Free Republic

There is a new federal crackdown on care for transgender Americans. The newly-proposed restrictions are designed to block access to gender-affirming care for minors.

BREAKING: RFK Jr. announces moves to ban transgender drugs and surgeries for children. "The Trump admin will not stand by while ideology, misinformation and propaganda push vulnerable young people into decisions they fully cannot understand and that they can never reverse."

Most Americans have never heard the name Enoch Burke, but they should—because his story is quietly becoming one of the most important religious liberty cases in the Western world. Burke is an Irish schoolteacher, a Christian, and the kind of man whose convictions are not negotiable, even when the entire cultural machine demands otherwise. In 2022, he was ordered by the administration of Wilson’s Hospital School in County Westmeath to use transgender pronouns for a student. Burke refused, not out of spite, but because his faith does not allow him to affirm what he believes is false. That refusal set...

A Swiss wind instrument repairman is serving a ten-day jail sentence after refusing to pay a fine imposed for a comment he made on Facebook about biological sex. Emanuel Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, responded to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Councillor Andreas Glarner, writing: “If you excavate LGBTQI people after 200 years, you will only find men and women among the skeletons; everything else is a mental illness that was fostered by the curriculum!” As we reported, the comment, which stressed the immutability of biological sex, triggered complaints from activists who accused him of...

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has permanently ordered Georgia’s prison system to keep providing some kinds of gender-affirming care for transgender prisoners, although the state plans to appeal. U.S. District Judge Victoria Marie Calvert last week ruled that a new state law denying hormone therapy to inmates violated their protection against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She ordered the state to keep providing hormones to inmates who had been receiving therapy and to allow others medically diagnosed as needing hormone therapy to begin receiving treatment. “The court finds that there is no...

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you'll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden's assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021....

A prominent national conservative group is prepared to help fund the legal defense for Maine school boards that are bucking state law to bar transgender students from playing on sports teams and using private spaces that align with their gender identities. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group, will cover legal fees incurred in lawsuits filed by the Maine Human Rights Commission last month, the Livermore Falls-area school board chair told fellow board members at a Thursday meeting.

Doctors have admitted to performing “non-standard” gender-affirming procedures on youngsters and sometimes base treatment purely on cosmetic goals — as they see a spike in patients seeking out “nonbinary” surgeries. The medical professionals copped to sometimes even performing the life-altering procedures with little to no assessment of an individual’s mental health or gender identity, newly emerged videos obtained by The Free Press show. The recordings, some of which have been made at closed-door medical conferences in the US within the last few years, captured clinicians openly discussing how they were trying to fulfill a patients’ desires — even if it...

A graduate assistant was removed from her position amid investigations into a contested discrimination report filed by a disgruntled student who repeatedly referenced the Bible in an essay response to an article about gender stereotypes — for a course taught by a transgender instructor. In her essay, which was supposed to cover “how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender,” University of Oklahoma student Samantha Fulnecky presented a Biblically-fueled tirade against the notion that there are multiple genders. The psychology course’s professor, graduate student Mel Curth, who uses “she/they” pronouns, failed Fulnecky on the grounds that she neglected...

So, New York got a full-blown socialist for a governor, and now a transgender communist in Idaho wants to try the same thing here. Maxine Durand openly identifies as a socialist. He claims both Democrats and Republicans are failing, but what he’s really saying is that Idaho needs to be remade in the image of California and Washington. The Idaho Second Amendment Alliance has warned for years that leftists have their sights set on our state. Their goal is simple: drag Idaho down the same path as every other progressive stronghold. And now, one of the Democratic Socialists of America’s...

The Trans Pride flag that rippled down Yosemite’s sheer granite walls as a mark of protest last spring reappeared in a very different setting this week. The enormous 55-by-35-foot banner, first unfurled on El Capitan in May as part of a climber-led demonstration, was repurposed into a flowing dress worn by drag environmentalist Pattie Gonia on the red carpet at Out100 — an annual tribute to influential LGBTQ+ figures — at Nya Studios West in Hollywood on Friday, Nov. 21.

