CONCORD, N.H. — Two transgender girls who were the first to challenge President Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” have withdrawn their lawsuit in New Hampshire based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld state bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports and their own personal hardships, their lawyer said.
“This case was always about two courageous young girls who simply wanted the same opportunities as their peers to participate in school life,” their lawyer, Chris Erchull of GLAD Law, said in a statement Thursday. “Their willingness to stand up to extraordinary hostility made clear the human cost of laws that target transgender youth.”
The teenagers, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, took on Trump’s executive order last year, amending their 2024 complaint against New Hampshire’s law on banning transgender girls from school sports. A federal judge had granted a court order allowing them to play as the case proceeded.
For Tirrell, it meant being able to keep playing on her high school girls’ soccer team. For Turmelle, it was having a chance to try out for different sports.
Both sides agreed to pause the case and wait for a ruling from the Supreme Court as it considered similar state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school and college athletic teams in Idaho and West Virginia. Last month, the court upheld the laws. It also said that barring transgender girls and women doesn’t run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
One teen and her family decided to move from New Hampshire
Turmelle and her family moved out of New Hampshire last summer following proposed legislation against transgender people. One measure signed into law by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte last year prohibits medical professionals from providing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy to new transgender patients under age 18.
“Though there may be a carve-out for people already receiving gender-affirming care, that is way too close a call for us to risk staying,” Turmelle’s mother, Amy Manzetti, wrote in an op-ed piece at the time. “Other New Hampshire laws also seek to erase her.”
Most Republican-controlled states in the past five years have adopted laws or policies limiting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and limiting which school bathrooms transgender people can use, as well as sports restrictions. The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that about 3% of youth ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender.
“The challenges with relocation are significant and burdensome — this includes having to find new employment, buying and selling homes, packing and moving possessions, integrating kids with a new school system, losing access to longstanding family and friends, and potential loss of income,” Corinne Goodwin, the executive director of Eastern PA Trans Equality Project in Pennsylvania, said in an email.
“But these families do so because they love their kids and know that supporting them with the care and opportunities they need is critical to their long-term success and happiness.”
The other teen gave up playing soccer at high school
Tirrell, 17, began her junior year last fall on the girls’ junior varsity soccer team. Things were fine at first, and each time she scored a goal, she got a round of ice cream from her parents. But a few weeks into the season, she decided to stop playing.
“With all of the political stuff going on, soccer wasn’t just about the game anymore,” her mother, Sara Tirrell, told The Associated Press in an interview.
It became more about preparing for the possibility of conflict.
“Were there any local Facebook groups where they were sort of agitating about potential protests and how do we prepare, and what are we walking into, and we never kind of knew,” she said. “We were on a lot of pins and needles, especially after the previous season.”
She was referring to a controversy at an away game where two dads from an opposing team were banned from school grounds for wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” to represent female chromosomes. They sued the school district and a judge ruled against them. They have appealed their case.
Last fall, there was an increased presence of school administrators at the games and bus drivers pulled in closer to the field so the students weren’t in the parking lot, she said.
“Parker didn’t talk about it a lot, but I think she could see that stress for everybody — for her, for her teammates, for her coaches,” Sara Tirrell said. “She felt kind of bad about pulling them all into that circus again. And so she ultimately said, ‘This isn’t fun anymore and I don’t want to do it.’”
Parker’s father described the atmosphere as “palpable tension.”
Even playing on her own turf, “there would typically be a couple of police officers at the home games where there weren’t previously,” Zach Tirrell said.
In the past, Parker also played soccer in a recreation league and could still do so.
“But I think it all kind of still sort of weighs on her,” her mother said. “It’s the same group of kids that she plays with who, honestly, have been very supportive and love to have her on the team and have expressed that to her many times over. But I think she still has that worry in her brain around, ‘What are other people going to say and do if I show up at a game?’”
Parker’s parents hope she’ll return to playing soccer some day. In the meantime, “she plans to be around and use her voice to continue standing up to discrimination,” her mother said. “In some ways she’s had to grow up a lot faster than some of her peers.”
McCormack writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, N.J., contributed to this report.
U.S. Navy sailor Chase Humes is moving back to his dad’s house in Texas.
