The submitting of a lawsuit by the litigious, now wholly left-wing American Civil Liberties Union isn’t precisely a stop-the-presses second, however Tuesday evening’s version of the PBS Information Hour handled it as such.
Co-host Amna Nawaz arrange the present’s most liberal correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, in assist of the identical “gender-affirming care” misnomer PBS has utilized in its earlier extreme protection of so-called transgender minors. Nawaz sounded impressed by the ACLU’s wording
Amna Nawaz: At present, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration over the president’s government order focusing on gender-affirming take care of minors. The lawsuit says Trump’s actions, quote, “unconstitutionally usurp congressional authority by withholding lawfully appropriated federal funds” and violate the rights of trans youth by, quote, “depriving them of needed medical care solely on the idea of their intercourse and transgender standing.” Our White Home correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has been protecting this and joins us now….
Laura Barron-Lopez: Final week, President Trump signed an government order focusing on gender-affirming take care of minors….The order additionally threatens to withhold federal funding from hospitals or establishments that will additionally occur to offer gender-affirming care….We should always be aware, Amna, that gender-affirming care is endorsed by nearly all of main U.S. medical associations, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
So long as Barron-Lopez and PBS hold citing the Democratic hacks at AAP in favor of transgender surgical procedure for teenagers, we’ll hold stating the group’s institutional credibility has been on a well-deserved decline because it beneficial masking up toddlers, requiring pupil athletes to compete in masks, and flushing down the reminiscence gap its personal earlier insistence that seeing faces is essential for early childhood growth.
Barron-Lopez additionally ignored that medical teams in Europe and elsewhere have withdrawn their earlier assist for puberty blockers to so-called “gender dysphoria.”
PBS additionally ran a clip of ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, who embarrassed himself earlier than the Supreme Courtroom final December.
Nawaz: I do know you may have been speaking to a household in Texas who says they’re feeling an instantaneous influence. What are they telling you?
Barron-Lopez: A few years in the past, we interviewed a Texas household, John, Mary, and their now 14-year-old trans daughter, Leah. [Editor’s Note: Here’s our coverage of that interview.] We now have modified their title to guard their id. And after Texas banned gender-affirming take care of minors, they began going to New Mexico for remedy. We spoke to John and Mary once more at present. And for the reason that government order, they are saying that they have not been in a position to come up with their physician in New Mexico. They have been truly planning to attempt to transfer to Colorado, one of many states that helps and gives gender-affirming take care of minors….
Barron-Lopez went full activist on her hobby-horse concern, which rides alongside uneasily along with her supposed beat because the Information Hour’s White Home correspondent.
Barron-Lopez: The White Home claims that that is about defending kids, and so they have more and more described gender-affirming care in graphic and typically disdainful phrases, calling it — quote — “chemical castration” and — quote — “mutilation.” And it is vital to fact-check that therapies like puberty blockers are generally used and are reversible, and gender-affirming care for minors is uncommon….
Amputating breasts and penises should not be known as “mutilation” — it is “graphic and typically disdainful.”
Is Barron-Lopez following the science or a leftist agenda? The Mayo Clinic, for one, had issues about “long-term results” concerning progress spurts, bone progress, bone density, and fertility.
Barron-Lopez corrected herself to take care of her political correctness.
Barron-Lopez: ….And I ought to be aware, Amna, that I unintentionally stated that gender-affirming take care of minors is uncommon. It is gender-affirming care surgical procedure for minors is extremely uncommon.
Nawaz solemnly famous that “vital clarification.”
Which makes it odd that Information Hour can discover so many examples to cowl.
Co-host Nawaz set her colleague as much as broaden her condemnation of Trump.
Nawaz: Once you take a look at the rights of transgender folks, the place does this transfer from the Trump administration match into any broader sample that we’ve seen?
Barron-Lopez: Trump’s actions have been very sweeping with regards to attempting to dismantle some transgender rights. That features instructing the federal government to acknowledge solely two genders, shifting trans girls to males’s prisons….
It is superb if Barron-Lopez really thinks it will be higher for organic males and boys to have entry to girls in jail or to take over ladies’ sports activities.
This section was delivered to you partially by Cunard.
A transcript is obtainable, click on “Develop.”
PBS Information Hour
2/4/25
7:41:38 p.m. (ET)
Amna Nawaz: At present, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration over the president’s government order focusing on gender-affirming take care of minors.
The lawsuit says Trump’s actions — quote — “unconstitutionally usurp congressional authority by withholding lawfully appropriated federal funds” and violate the rights of trans youth by — quote — “depriving them of needed medical care solely on the idea of their intercourse and transgender standing.”
