This trans lawyer will break barriers & injectable PrEP will get cheaper

Here are eight positive stories that happened this past week.

History will be made soon! ACLU attorney Chase Strangio will argue for trans people’s rights to access medical care before the Supreme Court.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.

Cecillia Wang, ACLU legal director, said of Strangio in a statement, “Chase Strangio is our nation’s leading legal expert on the rights of transgender people, bar none. He brings to the lectern not only brilliant constitutional lawyering, but also the tenacity and heart of a civil rights champion. Our clients couldn’t have a better advocate in this case.”

The Biden administration is working on a new rule to make injectable PrEP – as well as more forms of birth control – available without a copayment under the Affordable Care Act.

“With low uptake of PrEP among the communities most impacted by HIV, this insurance coverage requirement with zero cost-sharing will help jump-start the use of more effective forms of PrEP and lead to fewer HIV transmissions,” Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, told The Bay Area Reporter.

Gabriel shared with us the positive feelings he’s getting from joining forces with his friends and campaigning to help Kamala Harris win Pennsylvania.

“As a gay person, my life is political whether I like it or not,” he wrote. “I’ve been lucky enough to live in a world created by the gay activists before me. But I know that none of that progress is safe.”

Parents of various political beliefs came together to make a video supporting their trans kids and co-signed a Supreme Court brief supporting trans kids’ right to medical care.

“I’m trotted out often as the Republican parent who loves and supports their transgender son, which I don’t really get personally. I’m just doing my job as a parent,” one dad said. “Some of [my son’s] trans friends joke and they say I’m a dad to all of them. I can’t help it.”

DeAnna LeTray, a trans woman, got justice in the state of New York after she was mistreated and misgendered by police officers. She sued and the county settled.

“These settlements make me feel heard and will allow me to move forward with my life, despite the trauma I endured,” she said. “Most importantly, they will put other counties and police departments on notice so that the abuse I endured never happens to anyone again.”

Yet another study has come out showing that trans kids are just who they say they are and that affirming their gender identities is almost never the wrong way to go.

“I wish we didn’t need research like this, but we do,” said Chris Barcelos, an associate professor of women’s gender sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, to the Washington Post. “It’s important that there is more data to support a thing that trans people … know, which is that there’s a really low rate of regret and really high rates of satisfaction with gender-affirming care for young people.”

Conservatives in Lancaster, Ohio, denounced several local businesses for supporting a small-town Pride organization, accusing them of all sorts of awful things. But then something great happened: people came in from all over to support those businesses and show that hate has no home in America.

“We’ve probably had at least 200 people who have never been to Lancaster that have come to town to support the boycotted businesses,” the owner of a local gift shop said. “People from, not just Columbus, but out of state have been visiting us on the daily now, and so it’s definitely something I didn’t expect.”

The PSA, entitled “Not Losing You,” depicts a farmer learning to accept his transgender daughter. The whole video is heartwarming.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Don’t forget to share: