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“Please help us.”

The months since Trump’s inauguration have been hell for families with transgender children. They’ve already lived through record-breaking years of anti-trans state legislation, followed by the most anti-LGBTQ presidential election cycle in decades.

Now, as Trump turns the weight of the federal government against trans kids—attacking their health care and support in school, declaring “gender ideology” to be a form of child abuse—they’re dealing with canceled appointments, harassment, and the reemergence of mental health challenges they’ve fought to overcome.

Two of our reporters spent the last three months getting to know seven of these families: listening to their stories, hopes and fears, and plans to survive the Trump era. Some are making plans to move away. Some have already fled. Parents talk about doing anything for their children.

Without exception, these families asked us to conceal their identities. But you can listen to them tell their stories in their own words, and I’d recommend doing so. As a reporter, you know some interviews will stay with you forever. These are a few.


#transgender #politics #lgbt

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Five days after President Donald Trump declared “gender ideology” to be “one of the most prevalent forms of child abuse,” Montana’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives killed a bill that would have enshrined much the same idea into state law by criminalizing parents and medical providers.

Montana Senate Bill 164 would have made it a felony for any adult to help transgender children under 16 to gain access to gender-affirming medical care—including hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries—classifying such help as child endangerment. On Tuesday, House lawmakers voted 58-40 to reject the proposed law, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats to block the bill from advancing to its final reading.

“I think it’s overly broad,” the lone Republican to speak against the bill, Rep. Brad Barker, said Tuesday. Barker said that while he generally opposes gender-affirming care for trans youth, SB164 was “the wrong approach.”

“I don’t like the thought of criminalizing parents,” Barker said, entreating fellow Republicans to “vote with your conscience.”

The bill carried penalties of up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for any adults, including parents and doctors, who provided children with surgery, puberty blockers, or hormone replacement therapy for the purpose of “altering the appearance” of the child or affirming the child’s gender. If “serious bodily injury” occurred, the maximum punishment was 10 years imprisonment and $25,000 in fines.

“Turning parents and doctors into felons is absolutely not the approach that best serves this state,” Democratic Rep. SJ Howell, the first non-binary person to be elected to the Montana legislature, said on the House floor.

#montana #transgender #politics

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President Trump’s absence at the dignified transfer of four U.S. servicemen who died during a training exercise in Lithuania is being noticed. While thousands gathered in Lithuania—including the Lithuanian president—to send the soldiers off, our commander in chief was busy (as he has been for over a quarter of his second presidency) playing in his Saudi-backed golf tournament at Mar-a-Lago.

This is not the first time that Trump has missed a dignified transfer—he only attended four out of 96 during his first term, per an investigation by HuffPost. Presidents are not required to be at the transfers and generally only attend a handful each term. (These four were met on US soil by Pete Hegeseth and several Democratic senators.)

However, there is a particular ire since Trump is missing the transfer for such a trivial reason. Chris (who asked us not to use his last name) is an Air Force veteran who spoke to my colleague Peter Berger at a Hands Off Rally in San Francisco on Saturday, calling Trump’s choice “the ultimate lack of respect to our military.” He held a sign that said “4 US Soldiers bodies returned home, where is their Commander in Chief? In Florida—Golfing.”

He also decried the administration’s cuts to the Veterans Affairs. “[Trump] really needs to look at what he is doing to the VA because after these military service members leave the military, it’s our duty as a nation to take care of them.”

The Trump Administration has announced plans to cut 80,000 employees from the VA. It has already announced the end of a program that saved the homes of 17,000 military veterans facing foreclosures and ended certain healthcare for trans and intersex veterans.

I spoke to T Dianne Smith, a Navy vet, at a protest in Eugene, Oregon. As a retiree, Trump’s tariffs and proposed changes to Social Security and Medicaid threaten her entire income.

She felt most compelled to come not because of the effects on her, but because it was her duty. “When you enter the military, you take an oath to defend the Constitution and to obey the orders of the president, but the Constitution comes first,” she explained. “If someone gives you an unlawful order, you are required by law to not follow that order and to follow your conscience.”

#military #protest #handsoff

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While international aid rushes to help Myanmar in the wake of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, the US is nowhere to be seen.

The earthquake, which hit last Friday, has killed at least 3,000 people and left thousands more injured. Chris Milligan, former director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Myanmar, spoke about how inadequate the United States response is.

Milligan arrived in Myanmar in 2012 with a mandate: Help repair diplomatic relations with the southeast Asian country by reopening its United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission.

By that point, Milligan had worked for the USAID for more than two decades—a tenure that included working on reconstruction in Baghdad following the Iraq War and coordinating the recovery response to Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.

Fast forward to now, and that progress has been decimated, with USAID missions shuttered around the world after the Trump administration reportedly fired all but 15 legally required positions of the agency’s global staff, throwing it into chaos.