Last month, the 25-year-old was notified that his “voluntary separation” from the Navy, which he’d applied for in May 2025, had been approved — he would be released from service. He and his wife must be out of their military housing in San Diego by mid-July. Humes, a transgender man who’s been taking testosterone for seven years, was among at least 1,000 service members who chose to leave on their own terms rather than face involuntary separation following the military’s February 2025 ban on transgender service members. By choosing a voluntary separation, he’s been approved for an “honorable discharge,” which preserves access to benefits like Veterans Affairs healthcare that others worry they might not have access to. Humes is one of about 4,200 transgender service members the Department of Defense estimates have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and could be subject to the policy. Advocates say the transgender service member population could exceed 15,000, according to a UCLA study from 2014. A new California bill, Assembly Bill 1775, is intended to assist people who don’t have the certainty of Humes’s honorable discharge and worry about their future prospects if they were forced out of the military. Proponents say the bill, by San Diego Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward, could help people who are given less than honorable discharge for hiding their transgender identity by helping them restore access to services.
In the meantime, service members like Humes are scouting their next move. The sailor and his wife have been searching for jobs near his dad’s house outside Houston. They can’t afford to start their life in San Diego, despite having fallen in love with the city’s accepting atmosphere. “The whole reason I joined was for a better future for myself and my family, and it just got torn away,” Humes said of the separation.
It rescinded President Biden’s policy permitting transgender people to openly serve in the forces, and asserted that gender dysphoria and using pronouns different than one’s biological sex at birth were inconsistent with the country’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”
What followed the Jan. 27, 2025 order was a series of legal challenges, some of which are still ongoing. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military was likely unconstitutional, allowing a group of 28 plaintiffs from across the country to continue serving while their case proceeds. Transgender troops were faced last spring with the choice of either voluntarily leaving the military, and in some cases receiving separation pay, or saying nothing and hoping they were not found out and “involuntarily separated” from the forces.
Humes is choosing to voluntarily leave the Navy after the Trump administration announced a policy banning transgender troops.
(Adriana Heldiz / CalMatters)
Kat Koehlmoos, who was in active duty for eight years and is now in an inactive Army Reserve status, said the military chain of command does not know she is transgender. “Anyone could use my testimony today to report me to the Army Reserves here, and they would be required to take action to involuntarily discharge me from the U.S. military,” she told lawmakers during a hearing on the legislation last month. Koehlmoos is a board member for SPARTA Pride, which advocates for transgender service members and co-sponsored the legislation. She said the bill came about in part because supporters are concerned the federal government might replicate the actions it took during its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which allowed gay, lesbian and bisexual troops to serve if they concealed their sexual orientation. Some 2,000 troops were given less than honorable discharges in connection to the policy, and were shut out of some veterans’ benefits, according to a class-action lawsuit that was settled in 2025.
Koehlmoos said the group anticipates some people who are “involuntarily separated” under the 2025 transgender ban will be punished by the Department of Defense for not complying with the law.
“They may pursue other charges: accusing them of falsifying records or lying on federal documents, and attempt to get them a less than honorable discharge because of that,” she said, although SPARTA Pride does not know of any such cases so far. If that happened in California, Ward’s bill would help those people qualify for expedited professional licensing in civilian careers like contracting and nursing and prioritize them for discharge upgrades as well as housing and support services.
Ward said he believes the benefits of all service members should be secured, whether they leave voluntarily or involuntarily.
“They have served honorably, and this was a separation that was involuntary, and they would deserve the full benefits that they otherwise would have been due had they been cisgender,” he said.
Unknown number affected
It’s unclear how many people could be affected by the legislation. Ward has repeatedly told fellow lawmakers that 2,900 of the federal government’s estimated 4,200 transgender troops — 69% — are either from California or are currently stationed in California. In an emailed statement in response to a question from CalMatters, Ward said the figures were mistakenly adopted after conversations with veterans’ advocates, and he would no longer use them to describe the number of affected California service members. The bill would also require the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs to create a new housing and supportive services grant for veterans, which Ward said would fill a gap in existing housing support for veterans experiencing imminent homelessness. But the budget Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Monday does not include funding for that program. Instead, it directs $2 million toward the state’s existing Veteran’s Military Discharge Upgrade Grant Program, which provides legal assistance for veterans fighting for a discharge upgrade. As Humes prepares to leave San Diego, Ward’s bill is still pending in Sacramento. The legislation has cleared policy committees in both houses and awaits a hearing in the Senate appropriations committee. Koehlmoos said the moment is stressful for most transgender troops — those being removed voluntarily, who have few options; the people who haven’t notified the chain of command, who may be living in fear; and the service members who will delay their transition, or never transition, because of the federal government’s ban on transgender troops.