Conservatives on social media erupted over a clip showing a top education official in Michigan struggling to answer a question from a Republican lawmaker on how many genders exist. In the viral clip, resurfaced on X by conservative influencer LibsofTikTok on Sunday and seen over 2 million times, Michigan Chief Deputy Superintendent Dr. Sue Carnell is asked in an Oct. 28 hearing by Republican state Rep. Jay DeBoyer about her opinion on how many genders exist. "How many genders are there," DeBoyer asked, prompting Carnell to smile and pause without answering. "How many genders are there?" DeBoyer asked again. "Different...

Maybe air travel is not sufficiently miserable and degrading. Maybe female travelers need to be patted down by sexually deranged men: A trans-identifying male TSA officer at the Dulles International Airport is suing for the right to pat down female travelers, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday. Danielle Mittereder is alleging in his lawsuit that the Transportation Security Administration, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, is violating his civil rights due to its implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order ordering that the male-female sex binary be affirmed in all federal government roles. Mittereder alleges that it...

A ban on transgender women competitors is strongly expected to be in place for the 2028 Olympics – but it remains unclear if there will be barriers against athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) after the boxing furore at Paris 2024. Under the existing rules, each sport is empowered to decide if transgender women can compete if their testosterone levels fall below a designated threshold. But the International Olympic Committee, under new president Kirsty Coventry, is in discussions about a dramatic policy shift that would impose a blanket ban across all sports for the Los Angeles Games. Such a...

The BBC has upheld 20 impartiality complaints over the way presenter Martine Croxall altered a script she was reading live on the BBC News Channel, which referred to "pregnant people" earlier this year. Croxall was introducing an interview about research on groups most at risk during UK heatwaves, which quoted a release from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The presenter changed her script to instead say "women", and the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said it considered her facial expression as she said this gave the "strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will enact a new policy that will prohibit transgender female athletes from competing against biological women, according to multiple reports. The policy is reportedly set to cover those with differences of sex development (DSD). The IOC’s current policy leaves it up to each individual sport’s governing body to make policies governing transgender athletes. But as the IOC changed its leadership, The Times of London reported on Monday that its policies are set to change as well. IOC President Kirsty Coventry called for "protecting" the women’s category in June and there was "overwhelming support" from IOC...

The first openly trans lawmaker in the US — who was hailed as a trail-blazer — has admitted to sickening child sex charges involving young kids in a daycare. Former Democratic New Hampshire state Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, 41, a biological male who identifies as female, pleaded guilty to charges including sexual exploitation of children last week in a Boston federal court, WMUR reported. Laughton now faces up to 30 years in federal prison. Four pictures of children believed to be 3 to 5 years old were sent to Laughton by former partner, Lindsay Groves, who took the horrific images in...

TUCKER, Ga. — A transgender woman said a DeKalb County Police officer accosted her after she used the women’s restroom at Tucker-Reid H. Cofer Library. The police department has opened an Internal Affairs investigation into the incident, according to a police spokesperson. “Because the investigation is ongoing, we are unable to share additional details at this time,” the spokesperson said. “The department remains dedicated to treating all members of our community with dignity, respect, and professionalism.”

BBC boss Tim Davie faced calls to resign amid a newsroom revolt after a newsreader who corrected 'pregnant people' to 'women' while live on air was rebuked. Senior BBC journalists are said to be furious over the censuring of Martine Croxall amid claims that the Corporation has been 'captured by trans ideologists'. .................................................... Ms Croxall, 56, was introducing a segment on Britain's heatwave in June when the autocue instructed her to report that 'pregnant people' should take precautions. After briefly reading the line, she corrected it with a raise of the eyebrow.

Oregon teens Alexa Anderson and Reese Eckard scored a win in their legal battle against the state’s high school sports association after they stepped down from a medal podium to protest a trans athlete in May. Anderson and Eckard’s lawsuit against the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) alleges the league excluded them from official photos after the protest and even withheld their medals. The suit argues the girls’ First Amendment rights were infringed upon by the officials. US District Court Judge Youlee Yim You denied the OSAA’s motion to strike a portion of the lawsuit that highlighted what forms of...