The US Embassy in Myanmar announced that the American government would provide up to $2 million towards recovery efforts—Milligan says that is paltry compared to prior support for similar natural disasters, like the more than $2 billion USAID provided for the earthquake in Haiti.

“We have the capacity, we have the ability, and we have the assets to save lives, and the choice has been not to use it, and people are dying,” he says.
#myanmar #usaid #earthquake

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Most of Tuesday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday was spent discussing the use of the private, encrypted messaging app Signal by leaders of the Trump administration to discuss military strikes in Yemen.

But while concerns about “Signalgate” dominated the hearing, there was also a brief exchange between Sen. Angus King of Maine and Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. King grilled Gabbard about the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment by the US intelligence community. For the first time in 11 years, it did not mention climate change.

“I’ve been on this committee now for—this is my 13th year,” said King. “Every single one of these reports that we have had has mentioned global climate change as a significant national security threat except this one. Has something happened? Has global climate change been solved? Why is that not in this report, and who made the decision that it should not be in the report, when it’s been in every one of the 11 prior reports?”

Watch the whole interaction here and read more at MotherJones.com

#climatechange #politics #nationalsecurity

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You have probably heard that Senior Trump Officials included Jeffrey Goldberg (editor-in-chief of the Atlantic) in a Signal group chat discussing the plan for the March 15th attack on the Houthis.

Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the National Security Council, confirmed that Signal group “appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Some Republicans have conceded that the leak constituted a serious mistake.

But President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and several of the administration’s officials included in the group message have gone to great lengths to hide their embarrassment and claim the whole thing was, actually, no big deal.

For the truth and real danger behind this scandal, head the MotherJones.com

#signal #nationalsecurity #politics

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"My predictions have a pretty good track record." Sure, Elon.
Catch up on all the week’s news at MotherJones.com

#elonmusk #tesla #spacex

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On March 20th, United States Postal Service workers, retirees, and supporters gathered in dozens of cities nationwide to protest the Trump administration’s efforts to privatize the USPS as part of the American Postal Workers Union’s Day of Action.

Fellow Alex Nguyen stopped by the demonstration in New York City. Despite the rain and cold, hundreds of demonstrators showed up in front of Manhattan’s James A. Farley Building, holding signs reading, “The Post Office Belongs to The People Not the Billionaires” and “Hands Off Our Mail.” The crowd also chanted in call-and-response, “Whose Post Office? The People’s Post Office” and “U.S. Mail. Not for Sale!” To the side, volunteers were handing out flyers to people passing by on the street.

The APWU, which represents over 200,000 USPS employees and retirees, announced these protests earlier this month. The union warned at the time that if privatization happened, the move would lead to “higher prices, reduced service, and the destruction of tens of thousands of union jobs.”

US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told congressional leaders in a March 13 letter that he signed an agreement to work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in a cost-cutting initiative that includes plans to lay off 10,000 workers within 30 days through a “Voluntary Early Retirement program.”

The agreement drew criticism from many unions and lawmakers. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said that DeJoy’s plan would allow DOGE to “profit off Americans’ loss,” especially those who “rely on the Postal Service every day to deliver mail, medications, ballots, and more.”

A few hours after a March 14 meeting with the APWU National Executive Board about DeJoy’s decision, APWU President Mark Dimondstein told me that the DeJoy-DOGE partnership didn’t surprise him since lawmakers and corporations have spent decades trying to gut the agency. “We don’t think they’re about efficiency at all,” he said, referring to DOGE. “We think they’re about how to rip off the public sector for the benefit of private profit.”

Read more at MotherJones.com

#doge #mail #postoffice

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Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to shut down his town’s local cinema for showing a documentary about Palestine—but after public outrage and national attention, he’s backed down.

The academy award-winning film “No Other Land” follows a Palestinian village struggling to survive in the West Bank amid Israeli government and settler violence. Co-produced by Palestinians and Israelis, the film was an obvious choice for O Cinema, which prioritizes global, award-winning films.

Kareem Tabsch, co-founder of O Cinema, is a filmmaker who made an award-winning movie about Miami Beach’s historic Jewish community. He co-founded O Cinema to give his neighborhood access to independent films that would otherwise pass it by. Tabsch spoke to Mother Jones about the attack on his cinema and why it is bigger than his theater: “It’s about democracy. This is about freedom of expression without government interference.”

Meiner may have rescinded his proposal to evict and defund the cinema, but he still maintains that the documentary is propaganda and a public safety threat.

#miamibeach #palestine #freespeech

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On Friday, March 7th, protesters gathered in Washington, DC, and at more than 30 satellite protests nationwide in what appears to be the largest pro-science demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Reporter Jackie Flynn Mogensen went to the demonstration at Manhattan’s Washington Square Park.

