Free Republic

Denver parents Brandon and Candace are spending tens of thousands of dollars to move to New Zealand in July. The reason, they said, is to protect their 9-year-old transgender daughter, Chase, from the effects of the Trump administration’s policies and an increasingly hostile climate for trans people in the United States. “You’re taught to believe, or indoctrinated, I suppose, in America that this is the land of the free and promise and all of that, and for my child’s rights to be stripped away for just being herself is gross,” Candace said, adding that she and her family feel like...

President Donald Trump signed a broad executive order targeting transition-related medical care for minors Tuesday. The order, titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” intends to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery — for minors, which it defines as those younger than 19. It prohibits federal funding from covering such care for minors, restricts research and education grants to medical schools and hospitals, and directs the secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to end such care for minors. The order also directs all federal agencies to rescind guidance...

A record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of LGBTQ people have become law in the past three years, but the majority of those that have faced legal challenges haven’t held up in court, according to an NBC News analysis, legal experts and the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed legal challenges against some of the laws. Just this year, state representatives introduced 491 bills aimed at restricting LGBTQ rights, with 77 of them becoming law, according to the ACLU. The majority of bills proposed and passed focused on limiting the ability of transgender youth to receive...