“For me that’s heartbreaking, because that really is putting your life on hold,” she said.
The US Supreme Court has ruled that states can ban transgender women from competing in female school and college sports.
The court considered cases from students in two different states who had challenged bans on participation. The two states, Idaho and West Virginia, enacted laws that required public school and college sports teams to compete in accordance with their sex recorded at birth.
One of the two challenges said the ban violates equal rights protections in the US Constitution. The other said it contradicts civil rights laws.
More than two dozen states have enacted bans since Idaho did so in 2020.
Under those state bans, a transgender woman – a biological male who identifies as a woman – is not permitted to compete in female sports at schools and colleges.
All nine justices on the court decided the state bans do not violate a civil rights law called Title IX which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
But the judges were split along ideological lines on whether the bans contravene the constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The six conservative justices said it did not violate the constitution but the three liberal justices disagreed.
“The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh who authored the ruling.
In her partial dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority opinion had applied “a diminished view of equal protection” to sports.
The challenge launched in Idaho came from a transgender woman, Lindsay Hecox, a long distance runner, who lodged it shortly after the law was enacted. She was later granted an injunction by both a district court and an appeals court.
State lawmaker Barbara Ehardt, who introduced the law, said at the time of its passing that it would ensure “boys and men will not be able to take the place of girls and women in sports because it’s not fair”.
But in the appeals ruling, a panel of three judges found that the Idaho law violated constitutional rights. They said the state had failed to provide evidence that its ban protects “sex equality and opportunity for women athletes”.
President Donald Trump made the issue of transgender athletes in women’s sports a regular focus of his 2024 election campaign. Last year, he signed an executive order that aimed to ban transgender women from competing on female sports teams in schools and colleges.
Following that decision, the NCAA, the governing body for US college sports, banned transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
Supporters of the bans argued that transgender women had a biological advantage over athletes who were recorded female at birth.
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in March it was going to limit the women’s category of Olympic sports to biological females, it said its working group reviewed the latest scientific evidence over the previous 18 months and had concluded there was a “clear consensus”, external that “male sex provides a performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power and resistance” .
Those who opposed the bans argue that they unfairly discriminated against transgender students and dispute whether there is a scientific consensus that transgender women and girls have an inherent advantage.
A new LGBTQ+ travel risk map has assessed safety for LGBTQ+ travellers across 233 countries and territories worldwide, with conditions worsening in several nations including the US, India and Japan
13:03, 03 Jun 2026Updated 13:04, 03 Jun 2026
US, Japan and India have been flagged as ‘riskier’ for LGBTQ+ travellers(Image: SCM Jeans via Getty Images)
Major travel hotspots including the US, Japan and India have faced travel warnings as a new map highlights the risk for LGBTQ+ travellers. Fresh criminal legislation, curbs on established rights, and political reversals mean that LGBTQ travellers could encounter heightened legal and societal dangers when journeying overseas.
The LGBTQ Risk Map 2026, published by Safeture, evaluates the circumstances for LGBTQ travellers across 233 countries and territories around the world. Worldwide, the assessment categorises 91 countries as high risk for LGBTQ travellers. A further 62 countries are rated medium risk, while 80 are deemed low risk.
In comparison with last year, circumstances have deteriorated in multiple countries, including Belarus, Burkina Faso, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Slovakia, and the United States. The factors differ but encompass restrictions on established rights, legal setbacks, stricter penalties, and fresh constraints on the recognition of gender identity and on travel documentation.
Where is safest for LGBTQ travellers?
Western Europe remains the safest region for LGBTQ travellers, with every country in the region classified as low risk in the most recent assessment.
