t fundamentally heal the trauma of rejection, persecution, and bullying we face from our religious pasts, it stays with us. That unhealed trauma still exists even if you say there’s nothing out there. If we don’t heal the wound, we are just as faulty as the people who persecute us. 

Instead, I think it’s incumbent on us as queer people to figure out what we do believe, value, and how we define love to be more whole and live fuller lives. 

Whether you find value in Buddhist traditions, meditate by chanting or breathwork, or even if you just worship at the altar of the Law of Attraction, we need something larger than ourselves to capture all the unknowns and heal what we can’t heal ourselves. 

I’ve always struggled reconciling the religion that supported colonialism and slavery. So I explored some of the African and indigenous traditions that still survived in my culture. 

At the end of the day, all of the religious traditions out there have something right. If not, they wouldn’t be able to get practitioners. The fundamental issue is the people, not the religion. 

My hot take is this. If we find something that we believe in that makes us better people, helps us separate from our ego and our primal fears to make more embodied choices, I think that that’s something of value. 

As queer people, no matter how resilient, powerful, and fabulous we are, we deserve peace of mind, freedom of spirit, and the belief in something that has our back. By finding a way to heal what religion has taken away from us: community, morality, and a spiritual life, that’s how we really heal the religious trauma, rather than just acting like none of it is worth retaining.

After all, at the end of the day, if you strip away the unhealed egos and toxic hatred of many religions, they are simply a couple of ideal rules to live by and a couple of spiritual tips and tricks for how to navigate the world. 

Ironically, we are in a position to choose what works for us, and given our existence in the fringes and the middle space, we can see what’s bullshit and what’s fundamentally true for us. There’s a certain magic we can experience as queer people, and we shouldn’t let our pasts rob us of that. 

Christian Cintron is a jack-of-all-trades and master of fun. He’s a writer, comedian, actor, and spiritualist. He created Stand Up 4 Your Power, a program that teaches self-empowerment through stand-up comedy.

It’s a lot. And that’s what the diverse No Kings coalition promoted in organizing their historic March 28 non-violent protest. Regardless of political party or ideology, everyone was welcome to bring their issues and rally around the central constitutional concept that America has no kings, no one is above the law, and “We the People” hold the power, not some spray-painted, man-child wanna-be dictator.

More than 8 million people showed up for the nation’s third No Kings protests with 3,300 anti-authoritarian rallies in all 50 states and on every continent (except Antarctica), connecting with neighbors and strangers in venues large and small, demonstrating that resistance is not futile, as Donald Trump and his ruthless, Borg-like Christian National cult of storm troopers want the world and American voters to believe.

On Friday, April 3, No Kings will host a debriefing on “Where We’re Going.” The No Kings website also features suggestions for continued participation.

Motivating concerns abound as young people struggle with nihilism and Vietnam War-era Baby Boomers like former Vice President Al Gore still deliver dire warnings about climate change and the planet’s future.

But the immediate concern is real. “The President and his advisors are in the midst of what I believe is the greatest geopolitical disaster in the history of our country,” Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson (US Army, retired) told MS Now about the impact of Trump’s war with Iran.

The scandalous lack of promised transparency with the Epstein files and the costly, chaotic, unexplained war in Iran have awakened MAGA supporters. Giuseppe Palazzolo from Staten Island told MS Now he is pissed off because Trump promised no more wars. Now, “we’re knee deep in this illegal war and we’re closer to catastrophe than ever before. I feel so betrayed,” Palazzolo said. “It’s one lie after another. It’s like dominos falling on top of each other….This isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about truth versus deception.”

Wednesday, April 1, is a head-spinner. SCOTUS alarmingly considered the constitutionality of Trump’s January 20, 2025 executive order ending birthright citizenship, followed by NASA’s Artemis 2 liftoff to the moon. Trump ends the day with a talk to the nation about Iran. April Fools.

Meanwhile, normality keeps unraveling – such as SCOTUS’s 8-1 decision to allow so-called “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids. The debunked religious-based “reparative” talk therapy was outlawed in California on October 1, 2012. The bill’s sponsor, then-Calif. State Sen. Ted Lieu, called it psychological child abuse. Gov. Jerry Brown said the therapies “have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery.” Now-Rep. Lieu and the Congressional Equality Caucus filed an amicus brief with SCOTUS opposing the challenge.

“This ruling is a profound failure of both logic and moral responsibility that confuses ‘free speech’ with ‘false speech’,” Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, said in his strong condemnation of the decision.

As attention shifts to the midterm elections, the No King protests will be remembered for joy, humor, empathy, love, and unity, following the neighbor-helping-neighbor example Minnesotans set protecting their undocumented neighbors and resisting the ICE madness that murdered two American citizens – lesbian poet and mother Renee Good and ICU nurse Alex Pretti – as they caused “good trouble.”

Actor/anti-Vietnam War activist Jane Fonda, 88, read a letter from Renee’s widow, Becca , at the St. Paul rally.

“I am so heartbroken. I miss my wife. The world now knows that my wife sparkled with sunshine and shone with kindness that was unmatched. We were robbed of an incredible human. It has made people pause, take a breath, and choose sides. We choose the side of love,” Becca said in the letter. “I feel it’s my responsibility to send a message that hate has divided us and destroyed so many lives and families, but we can choose something else. We can choose radical kindness.”

California turned out – including in Orange County’s Anaheim and conservative districts like Huntington Beach, where MAGA culture warriors wield electoral power, and islands of Democrats like Stockton, where trans flags flew on the frontlines. Indeed, Stockton is a prime example of assumption-busting: though surrounded by ruby red Republicans, this blue gem elected out Susan Talamantes Eggman to serve on the Stockton City Council in 2005 and then in the State Legislature until her retirement in 2024.

Individuals like Ilka, 52, turned out, too, protesting in downtown LA dressed as the Statue of Liberty. “I’m German, and the similarities are really striking to what happened in Germany in the 1930s,” she told the LA Daily News. “Same rhetoric, same mental attitude, same idea, same way of thinking. And so it’s really scary, and it’s really serious to me.”

Out attorney and former West Hollywood mayor/city councilmember John Duran, 66, connected historical dots at the No Kings rally in West Hollywood.

“I wear this [ACT UP] tee shirt proudly. It says ‘Silence = Death’ because we learned a very powerful lesson – that if we were silent in the face of oppression and fascism, it would surely mean our deaths. Instead, we showed up, we laid down in the streets, we protested, we ACTED UP, and we changed the world,” Duran said. “And so now, here you are. And here we all are in the year 2026. You and I were meant to be here now, at this period in time, to decide whether the American Dream persists or whether it is eliminated by those same forces that raise their head every 10 or 20 years.”

Meanwhile, Trump is obsessed with voter suppression.

“Voter fraud conspiracies are like methamphetamine running through MAGA veins, stirring up equal parts passion and paranoia,” writes LA Times columnist Anita Chabria. “President Trump, of course, is the king pusher of this particular addiction, pathologically certain he won the 2020 presidential election (he did not). In his second term, and in advance of the November election, Trump has supercharged voter fraud lies; installed election deniers in key positions; and is attempting through the so-called SAVE America Act to disenfranchise poor and female voters.”

On Tuesday, March 31, Trump signed an executive order calling on Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to develop a nationwide list of verified eligible voters, bar the Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to people not on state-approved lists, and track envelopes. Experts say this is wildly unconstitutional and plan democracy-saving lawsuits. A showdown is ahead.

But visually, casual Californians may be intrigued by GOP Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s headline-grabbing stunts about voter fraud as he angles to become one of two Republicans in the June “jungle primaries” that decide the midterm runoff for Governor of California.

This may be a trap of voter expectation. Newsweek reported that since Trump returned to office, “Democrats have flipped over two dozen seats in special and state legislative elections nationwide” – including in Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago district – “a string of wins that has boosted the party’s outlook ahead of the 2026 midterms.”

No Kings also boosted a sense of Democratic inevitability. But great expectations are often undermined by unintended consequences.

Amy Walter, the respected out editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, delivered a warning, analyzing “How Predictive Are Special Elections?

