In the News

As licensed psychologists and psychologists in training, we are writing to share our concerns regarding the slate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills Iowa legislators have advanced. The proposed legislation would significantly harm all Iowans. We oppose these bills and urge that they do not move further forward.

A recent controversy at the Cameron Family YMCA in Santee has once again given an opportunity to assert the positive case for heteronormativity. Rebecca Phillips, a 17-year-old girl, was in the women’s locker room showering after a workout. Christynne Wood, a 66-year-old transgender woman, was also in the locker room changing after a water aerobics class. Rebecca was shocked and alarmed to find Christynne in a private space reserved for women. When Rebecca brought her concerns to the YMCA staff, she was told that, indeed, the YMCA’s policy, per state law, is that trans people are allowed to use the locker rooms of their gender identity, and thus a controversy was kicked off, one that has become increasingly common.

Gender is a fundamental expression of individual identity, not just a spectrum but a plane that extends in multiple directions. With it comes societal baggage — expectations of behavior, pronouns, and other aspects of identity. But for many students at Berkeley High School, there are as many ways to use she/they pronouns as there are to be human, all of them valid.

A new billboard along an interstate in South Carolina is sparking a conversation about the relationship between religion and people who identify as transgender. The Alliance for Full Acceptance organization, or AFFA, recently announced its newest venture, the “God Loves LGBTQ+ People” campaign. Part of the campaign includes a new billboard along Interstate 385 in Laurens County, South Carolina, that reads, “God loves trans kids.”

One of the judges at the official regional tournament for the Pokémon Trading Card Game that took place in Vancouver this weekend received a lifetime ban after he allegedly harassed transgender competitors. According to a member of team Girl Power, who competed at the Vancouver event, one of the judges, identified as Travis Madaris by Dot Esports, approached the group for a photo and later their dinner on March 12. Madaris allegedly started off asking about trans inclusiveness when taking a photo together at the competition, but the interaction, according to Eliza Barbera, the competitor who shared her team’s story, devolved into telling the individual members why they didn’t pass as women.

Republican lawmakers in Florida appear likely to expand provisions in the Parental Rights in Education Act, or so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law with a host of new restrictions on what teachers can and cannot say in their classrooms about gender, sex, and sexual orientation.

In recent months, more than a dozen American states have sought to restrict or ban drag performances, with many framing these legislative moves as aimed at protecting minors. In this explainer, JURIST unpacks the trend and highlights its worrying implications for free speech.

It strikes me, and may strike you, as a bit crazy to come out as transgender in an essay like this. I’m publicly revealing myself to be a member of a marginalized community in the midst of a moral panic targeting our very existence. Ascribe it to my defiant streak, if you will.

Much confusion exists today about many aspects of our daily lives. There is confusion about simple things such as whether it is safe to eat eggs for breakfast, or very complicated things, such as whether we are in a recession or whether bitcoins are real money. Trying to determine what is true is not simple and is made more difficult when there are new, usually many-syllable, words to describe what is known. Another problem in learning what is true is our amazing new ability to access many sources of information through the internet. These sources are available in less than a second but determining which source is reliable takes many seconds or may not be found.

The term “nonbinary” is one of many identities that's been gaining popularity in recent years, largely due to a sharp rise of young people embracing the label. In fact, a 2021 report from the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted nearly 1.2 million nonbinary people between 18 to 60 living in the United States. Of that total, three-quarters were under the age of 30, suggesting that younger folks have explored gender identity to an extent that older folks have not.

Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday protecting the rights of LGBTQ people from Minnesota and other states to receive gender affirming health care, as he slammed the tide of other states rolling back transgender rights.

There’s been a recent buzz about the new Harry Potter-inspired open-world game, “Hogwarts Legacy.” With that, the conversation surrounding the author of the series, J.K. Rowling, and her past transphobic remarks have resurfaced.