According to the LGBTQ Risk Map 2026, the UK remains in the ‘Normal’ zone as somewhere LGBTQ+ travellers are “unlikely to face difficulties”. Local attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community for countries in the normal zone, including the UK, Brazil, Spain, France and Italy have “are overall open and progressive”.
Botswana and St. Lucia have scrapped legislation criminalising same-sex relations between men, leading to better ratings on this year’s map.
Where is risky for LGBTQ travellers?
By comparison, the Middle East and North Africa remain home to some of the globe’s most perilous destinations for LGBTQ travellers. The majority of nations in the region are categorised as high risk, with Israel given a low risk rating and Lebanon designated medium risk.
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, conditions remain extremely difficult. Roughly 80 per cent of evaluated countries in the area fall within the highest risk bracket. The decline is especially noticeable in Burkina Faso and Senegal. Following the 2022 military coup, Burkina Faso introduced its first legislation criminalising same-sex relations. In Senegal, prison terms for same-sex relations have been doubled.
Throughout Europe and Eurasia, fresh legal restrictions have resulted in lower ratings for certain countries. Kazakhstan has introduced constraints on information concerning so-called “non-traditional sexual orientations,” while Slovakia has further curtailed the rights of same-sex couples. Belarus has passed legislation against so-called “LGBT propaganda,” which could lead to fines or even detention.
Backward steps have also been documented in Asia. In India, new laws aim to restrict transgender individuals’ ability to self-identify. In Japan, a court maintained the constitutionality of the nation’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.
In North America, the United States has strengthened requirements for travel documents. Passports will display only the sex assigned at birth, and the “X” gender marker will no longer be accepted.
CLOVIS, Calif. — Jurupa Valley senior AB Hernandez stood on a hillside overlooking Veterans Memorial Stadium, a booklet of encouraging letters tucked under one arm and two gold medals hanging from her neck.
She rolled the medals between her fingers.
“I still feel like I’m gonna be here next year,” she said. “I guess I’ll process it overnight maybe, then tomorrow, I’m going to Disneyland.”
For most high school seniors, a state championship marks the end of a season.
For Hernandez, it marks the end of three years spent competing as a transgender athlete under a spotlight few teenagers could imagine.
On Saturday, she won state titles in the high jump and triple jump, capping her career as a four-time state champion. Days earlier, she had graduated from high school.
AB Hernandez leaps in the air during the CIF state track and field championship finals in Clovis on Saturday.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
Away from the spotlight, Hernandez likes swimming, spending time with friends and working on her makeup routine. During the past two years, politicians and activists stoked by President Trump have turned her into a symbol in the national fight over transgender athletes’ right to participate in girls’ sports.
“I feel like I’m always going to be in the public eye,” Hernandez said. “It’s never going to go away and that’s weird. But maybe someday it’ll be for something else.”
At the state championships, that fight was visible everywhere except where Hernandez seemed most comfortable: among the athletes competing in the stadium.
At the end of Friday’s preliminary competition, Hernandez and five other high jump contenders sprawled on their stomachs beneath the high jump tent, cheering on West Ranch junior Avery Prestridge and La Jolla junior Anastasia Volkov in a jump-off for the final qualifying spot.
AB Hernandez, second from right, laughs while standing on the first place podium alongside Monta Vista’s Leilani Laruelle after the CIF state track and field high-jump finals on Saturday.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
When Prestridge secured the berth, she and Hernandez exchanged a high-five and a smile.
“That’s what will stick with me,” Hernandez said. “Laying on the field, cheering for other girls, everyone being sweet.”
It was a stark contrast to the image detractors tried to paint earlier in the day.
While Hernandez warmed up on the track, anti-trans activists and politicians gathered across the street in an area marked by a CIF sign reading “free speech area.”
There, organizers who have protested women’s athletic events involving transgender participants across California delivered speeches demanding that the CIF prohibit Hernandez and other transgender athletes from competing. They were unmoved by CIF’s policy requiring that any transgender athlete who advances in track and field playoffs or places in competition be joined by the next cisgender girl in the rankings, with both advancing or receiving the same medal.
“The message being sent to female athletes is clear — your opportunities, your records, your placement and your hard work comes second to males,” former NCAA soccer player Sophia Lorey said during the rally.
