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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has hit out at "extreme and harmful" bills signed into law in Arizona and Oklahoma that target transgender rights and abortion. "Today, four extreme and harmful bills were signed into law in Oklahoma and Arizona, three targeting transgender youth (2 AZ, 1 OK) and one reproductive health care (AZ)," Psaki said in a tweet on Wednesday. "These laws are unacceptable and we won't stop fighting for justice and equality."..... "While the problems transgender and nonbinary youth cause communities are hypothetical, the harms these laws will cause them are very real," said Sam Ames, director...

The Equality Act, one of the Democrats’ most controversial initiatives, passed the House by a 224-206 vote. It’s now headed to the Senate, where some of the people who will be most affected by it won’t be able to testify in hearings on the bill. As CNS News notes, the bill would modify the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.” This includes a whole raft of controversies with it, but the biggest may be what it does to women’s sports. “In practice this would mean, among other things, that transgender ‘females’ (biological males)...

Minnesota-based doctors working in the lucrative youth transgender medical field are condemning a state bill seeking to ban biological males from competing in women’s sports and using female locker rooms. In an op-ed at the Star Tribune this week, the medical professionals – pediatricians and those treating gender dysphoric youth in “gender clinics” – called the legislation a “hateful distraction, an imagined problem created only to politicize the lives of transgender youths.” The authors defended males in girls’ and women’s sports with a statement denying the existence of evidence that boys and men “have any type of biological advantage over”...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - LGBTQ-rights advocates warned Kansas legislators Tuesday that their discussion of a proposed ban on transgender students in girls’ and women’s school sports would lead to bullying, and one group promised to sue the state if such a law is enacted. The state Senate Education Committee had a hearing on a bill backed by some athletes, Republican lawmakers and conservative groups. It would apply to K-12 school and college sports. Supporters portrayed it as an attempt to ensure competition remains fair and that girls and woman aren’t deprived of scholarships and other opportunities in sports. (Please see...

The US Women’s National Team is demanding their employer, US Soccer, end a policy requiring players to stand during the national anthem. “The Federation should immediately repeal the ‘Anthem Policy,’ publish a statement acknowledging the policy was wrong when it was adopted, and issue an apology to our Black players and supporters,” the national team players said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. Players called for US Soccer to “lay out its plans on how it will now support the message and movement that it tried to silence four years ago.” US Soccer will hold a special board meeting Tuesday...

National team coach Jill Ellis is stepping down after leading the United States to back-to-back Women's World Cup titles. Ellis has been coach of the team since 2014 and has led it to eight overall tournament titles, including victories at the World Cup in 2015 in Canada and earlier this month in France . "The opportunity to coach this team and work with these amazing women has been the honor of a lifetime," Ellis said in a statement released by U.S. Soccer on Tuesday. "I want to thank and praise them for their commitment and passion to not only win...