“While Democrats are running strong in special elections, the generic ballot measure in national polls suggests a more modest advantage for Democrats — around six points,” Walters writes. “What’s more, media attention and campaign spending will be exponentially higher in November, which will generate a much different electorate than in low-turnout special elections that attract only the most highly activated voters.”

Then there’s this era’s version of the “Bradley effect” where voters tell pollsters what they think pollsters want to hear instead of how they really intend to vote, thus skewing data everyone relies on.

Social media and Trump’s constant blizzard of news often block information, even for pros. The New York Times LA-based political reporter Jennifer Medina wrote in: “Why There’s a Chance California Elects a Republican Governor:” “California — the state with the largest population, the biggest economy, and some of the country’s most powerful politicians — is electing a new governor this year. If that’s news to you, you’re not alone; even some California voters seem a bit unaware,” apparently including Medina, who writes that she called her Sacramento colleague to get filled in.

So who’s informing the electorate about state and local elections? Who’s fact-checking the distorted perceptions and propaganda?

Consider LA County Third District Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s reelection, for instance. Lindsey Horvath’s district stretches from the Ventura County line to Santa Monica and Hollywood to Sylmar and San Fernando, with more than 2 million people, including me, in West Hollywood.

Lindsey and Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger were on TV and other news outlets around the clock during the devastating wildfires last year, and their websites have a lot of resources.

Lindsey – who succeeded LGBTQ+ icon Sheila Kuehl as Supervisor – mixed empathy and compassion in reading the names of the dead before barely containing herself, questioning contractors and county leadership after an LA Times investigation into an After Action Report.

Lindsey also went on CNN’s “The Story is with Elex Michaelson” to discuss the one-year anniversary of the fires with the former FOX 11 LA anchor, telling him, “answers shouldn’t be watered down.” On March 17, the Board approved Lindsey’s motion to coordinate wildlife prevention among the patchwork of federal, state, county, and local agencies, plus private landowners across the Santa Monica Mountains, where 23,000 acres were burned during the 2025 fires.

But after an Aug. 2025 interview with LA Times Studio about the fires and what comes next, one commenter said: “Linsdsey is all talk, no action.” After a story in CityWatchLA, a commenter wrote: “Lindsey is the Queen of Self-Promotion, campaigning 24/7 and often coming off as quite obnoxious in the process.” One small business owner on Instagram complained about Lindsey’s proposal for rent relief.

Snark aside, after deciding to run for reelection instead of running against LA Mayor Karen Bass, Lindsey drew three Republican opponents – one of whom is a Calabasas real estate agent, Tonia Arey, whose “Facts about Lindsey” cites “Lindsey Horvath’s Record of Extremism,” promising “receipts to show it.” Well, not really.

Arey says the “Pacific Palisades fire and its aftermath were a breaking point for me.” But “protesting from the outside wasn’t enough—we needed leadership from within the system…it’s time for a change.”

Here’s another expectation trap. Though Arey is an unknown with no record of governance, Third District voters cannot assume Lindsey’s reelection is a done deal. This year, AHF’s Housing Is A Human Right division has no rent control measure on the ballot, so the big real estate corporations that killed two previous campaigns have money to spend. Additionally, former LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who is running for his old job, endorsed Arey and may emulate Riverside’s Bianco by pulling political stunts.

Most importantly, Democrats must stop thinking everyone agrees with them. No. This is a new era. There is no unscrambling the egg Trump broke. Politically tetherless 15-year-olds watched Trump come down that escalator and give them permission to be racist. They found Charlie Kirk and White Supremacy/Christian Nationalism, sexism, and transphobia. They don’t know George Orwell. They are more ideologically bent online than old school partisans and more likely to prank a pollster than tell their truth. And at 26 today, they do not trust Democrats who throw their best supporters under the bus.

Young people and deflated elders may believe evidence of positive change, however. And Lindsey Horvath has done that with Measure G – the governance reform that Supervisors and others have promised and studied for decades.

The respected political outlet Capitol Weekly wrote a 5,000+ word anatomy of how “change agent” Lindsey Horvath passed Measure G after so many other attempts failed.

“That was the origin of Measure G, the revolutionary ballot measure approved by Angelenos in November 2024 that reshaped the nation’s most populated county by expanding the board of supervisors from five to nine members, making the county executive an elected official, and created a county ethics commission,” Brian Joseph wrote for his October 13, 2025, post.