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton spoke alongside the protesters.
“The first thing we have to do is overturn the law that set all this in motion, AB 1266, that was passed in 2013, that’s why we’ve been living with this for so long,” Hilton said to Fox News. “That law violates the California state Constitution. … I will immediately suspend the law while we begin legal proceedings to overturn it.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton held a news conference outside the state track and field championships in Clovis denouncing CIF for allowing transgender athletes to compete alongside girls.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
Earlier in the day, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer posted a video on X with Hernandez.
“I’m so proud of you for what you’re doing,” Steyer told Hernandez. “So proud of you for succeeding. So proud of you for competing. That’s really the point. … And I’m going to hope like heck that you don’t just make state but you do really well there. Deal?”
Last year, Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that, “As a Male, he was a less than average competitor. As a Female, this transitioned person is practically unbeatable.”
He also threatened to withhold federal funding from California if the CIF allowed Hernandez to compete. That came after he enacted an executive order in February 2025 barring transgender women and girls from participating in sports according to their gender identity.
Transgender participation in sports has become a central Republican talking point in recent years and it is impossible to separate Hernandez’s story from that political context.
Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and California Family Council have invested years and millions of dollars into messaging, advocacy and legal efforts surrounding the issue. According to ProPublica and public filings, those organizations collectively reported hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in 2024.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez, center, poses with other athletes at the CIF state track and field championships in Clovis on Saturday.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
As a result, a California athlete who confirmed her transgender status became the focus of a national political fight.
“The voice of the kid who’s been targeted gets lost,” said activist Daisy Gardner, who spoke at a news conference supporting Hernandez before Saturday’s meet. “We’re up against a million[-dollar] machine on the other side who has launched the ‘Protect Girls’ Sports’ campaign, and we need to have a little ray of sunshine pushing through the darkness.”
The Trump administration’s Executive Order 14201, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” was issued on Feb. 5, 2025, and was followed the next day by an NCAA ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports.
AB is not sure whether she will find a way to continue competing in college.
“I don’t think any child should have to go through this,” AB’s mother Nereyda Hernandez said. “These are adults willingly doing this to a minor child. This is a kid, a breathing human, a child. It’s not what people are making this out to be.”
For the first time during Friday’s preliminary competition, the clouds broke and the Clovis sun beat down on the field.
AB, who had posted the top regional mark, needed only one jump to qualify for the next day’s finals. She went last in the second flight.
As she prepared for her attempt, the public address announcer’s voice echoed through the stadium.
“In girls’ long jump, here comes AB Hernandez.”
A ripple of applause spread through the crowd from those who recognized the name. Nereyda and family friend Trevor Norcross were among the loudest.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez won the high jump title during the state track and field championships in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
Two hours later, after completing her triple jump qualifying leaps, Hernandez headed to the high jump, where she again found herself among the final competitors remaining.
During the long wait between events, Nereyda was interviewed by ABC30. At the same moment, AB was preparing for a high jump attempt.
Gardner, the activist, hurried over, tapped Nereyda on the shoulder and pointed toward the pit.
Nereyda quickly turned her phone sideways and hit record.
“Let’s go AB!”
The night before qualifying, AB, Nereyda and friends sat in a hotel room making bracelets. At first, they strung rainbow-colored beads. AB shook her head. Her colors were pink and gold.
“I know what looks good on me,” she said. “I want something that represents me. People see a flag, and that’s not me in my entirety. I want something that is me personally, me entirely.”
While Nereyda felt the familiar butterflies about what the next day might bring, AB focused on what mattered to her. She decided how she wanted to wear her hair and prepared the custom-made letterman jacket she got last year with money donated by supporters.
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez wears a letterman jacket funded by her supporters and waves during the CIF state track and field championships in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
AB Hernandez’s mom, Nereyda, shows a friendship bracelet she made alongside supporters of her daughter that reads “I stand with AB.”
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
“She said, ‘I want my letterman jacket,’ and I was like, OK,” Nereyda said. “And she said, ‘I want that to be a reminder every time I wear it, I want it to be a reminder of the people who supported me,’ and that’s what she did.
“It was a daily reminder that she wasn’t alone.”
