Education Department reneges on Title IX settlements with school districts on trans discrimination

What happened: Trans students who reached discrimination settlements with their school districts with the help of the previous presidential administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden have now seen those settlements terminated or reworked. Usually, those settlements involved more teacher training in school districts and more protections for trans kids.

Why it matters: This almost never happens. Usually, a presidential administration will leave in place settlements from previous administrations, even if they disagree with them. And one of the school districts affected has already voted to roll back its protections for trans kids.

Trump administration rolls back settlements that protected trans rights in unprecedented move

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Boise claps back at Republican state lawmakers with “Pride wraps”

Why are they retaliating? Republicans in the state legislature passed a second ban on Pride flags after the city of Boise found a loophole in the one they passed last year. So while Boise was forced to take down its Pride flag for the first time in a decade, it wrapped the flagpoles outside of City Hall in Pride colors.

Why it matters: It’s a sign of the tension between red state legislatures and Democratic elected officials in major cities in those states. (A similar story happened in Miami Beach this week). Republicans at the state level who come from districts outside of blue cities are using the levers of power to impose their views on places they don’t live — and those places are finding ways to retaliate.

Idaho passed a law just to ban Boise from flying Pride flags. Their response was surprising.

Federal court rules in favor of Iowa’s book ban law

Why they ruled in favor of a book ban: A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned an injunction against Iowa’s ban on any classroom material that discusses LGBTQ+ people in grades K through 6, deciding that curricular activities can be regulated by the state without running afoul of the First Amendment. This includes library books, which the judges said are part of a school’s curriculum.

Why it matters: This could be a sign that federal judges will ultimately not roll back anti-LGBTQ+ book ban laws passed across the country, leaving kids with fewer tools to understand how the world works.

Federal court OKs Iowa’s “cruel” book ban law in stunning LGBTQ+ defeat

Hospitals that caved to the administration’s anti-gender-affirming care stance are back to providing that care after a court ruling

Why they stopped providing the care: The Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. issued a declaration calling puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care “unsafe,” even though they’re needed by trans kids. While that declaration doesn’t hold the power of law, Children’s Minnesota stopped offering such care out of fear of losing federal funding. A judge has since ruled that the administration had overreached with its declaration.

Why it matters: Many hospitals across the country have been complying in advance with the administration’s ideological opposition to trans health care, not even waiting for such orders, guidances, and declarations to go through the proper channels before taking away health care from trans kids. This either forces them to detransition or scramble to find another provider.

These hospitals caved to Trump & cut trans health care. Now a court is making them bring it back.

Minneapolis considers legalizing bathhouses decades after the AIDS crisis shut them down

Key quote: “These venues are historically LGBTQ+ spaces, with advocacy organizations emphasizing their importance in the community,” said Minneapolis City Council President Elliott Paine. “What we know about sexual health, STIs/HIV, and public health interventions and advancements is different than 40 years ago. Parties and events that operate as adult sex venues already occur underground and this policy will ensure that they center and prioritize consent, health, and safety.”

Why it matters: Many laws put in place decades ago — before there were ways to manage HIV and PrEP existed — are still in place… but they’re slowly being rolled back.

Minneapolis considers legalizing bathhouses & adult sex venues

Picture of the week

A portrait of Iryna Zarutska began being painted on a building in Providence that houses several LGBTQ+ bars, including The Dark Lady and The Alley Cat, but the city ordered it stopped because it was considered “divisive.”

Zarutska is a Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death last year in North Carolina and whose story was widely shared on conservative social media because the man who killed her is Black, while she, the victim, was a blond white woman. Elon Musk and right-wing influencer Andrew Tate both pledged funds to fund the mural, and a group called “Project Freedom 2025” also used a Christian crowdfunding platform to raise money for it.

“As it stands, I worry this mural intends to use a tragedy to sow division, while avoiding the political realities it brings with it,” art history professor Erin McCutcheon told the Boston Art Review. Others pointed out that Musk’s history of transphobia probably wasn’t helping the local LGBTQ+ community embrace the mural.

The mural remains unfinished as the artist attempts to obtain a permit from the city’s Department of Inspection and Standards.

Some more great queer and trans reads

Deputy editor Molly Sprayregen talked to teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten about the state of LGBTQ+ curricula for the cover story of LGBTQ Nation’s April Issue.

“We didn’t win marriage equality by yelling at people,” she said. “We won by saying, ‘How dare you not give us the rights that you have?’ We may have felt it, but we didn’t win hearts and minds that way. We didn’t win the Supreme Court case that way, and we didn’t win in legislative battles that way…  Nonviolent protests are important. But to change hearts and minds, you actually have to think about how to change hearts and minds. And education is a really important way of doing it.”

The right is destroying LGBTQ+ education. But gay union leader Randi Weingarten has a secret weapon.

Contributor Ellen Shanna Knoppow told the story of former megachurch pastor Joanna Whaley, who spent over a decade in conversion therapy before transitioning (and is now running for office).

This trans megachurch pastor survived 15 years of conversion therapy. She’s now running for office.

Contributor Michael Ciriaco reported on gay model Milo Miles, who was banned from the U.S. for 10 years after being interrogated for hours at an airport by U.S. Customs officials who accused him of wanting to enter the U.S. for sex work.

Gay model detained at airport & banned from the US: “It was the most painful day of my life”

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