“The measure represents not only one of the most significant governance reforms in California history, but also a breakthrough in Los Angeles County political gridlock, where changes of this nature had been discussed ad nauseam but always failed.

Reform of this gravity and consequence likely would rank as a crowning achievement for many lifelong, career politicians. Horvath pulled it off after just her first two years in big-time politics,” Joseph reported.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Lindsey talked extensively about Measure G, about what’s being done to prevent fires and help the victims and survivors of last year’s horrific catastrophe, as well as wanting to “earn that title of ally” to her West Hollywood-based LGBTQ+ community.

And, while she’s keenly aware that the Third District “has historically been very proudly blue, very proudly progressive and pragmatically progressive,” Lindsey says, “I don’t take anything for granted.”

“I’m running for another term because we have begun very important transformational work in the county that I do not want to step away from,” Lindsey says. “We will not abandon anyone – no matter how hard it gets.”

Check out Karen’s candid chat with Lindsey Horvath.

Karen Ocamb’s commentary is cross-posted from her Substack LGBTQ+ Freedom Fighters.  

By: West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman, West Hollywood Councilmember Chelsea Lee Byers, and Congresswoman Laura Friedman

After a decade of construction, Metro’s D Line extension along Wilshire is about to open. Fast, efficient, and affordable rail service will whisk Angelenos to iconic destinations, making life better not just for visitors, but also for residents and commuters, too. As Angelenos wait, Metro is gearing up for another monumental decision about one of its next major projects coming to Los Angeles—one that may be even more transformative for how our region moves.

Metro is deciding between three routes for the K Line Northern Extension. The best option is the San Vicente-Fairfax route, which will connect the Hollywood Bowl, West Hollywood, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Beverly Center, the Grove and Farmer’s Market, the Crenshaw District, Leimert Park, the South Bay, and LAX all on one line. This new north-south line also links up to the D and E Lines, allowing for easy transfers to UCLA, Santa Monica, Koreatown, and Downtown LA. All of this will take cars off the road, easing congestion and freeing up parking spaces.

Metro’s Board of Directors will vote on this project on March 18^th and 26^th, and their own staff recommends the San Vicente-Fairfax route because it will move the most riders and connect them to all the major destinations and job centers in this area. Metro should approve it without delay. On the day it opens, this new extension will be one of the busiest rail lines in the country, because it will serve so many people who currently don’t have access to reliable rapid transit.

Imagine getting to the Grove, WeHo’s Rainbow District, and the Hollywood Bowl—without all the traffic. The San Vicente-Fairfax route is the one choice to serve all these destinations. These are places that residents, commuters, and visitors all want to reach.  Every time Metro has asked the public, the answer has been clear: overwhelming support to build this route and build it faster. The most recent comment period was no different.

The West Hollywood City Council has already proposed an approach to deliver part of the investment needed to make this plan a reality without raising anyone’s taxes. City analysis showed that an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) in West Hollywood could generate more than $2 billion over 75 years, with the potential for a similar contribution from the County. This would be an unprecedented commitment from a local City, and a first in Southern California for a project of this size, but it also only makes sense if most WeHo residents are directly served by the San Vicente-Fairfax route. It is this unprecedented local investment that makes a project like the K Line Northern Extension possible in our lifetimes.

We’re excited about what this project will mean for our neighborhoods, but it will be transformational for much more than just West Hollywood and residents living directly along the new line. It will give more people more affordable options to move around the region and open up new mobility options for seniors and students.

Like the Regional Connector-linked Metro lines downtown, the K Line Northern Extension will provide a new north-south connection linking Metro’s east-west B, C, D, and E Lines with the new K line and the upcoming LAX people mover. Today, Metro’s rail network radiates out from downtown, forcing riders to travel out of their way to transfer or skip transit altogether. The K Line Northern Extension will change that by connecting Metro’s east-west rail lines and allowing riders to travel across the city without detouring through downtown. Traveling from the South Bay or the Valley to work in Century City or Westwood? This line will make high-quality transit a viable option for countless trips like those, ensuring that transit is more realistic for everyone.

