A flood of public opposition helped stop one of the Trump administration’s most extreme attempts to force hospitals nationwide to abandon gender-affirming care for transgender young people, offering a rare and instructive victory against a federal government that has otherwise moved aggressively to dismantle trans rights.

The Department of Health and Human Services has abandoned a proposed rule that would have threatened hospitals with the loss of all Medicare and Medicaid funding if they continued to provide transition-related care to minors, NPR was first to report on Monday. The proposal, issued in December, never took effect.

Its collapse followed more than 30,000 public comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Nearly 20,000 came from Human Rights Campaign members and supporters, according to the organization. Equality California said major medical groups, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Children’s Hospital Association, also urged the administration to withdraw the rule.

How do you enforce who is “girl enough” to play sports? In my home state of Washington, the most extreme proposal of its kind is before voters on the November ballot. Measure I-638 would require all girls—but not boys—to be medically sex certified before they can play sports.

In a country rife with sexual assault, young girls would have to undergo invasive inspections of their genitals, or pay for a DNA or hormone test, as part of their school sports physicals. Doctors say genital inspections are not only medically unnecessary to play sports, they can traumatize and physically harm young girls.

The Trump administration has deployed the Federal Trade Commission in unprecedented ways against WPATH, the professional organization that oversees care standards for trans medicine. WPATH sued the FTC in January, over subpoenas it had issued against them. In their suit, WPATH asserts that the FTC’s actions were retaliatory and infringed on their right to free … Read more

Of the 225 films released last year, 46 contained LGBTQ characters, or 20.4 percent. That marked a dip from 2024, when 59 out of 250 films contained LGBTQ characters, or 23.6 percent. It was a third straight drop from the record counted in 2023, when 28.5 percent of films featured a LGBTQ character. The number of characters also dropped, down to 112 from 181 the year before.

GLAAD also reported that there were no LGBTQ characters in the 19 films categorized as animated/family films rated PG and under, and no transgender characters featured in the crop of 225 films from the 10 largest studio distributors. Characters of color also decreased 36 percent from 2024’s data. Another significant dip came with bisexual characters: Of the 46 films that featured LGBTQ characters, 10 films, or 22 percent, had a bisexual character, down from 25 percent the year before.

The organization cited horror films as “bright spot” for LGBTQ inclusion by flagging entries such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Parenting, Companions, Weapons and more. It also reported that mid-budget films in the $15-90 million range “continue to be a place where GLAAD found significant representation of LGBTQ stories.”

“If the industry doesn’t prioritize investing in films with LGBTQ characters, it risks losing a generation that will go elsewhere to find entertainment that does include our community,” warned Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO.

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