Our White Home correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, has been protecting this and joins us now.
So, Laura, simply lay out the scope for us of the president’s government order and what’s occurred because it was signed.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Final week, President Trump signed an government order focusing on gender-affirming take care of minors. And that motion states that the federal authorities won’t fund, sponsor, promote, help, or assist the so-called transition of a kid from one intercourse to a different.
And we must always be aware that that order defines baby as anybody below the age of 19, which incorporates authorized adults in lots of states. The order additionally threatens to withhold federal funding from hospitals or establishments that will additionally occur to offer gender-affirming care.
And that is led some suppliers, even in states that defend this sort of care, to droop it. Kids’s Nationwide in D.C. stated that it’s pausing all puberty blockers and hormone remedy prescriptions for youth. Stories of comparable strikes are additionally in Colorado and New York, which led New York Lawyer Common Letitia James, she instructed suppliers that canceling care would violate state legislation.
We should always be aware, Amna, that gender-affirming care is endorsed by nearly all of main U.S. medical associations, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Amna Nawaz: I do know you may have been speaking to a household in Texas who says they’re feeling an instantaneous influence. What are they telling you?
Laura Barron-Lopez: A few years in the past, we interviewed a Texas household, John, Mary, and their now 14-year-old trans daughter, Leah. We now have modified their title to guard their id.
And after Texas banned gender-affirming take care of minors, they began going to New Mexico for remedy. We spoke to John and Mary once more at present. And for the reason that government order, they are saying that they have not been in a position to get ahold of their physician in New Mexico. They have been truly planning to attempt to transfer to Colorado, one of many states that helps and gives gender-affirming take care of minors.
However Leah had her — Leah had her baggage packed and was able to go, however now they are saying that the indicators from Colorado are murky, and it is unclear if they will proceed to offer therapies. And here is John.
John, Father of Leah: It was undoubtedly going to be only a safer transfer. And to be in a spot the place our every day lives simply felt secure and accepted was well worth the effort to do this transfer. However now, with these government orders, he is already talked about going after sanctuary states if they do not comply along with his orders.
So we’re type of now on this bizarre floating place the place, sure, we wish to get out of right here, however can we actually go wherever we’ll be secure?
Laura Barron-Lopez: Leah’s dad and mom instructed us that she has sufficient remedy — that is puberty blockers and hormone remedy — to final till about June, however they do not know what might occur after that, Amna.
Amna Nawaz: Laura, again it up right here. What’s the White Home argument for this government order, and what’s the ACLU saying their authorized argument is to problem it right here?
Laura Barron-Lopez: The White Home claims that that is about defending kids, and so they have more and more described gender-affirming care in graphic and typically disdainful phrases, calling it — quote — “chemical castration” and — quote — “mutilation.”
And it is vital to fact-check that therapies like puberty blockers are generally used and are reversible, and gender-affirming take care of minors is uncommon. All gender-affirming care therapies are a part of in depth evaluations between medical doctors and households.
However the White Home’s fundamental argument right here is that, with this motion and different sweeping actions that they’ve taken to this point, they are saying that the president has the authority to cease funding from going to something that they consider is in opposition to or the other of the president’s ideological agenda.
Now, we spoke to Chase Strangio, who’s an lawyer at ACLU, who argues the other.
Chase Strangio, American Civil Liberties Union: President Trump merely doesn’t have the authority to aim to chop off federal funding for establishments that present medical take care of transgender adolescents and that he’s directing his federal businesses to violate federal legislation that in actual fact protects the availability of this care.
We’re additionally arguing that these makes an attempt to limit care violate the person constitutional rights of transgender adolescents and their dad and mom.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Now, Chase stated that their argument is also saying that the transgender individuals are protected below the equal safety rights clause in opposition to discrimination primarily based on intercourse, and that is additionally about due course of rights of oldsters.
And I ought to be aware, Amna, that I unintentionally stated that gender-affirming take care of minors is uncommon. It is gender-affirming care surgical procedure for minors is extremely uncommon.
Amna Nawaz: Thanks for that vital clarification, however a broader look right here now.
Once you take a look at the rights of transgender folks, the place does this transfer from the Trump administration match into any broader sample that we’ve seen?
Laura Barron-Lopez: Trump’s actions have been very sweeping with regards to attempting to dismantle some transgender rights.
That features instructing the federal government to acknowledge solely two genders, shifting trans girls to males’s prisons, directing the DOD to reinstitute the trans army ban, and stopping social transitioning in faculties.
And, tomorrow, we expect that the president will signal one other government motion that might ban trans athletes from taking part in on women and girls’s faculty sports activities groups, Amna.