The San Vicente-Fairfax route will link communities from Torrance to North Hollywood to job centers like Cedars-Sinai and Hollywood and put over 125,000 jobs within a short walk of new stations. Access like that is unprecedented—and it shows in Metro’s ridership estimates: The San Vicente Fairfax route will likely serve 100,000 daily trips—making it one of the busiest light rail lines in the entire country. This route will also better connect communities along the existing K Line to jobs and services they already rely on, as well as more of the opportunities and resources that might currently be out of reach.

With more riders, more jobs, more destinations, more opportunity, and a clearer path towards implementation, the choice is simple: the San Vicente-Fairfax route for Metro’s K Line Northern Extension. Let’s finish the line!

At its core, democracy depends on a simple premise: if you are eligible to vote, you should be able to do so. The right to vote in the United States has never been just about who is legally eligible. It has always been about who can realistically access the ballot.

The proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act puts that premise at risk — and for LGBTQ Americans, particularly transgender and nonbinary individuals, the threat is direct and concrete.

The SAVE Act would require Americans to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — when registering to vote in federal elections. Supporters argue this is a necessary step to protect election integrity.

But the real issue is not simply what the law says. It is how it will function in practice — and who will bear the burden.

Under current federal law, eligible voters can register by attesting to their citizenship under penalty of perjury. The SAVE Act would replace that system with a documentation requirement.

That may sound like a technical adjustment. It is not.

It represents a fundamental shift — from a system where the government verifies eligibility, to one where individuals must produce specific documents to prove it. And not all voters are equally positioned to meet that requirement.

For transgender Americans, identity documents are often not consistent across systems. A person may have legally changed their name but not updated all records. Their birth certificate may not reflect their current identity. Their passport, driver’s license, and Social Security record may not fully align.

Updating these documents is not always straightforward. In some states, it requires navigating complex legal processes. In others, it may be restricted altogether.

None of this changes a person’s eligibility to vote. But under the SAVE Act, it could determine whether they are able to register — and whether their registration is accepted. This is not a hypothetical concern. It reflects the everyday reality of navigating identity systems that were not designed with LGBTQ people in mind.

Supporters of the SAVE Act emphasize that the law applies equally to everyone. Formally, that is true. But equal rules do not guarantee equal access.

For voters with straightforward documentation, the requirement may be manageable. For those whose records are inconsistent or difficult to obtain, it creates additional hurdles — delays, rejections, and uncertainty. That is how neutral policy produces unequal outcomes. And in the context of voting, those outcomes matter.

The SAVE Act may not result in voters being turned away in large numbers on Election Day. That is not how these systems typically work. The risk is more subtle — and more systemic. Registration applications get delayed or rejected. Confusion about what documentation is required discourages people from trying. Voters give up rather than navigate a bureaucratic maze. For LGBTQ Americans, a system where friction can become total exclusion.

For LGBTQ Americans already navigating barriers in healthcare, housing, employment, and basic legal recognition, this is one more arena where that friction compounds. Over time, that erosion of participation weakens the democratic process itself.

Election security is a legitimate concern. Policy should be grounded in evidence, not self-serving conspiracy theories. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting, and there is no credible evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in federal elections. Existing safeguards — verification systems, database checks, and legal penalties — already address that risk.

The SAVE Act proposes a sweeping change to address a problem without evidence. In doing so, it risks disenfranchising large numbers of LGBTQ Americans, as well as women, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, low-income Americans, and young voters — the communities that have historically faced the greatest barriers at the ballot box.

For LGBTQ Americans, the SAVE Act is not just about election policy. It is about whether systems account for lived reality — or ignore it. The right to vote should not depend on whether your paperwork is perfectly aligned across multiple bureaucracies. It should depend on whether you are eligible.

That is the standard a functioning democracy should meet. And then it should make the act of voting as easy as possible for all eligible Americans.

The SAVE Act does none of that. Because the question it answers is not how we make elections more secure. It is, in practice, how we keep Americans from voting.