Those are the memories Nereyda says will stay with her more than the vitriol she and her daughter have faced during the past two years. AB is a reluctant transgender athlete pioneer who prefers to be known for so much more than just her gender identity, but the prospect of hiding because she was relentlessly attacked didn’t feel right, either.
“I’m always going to think about how hard she tried to be here,” she said. “She didn’t quit. Despite all the pressure, you can’t change my kid.”
The night before AB’s final competition, Nereyda felt sick. She suspected it was stress over what the next day might bring.
But Saturday passed with minimal disruption.
AB’s long jump did not meet her usual standard. She finished third with a mark of 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches, a result she described as “bittersweet.”
“It was a little nerve-wracking,” Nereyda said. “I could see it was a different vibe when she got into the high jump and triple jump.”
In those events, Hernandez delivered the top performances of the day to repeat as a state champion.
She leaped 42-8 3/4 in the triple jump, comfortably ahead of Los Altos senior Daniela Hughes, who finished at 41-1 before sharing the podium. Standing together atop the first-place position, the two posed for photos with Hughes’ arm draped around Hernandez.
“I’m just happy with my performance,” Hughes said when asked about sharing a podium. “I wanted to win a championship.”
Transgender athlete AB Hernandez clinches her fists and reacts after completing a high jump during the CIF state track and field meet in Clovis.
(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)
About 30 minutes after the high jump medal ceremony, AB walked toward her mother.
Nereyda spotted her and threw her hands into the air.
“My baby!”
The two embraced, away from the crowd, the cameras and the ire.
“She did it,” Nereyda said. “With everything else, it didn’t matter, she did it.”
WASHINGTON — A Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeal court judges ruled on Monday.
The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit largely upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.
The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military. The appeal court’s majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those seeking to join.
The ruling won’t immediately go into effect, allowing the administration time to ask the full appeals court to hear the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the transgender military ban to go into effect last year, as litigation continues to play out. Another lawsuit challenging the ban was filed in Washington state and led to a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs challenging the policy in that case.
In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness.
In response to the order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. Gender dysphoria is the distress that a person feels because their assigned gender and gender identity don’t match. The medical condition has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.
The policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender,” Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for the majority. Wilkins was nominated to the court by Democratic President Obama.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Justin Walker said judges lack the power to second-guess the decision to exclude transgender troops.
“We have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks. The Constitution assigns that authority to Congress and the Commander in Chief,” wrote Walker, who was nominated by Trump, a Republican.
Judge Judith Rogers, who was nominated by Democratic President Clinton, joined Wilkins’ opinion but also partially dissented.
Kunzelman and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.
CLOVIS — Jurupa Valley senior AB Hernandez placed third in the CIF state championship long jump on Saturday, medaling in the event for the second consecutive year.
Hernandez, who is transgender, has faced harassment and ire from anti-trans protesters and conservative pundits during the past two years. She jumped 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches on Saturday, behind first-place finisher Ellie McCuskey-Hay of St. Ignatius (20-3½) and Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark (20-3½).
Under CIF policy, transgender athletes who place at the state championships receive medals but do not displace cisgender girls in the final standings. The federation announced last year that the policy would apply specifically to the long jump, triple jump and high jump — the three events Hernandez competed in — and the rule remained in effect for her three events this weekend.
Hernandez shared her third-place podium with St. Mary’s Berkeley jumper Corrine Jones, who reached 19-9 ½.
Hernandez secured her place in Saturday’s finals on her opening long jump attempt Friday, posting a mark strong enough to hold the top qualifying position. She passed on her remaining two attempts after safely locking up advancement.
The atmosphere surrounding the state championships was notably calmer than a year ago, when demonstrations over Hernandez’s participation drew national attention. On Friday, the most visible protest activity came before the meet, when Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton held a news conference outside Veterans Memorial Stadium, noting that the primary election was just four days away.
Standing before signs reading “Hey, CIF: Girls’ Sports Girls Only” on Friday, Hilton criticized the California Interscholastic Federation’s policies governing transgender athletes.
On Saturday, the Rainbow Families Action group hosted a news conference outside in support of Hernandez. Counter-protesters showed up toward the end and shouted toward the Hernandez supporters and the two sides exchanged some words before dispersing.