Several signs noted science’s role in saving lives. One attendee, a New Jersey resident who asked only to be identified by first name, Richard, held a small sign that said, “Government Funded Biomedical Research Saved My Child’s Life.” At 14, he told me, his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. With the help of a new drug called an immune checkpoint inhibitor, she recovered. In a few weeks, she’ll graduate from college, he says, with plans to attend medical school. The “miracle” drug is what inspired him to protest. “It did literally save her life,” he said.

Others were there in part to defend their own funding. “I’m really glad to be out here,” Christine, a 33-year-old neuroscience postdoc, told me, noting that Trump’s cuts would impact those at the beginning of their career the most. “I really hope that protests and opposition can grow in momentum, because it’s scary that there is just not enough pushback at the moment.”

One of the attendees was Dr. Genie Siegler of Weill Cornell Medicine who said "This is a new world. Our responsibility is to resist these changes in any way we can."

Read more at MotherJones.com

#science #medical #trump

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Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. There are more than 30 demonstrations across the country protesting the Trump administration's widespread attacks on science.

Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science. These two PhD students asked for their names not to be shared, but the spoke about the importance of their work: "If they go to a hospital, they're gonna get treated, but they don't see that we're the ones that are coming up with those cures in the first place—even going back to basic biology research, basic science research."

#science #trump #trump #medical
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Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

"I work in economic development based on science and innovation, so I know how important science is to our economy, our economic well-being, and these attacks on science from the federal administration are just unacceptable, anti-intellectual and self defeating for our country."

#science #politics #trump

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Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

Christine, 33, explains that young scientists will be hit hardest by these cuts.

"If you don't get grants and bring in money, you're not seen as a viable scientist, and so that's the career to becoming a professional and being able to stay in the field."

#science #protest #trump

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Since taking office, President Donald Trump hasn't wasted time unraveling Joe Biden's climate legacy. He's signed executive orders directing his administration to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, end offshore wind leases, root out environmental justice programs, and declared a "National Energy Emergency" to encourage more fossil fuel production.

But many of Biden's climate policies won't be unglued easily. Some regulations, like the Biden administration's fuel efficiency standards, may take time, potentially years, to repeal. Other Trump administration actions are likely to be challenged in court, or already have been. And in some cases, like the Inflation Reduction Act, a $370 billion climate law that has so far hugely benefitted Republican districts, undoing the law may not be in Trump's own best interest.

To get a better sense of how Trump may reverse Biden's climate efforts and whether the United States has any hope of achieving its previous climate goals, Mother Jones reporters Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Henry Carnell spoke with Michael Gerrard, the faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

As Gerrard told Mother Jones, "A good deal of momentum was built up under Biden in the transition to clean energy. That's going to be difficult to stop. It'll be slowed down, but it won't be stopped."

#climate #trump #energy

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Today, March 7th, is the Stand Up for Science March. There are more than 30 demonstrations across the country protesting the Trump administration's widespread attacks on science.

The “Stand Up for Science” organizers call for ending “censorship and political interference in science,” securing and expanding scientific funding, and defending diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science.

Our reporters are on the ground interviewing participants about what brought them out to stand up for science.

Correction: The age of the protester in this video is 58, not 56.

#science #trump #protest

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The conversion therapists met last November at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip.

Behind the closed doors and drawn blinds of a Hampton Inn conference room, a middle-aged woman wearing white stockings and a Virgin Mary blue dress issued a call to arms to the 20-some people in attendance. “In our current culture, in which children are being indoctrinated with transgender belief from the moment they’re out of the womb, if we are confronted with a gender-confused child, you must help,” declared Michelle Cretella, a board member of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity. “We must do something.”

Cretella was delivering a keynote speech at the first in-person conference in four years of the Alliance, which describes itself as a “professional and scientific organization” with “Judeo-Christian values.” Its purpose: to defend and promote the practice of conversion therapy by licensed counselors.

Not that they’d call what they do “conversion therapy.” That term lacks a precise definition, but it is used colloquially to describe attempts to shift a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In the 1960s, some psychologists tried to make gay men straight by pairing aversive stimuli, like electric shocks or chemically induced nausea, with images of gay porn—techniques that ran the risk of causing serious psychological damage even as they failed to change participants’ sexual orientation, researchers eventually concluded. Today, “conversion therapy” generally takes the form of verbal counseling. Participants are typically conservative Christians who engage voluntarily—motivated by internalized stigma, family pressure, and the belief that their feelings are incompatible with their faith. Others are children, brought into therapy by their parents.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has concluded that conversion therapy lacks “sufficient bases in scientific principles” and that people who have undergone it are “significantly more likely to experience suicidality and depression.” Similarly, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), part of the Department of Health and Human Services, published a report concluding that “none of the existing research supports the premise that mental or behavioral health interventions can alter gender identity or sexual orientation. Interventions aimed at a fixed outcome, such as gender conformity or heterosexual orientation…are coercive, can be harmful, and should not be part of behavioral health treatment.”

But none of that is stopping these therapists.

#LGBTQ #Investigation #Christianity

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