Edward Campbell is a Los Angeles-based attorney, LGBTQ advocate, and civil rights activist with extensive experience in affordable housing finance and preservation. He has worked on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels and is a longtime advocate for racial equity and democratic institutions

Last Wednesday, a major New York Times investigation exposed damning sexual abuse allegations against the late Cesar Chavez: an emblem of Chicano farm workers’ liberation in the 1960s. For decades, Chavez’s activism sang loudly from textbook pages, from large-scale murals and street signs across the country. Every March, his legacy was doubly hailed. He was woven into the American fabric of resistance, one championed by Black and brown workers and advocates. 

Then, the testimonies arrived. Two major witnesses, Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, explained to the Times that they were 13 and 12, respectively, when Chavez began to sexually abuse them from around 1972 to 1977. “I wanted to die,” Murguia told the Times, who confessed that she had tried to end her life multiple times as a result of her trauma from the continued abuse. 

The Times investigation also included the shocking account of beloved labor leader, Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association alongside Chavez and fellow activist Gilder Padilla. The piece touched upon two instances of coercive manipulation and rape, both of which led to pregnancies Huerta bore in secret — children that she later arranged to be raised by other families. 

“I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret,” part of Huerta’s own statement reads, which provides more context about her testimony to the Times. Huerta turns 96 on April 10th and held onto these secrets for 60 years. “I believed that exposing the truth would have hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” she wrote. 

Online, people denounced Chavez and demanded that his name and face be removed from statues and signs that decorated their local parks and libraries. These were painful, pervasive reminders of his now-soiled imprint. Local leaders promised their swift action in following through on this outcry, with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signing a countywide proclamation that renamed Chavez’s national holiday “Farmworkers Day.”  

Queer advocates have issued statements in solidarity with Huerta and the other survivors. In a social media post published by the San Diego LGBT Community Center, staff wrote about the ripples of fear and shame that take hold of marginalized community members when they try to reclaim their power  — especially when the people they are holding accountable for abuse and harm come from notable changemakers in their own communities. 

These calls for accountability do not diminish the efforts of the broader movements. “They remind us that movements are never built by one person alone,” the community center’s statement reads. “The farmworkers labor movement was built by countless individuals, many of them women and undocumented immigrants, whose organizing and resilience form its true foundation…Holding leaders accountable is how we protect every worker and every vulnerable person who the movement was always meant to serve.” 

Harm can be perpetuated systemically, by forces like imperialism, as well as by the powerful within our own fights for freedom and empowerment. What holds true is that our movements do not rest solely on the efforts of one glorified leader — they are made possible by the persistent efforts of many. The farmworkers movement was brought to fruition and amplified by women like Huerta, as well as the efforts of Filipino organizers like Larry Itliong, who championed the defining Delano grape strike that uplifted and encouraged fellow farmworkers like Chavez to join in on. 

Behind one venerated voice are the understated stories of several others. And what rests at this core is what the Center calls an “impossible” choice survivors of abuse face when “justice and community survival collide.” Movements for liberation are always at threat of destabilization by greater government forces: any crack in the foundation can be utilized as a dismissal of the movement as a whole. But against these narratives of fear and disempowerment, it becomes clearer and clearer that we can hold multiple truths at once. 

We must believe victims who speak of their abuse: the reckoning we collectively take part in afterward cannot come at their expense or ability to heal and survive. What comes from this investigation and greater social reckoning is not the destruction of the labor movement, but of the carefully conceived and heroic portrait we’ve come to paint of Chavez’s visage within. His contributions to workers’ and farmers’ rights are irrefutable — and so is his harm. 

If we discourage survivors from telling their truths in order to make precious our most visible voices, we defeat one of the pillars of why we fight at all: to strengthen our individual and combined ability to shape autonomous and shared futures that guarantee equity, freedom, and justice for every person.

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.

For nearly 15 years, Rady Children’s Health, a major pediatric healthcare system that includes the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, has been a primary provider of gender-affirming care for transgender youth under 19 years old in the Orange and San Diego Counties. 

On Jan. 20, patients received this message in their online portals: “Due to recent federal actions, we will no longer be able to provide gender-affirming medications and procedures.” Gender-affirming care and services were to be halted shortly after, on Feb. 6. This would strand nearly 1,900 transgender youth receiving essential and necessary care at the two hospitals. 