Inside the stadium, however, the focus largely remained on the competition. Spectators cheered as Hernandez began her long-jump approach, and some fans wore bracelets bearing the message “We Stand With AB.”
Event organizers prohibited signs inside the venue. Unlike last year, when advocacy groups on both sides staged more visible demonstrations, the off-track theatrics were largely absent.
Meanwhile, Democrat Tom Steyer released a video on X on Friday featuring a previous conversation with Hernandez, in which he expressed support for her participation in high school athletics.
The 17-year-old arrived in Clovis after sweeping all three of her events at the Southern Section championships.
Entering the state meet, Hernandez ranked among the nation’s top 10 performers in all three events. She shared California’s best high jump mark, was tied for second in the long jump and ranked second in the triple jump. She will compete in the high jump and triple jump later Saturday.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s sweeping demands for confidential transgender patient information from Rhode Island’s largest hospital that provides gender-affirming care to minors.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy’s Wednesday ruling is the latest setback for the U.S. Department of Justice, where at least seven other federal courts have agreed to quash or limit the expansive civil subpoenas sent to more than 20 doctors and hospitals last summer.
McElroy’s decision also echoed similar concerns raised by judges surrounding the expansive scope of the subpoenas, describing the Justice Department as having “immense prosecutorial authority and discretion” but no longer trustworthy it will enforce its power fairly and honestly.
“DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” McElroy wrote.
A Justice Department spokesperson said Thursday that it would appeal and continue with its investigations.
“The Rhode Island court’s attack on the professionalism and integrity of DOJ attorneys is outrageous and unjustified,” the department said.
According to the subpoenas, the Justice Department had demanded Rhode Island Hospital hand over the birth dates, Social Security numbers and addresses of every patient who received transgender care over the past five years. It also included instructions to provide all documents detailing adverse side effects in minor patients who received gender-related care, assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy, as well as patient intake forms and guardian authorization.
The Justice Department has repeatedly argued that the information sought in the subpoenas is needed to investigate possible fraud or unlawful off-label promotion of drugs. Most recently during a hearing in Rhode Island, the DOJ said that the investigation was taking place in the Northern District of Texas, where the court’s chief judge ordered Rhode Island Hospital to comply with the subpoena before McElroy’s decision voided the subpoena.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Brantley Mayers told McElroy during the hearing that the Justice Department is investigating potential “misbranding” of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, such as puberty blockers for young people. While off-label prescribing is legal, Mayers said that the DOJ is concerned that pharmaceutical companies are providing “financial incentives” to Rhode Island doctors to prescribe the drugs.
The subpoenas were crucial in getting the names of children and their families so the Justice Department could interview them.
McElroy rejected that argument.
“The administration has publicly characterized gender-affirming care for minors as abuse, directed the DOJ to bring its practice to an end, and celebrated when hospitals curtailed such programs as a result of this subpoena campaign,” McElroy wrote.
The Rhode Island decision is the latest development in the fight over transgender youth health records. Earlier this week, 11 families filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the Justice Department from obtaining the documents. The lawsuit, filed in Maryland’s federal court, is backed by families with transgender children who have received care from hospitals across the U.S.
And separately, a New York hospital announced that it received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Texas seeking information about children who received gender-affirming care and the medical providers who administered it.
NYU Langone is the first hospital system to publicly acknowledge receiving a subpoena for such records as part of a federal criminal investigation. But the institution said in its statement Tuesday it was one of several that received a subpoena out of the Northern District of Texas on May 7. It said it was deciding on how to respond.
“The government cannot use its subpoena power to intimidate families out of seeking lawful medical care. To trans and gender-diverse children and their families, we want you to know that you are valued, you are not alone,” Kevin Love Hubbard, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement.
Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person’s gender identity, including when it’s different from the sex they were assigned at birth. It may include counseling, medications that block puberty, hormone therapy to produce physical changes or surgeries to transform chests and genitals, although those are rare for minors.
Most major medical groups say access to the treatment is important for those with gender dysphoria and see gender as existing along a spectrum.
At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care for minors, while several others have adopted laws or policies protecting access to transgender healthcare.