10 days later, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who in 2024 approved the merger of Rady Children’s Hospital and CHOC on the condition that they would continue to provide specialty services like gender-affirming care, sued Rady Children’s Health. In the press release, Bonta stated that, under the conditions of the merger, Rady was required to obtain his approval before reducing or eliminating gender affirming care. 

They had violated the terms of their merger and thus, the law. A temporary restraining order was granted, and Rady Children’s Health was ordered to continue providing gender-affirming care to their trans and gender expansive youth patients. However, the Blade learned yesterday that the order is only in effect until April 27. 

Families are fighting back to make sure the care their trans and gender expansive children receive will continue, and for good. On Thursday morning, Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Impact Fund, and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR) announced that they had filed a new lawsuit on behalf of four families against Rady Children’s Health — explicitly citing the health system’s unlawful discrimination against transgender people.

“By singling out transgender patients,” the complaint reads, “and terminating their medically necessary care without consent or concern for their physical and mental health, Defendants have discriminated against Plaintiffs on the basis of their sex, gender identity, and disability in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act and Government Code section 11135.” 

The four plaintiffs represented in the case are all minors who have been receiving gender-affirming care at Rady Children’s Hospital. They are seeking, beyond damages paid for civil code violations and losses suffered as a result of “unlawful conduct,” that Rady Children’s Health be prohibited from eliminating or reducing its gender-affirming care services. It would be required to continue providing the same level of care that it had prior to Jan. 20 to the plaintiffs and its nearly 2,000 other trans and gender expansive youth patients.

One of the plaintiffs, named “Plaintiff B.B.” in the suit, is a minor who began receiving gender-affirming care at Rady Children’s Hospital in 2025. They had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and were experiencing serious mental health issues. The current potential, impending interruption to their care has been distressing, and their family members have faced difficulties in getting them an appointment — even after Bonta’s temporary restraining order was set into place. 

This makes the timing of the lawsuit even more urgent and pressing. A harrowing picture is being painted: what is the alternative to care, and what does the unfolding of this reality present?

In a 2024 study conducted by The Trevor Project, a prominent LGBTQ+ suicide prevention organization, researchers found that the rise in anti-transgender laws from 2018 to 2022 could be correlated to a 72% increase in suicide attempts among trans and gender expansive youth.  

As trans and gender expansive youth are continually refused the care that allows them to inhabit bodies that affirm their identities, what happens in the interim? How long will they have to wait? How do they cope with increased violence and rhetoric that targets and undermines their existence?

Rady Children’s Health’s initial decision to cut gender-affirming care came in the midst of a domino-like movement of hospitals caving under federal pressure nationwide. Last December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a series of proposed actions that included withholding federal funding from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to youth patients. 

This was to, as the HHS press release stated, “carry out” President Trump’s executive order to end “sex-rejecting procedures on children.” 

The directive has had wide-sweeping effects. Last August, NBC News reported that at least 21 hospitals had ended or restricted gender-affirming care for trans and gender expansive youth. That number has almost doubled since, advocates estimate. LGBTQ+ organizations are calling attention to this worrying development, mobilizing in ways to defend the most vulnerable in their communities: transgender and gender expansive folks.

“At this particular moment — with federal executive orders attacking transgender people across nearly every domain of life, with hundreds of anti-transgender state bills, and with a Supreme Court that has already signaled hostility — the cumulative weight on transgender young people and their families is severe,” Shannon Minter, NCLR’s legal director, wrote to the Blade. “Calling out discrimination is not just legally important; it is a form of bearing witness to what this community is experiencing and affirming that it is wrong.” 

Now that the lawsuit has been filed, Rady Children’s Hospital will respond to the complaint, and the case will move through the court system, NCLR senior staff attorney Amy Whelan explained to the Blade. If successful, the lawsuit could become a paradigm for change for states with anti-discrimination laws similar to California’s. The victory would also invoke an important sentiment: people will resist, again and again, the erasure of trans people.

“In a moment when transgender young people are being told in every direction that they can be excluded and ignored, a lawsuit that invokes California’s anti-discrimination framework sends an unambiguous message,” Minter wrote. “The law sees you, protects you, and stands with you.”

Kristie Song is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.