Anti-Trans Policies Hurt Trans Parents and Children, Surprising No One

Allison Chapman, Gender Justice & Health Equity Fellow
Khadijah Silver, Director of Gender Justice & Health Equity

New reports from the Trevor Project and Williams Institute reveal the deep psychological harm caused by the Trump administration's policies targeting the transgender community. While experts are unsurprised by the results, these reports highlight the detrimental real life effects of anti-transgender policies, mistreatment and stigma.

In its seventh edition, the Trevor Project’s newest Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved study used survey data from 16,667 LGBTQ+ young people between the ages of 13 and 24 who lived in the United States.  Their findings show the devastating results of discriminatory policies on the lives of LGBTQ+ young people in the U.S..

In its most crushing statistic, a full 40% of transgender and nonbinary people and 36% of LGBTQ+ youth overall seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, with one in ten LGBTQ+ young people overall attempting suicide.  Lack of access to gender affirming hormones put transgender and nonbinary young people at nearly twice the risk of attempting suicide verse those who had access to gender affirming hormones.

Ninety percent of LGBTQ+ young people said recent anti-LGBTQ+ laws, policies and debates caused them stress or anxiety.  In parallel to an avalanche of negative legislation, LGBTQ+ young people faced negative mental health outcomes resulting from victimization including bullying, discrimination, threats of violence, and conversion therapy. Over half (59%) of LGBTQ+ young people ages 13-17 experienced bullying in the year before being surveyed, and those who did reported significantly higher rates of attempting suicide in the past year than their peers.

However, the report also found that social acceptance saves lives: LGBTQ+ young people living in very accepting communities were less than one third as likely to attempt suicide than those who live in very unaccepting communities.  Transgender and nonbinary youth in particular were benefited by access to clothing that supported their gender, gender-neutral bathrooms, and respect for their pronouns, all of which were associated with lower rates of suicidality.

While the Trevor Project report focused on LGBTQ+ youth, the Williams Institute report focused on Transgender and Nonbinary Parents.  Titled “Impact of the Trump Administration on Transgender Parents and their Children,” this April 2026 report used data collected in 2025 from 108 transgender and nonbinary parents, examining the impacts of the Trump administration on the lives of these families. 

For example, 66% of transgender or nonbinary parents reported that their children had become more fearful under the Trump administration and 56% of them reported that their children had expressed new worries or concerns, such as fears about their parent’s ability to access gender affirming care, their family’s safety, and whether they would be taken away from their parents.  A full 73% of transgender or nonbinary parents reported that they were pursuing or considering pursuing self-defense classes to better protect themselves and their families.

While these statistics are disturbing, they are far from surprising to our team.  Sadly, we hear the real-life effects of anti-LGBTQ+ policies every day, and marshal our resources to combat the harms.  Please consider donating to support our work drafting affirmative model laws and policies, coordinating comment campaigns on administrative attacks, and defending LGBTQ+ rights in court in partnership with our Pro Bono Litigation Corps.

The Supreme Court Could Decide the Future of Abortion Medication Access, Again

Written by: Zane McNeill

In the most recent attack on abortion medication, anti-abortion extremists are trying to restrict access to a safe, effective treatment used in nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States.

On May 1, 2026, a panel of Republican-appointed judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Louisiana’s request to pause a 2023 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy allowing the abortion medication mifepristone to be prescribed online and sent by mail. This created widespread confusion about what care was still legally permissible. Intervenor pharmaceutical companies that produce mifepristone quickly appealed the 5th Circuit’s grant and on May 4, 2026 the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay, allowing the telehealth provision of mifepristone until at least May 11, 2026. Briefing in the case is due on Thursday, May 7th. 

Anti-abortion advocates have been trying to limit the availability of mifepristone for years. In 2022, the anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represented the anti-abortion organization Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The group strategically incorporated in Amarillo, Texas for the seemingly sole purpose of filing a lawsuit challenging the provision of mifepristone in the district of one of the most conservative federal judges, Matthew Kacsmaryk, in the country. In 2023, Judge Kacsmaryk suspended the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, along with the agency’s removal of medically unnecessary restrictions that had limited access to the medication. Kacsmaryk’s order was appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is notoriously the most conservative appellate court in the country. The Fifth Circuit upheld part of Matthew Kacsmaryk’s injunction, rolling back the FDA’s 2016 and 2021 changes that had expanded access to mifepristone. 

The Supreme Court temporarily paused the 5th Circuit's ruling and, in June 2024 it found that plaintiffs’ lacked standing and bumped the case back to the lower courts. While the original plaintiffs’ lacked standing to bring the legal challenge, Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho had intervened in January 2024 and were able to keep the litigation alive. In September 2025, Texas, Florida, and Louisiana also tried to join the litigation as plaintiffs but were denied. Judge Kacsmaryk transferred the case to the Eastern District of Missouri –a move designed to support the ongoing viability of the lawsuit – where briefing is ongoing. 

In October 2025, Louisiana–supported by the ADF as co-counsel–filed its own legal challenge to the FDA’s allowance of telehealth provision for mifepristone. In its complaint, Louisiana argued that it had standing because 1) the telehealth provision of abortion medication allows providers in other states to provide  abortion care that cannot be provided in the state; 2) abortion medication has led to hospitalizations of women in Louisiana; and, 3) Louisiana had to reimburse two Louisiana women on Medicaid who needed emergency care in 2025 from complications “caused by out-of-state mifepristone.”  Louisiana’s motion to stay the telehealth provision of abortion medication is what is now being considered by the Supreme Court. 

Texas and Florida also filed a separate challenge in December, 2025 suing the FDA over its original approval of mifepristone in 2000 and subsequent approval of a generic version of the medication in 2019, as well as the agency’s removal of restrictions to the medication. Briefing is also ongoing in this case. In their complaint, the states cite a non-peer reviewed and self-published study by the anti-abortion group Ethics and Public Policy Center as evidence that mifepristone is unsafe. This self-published report is being used by the FDA to justify its own review into the safety of mifepristone, despite decades of research finding that it is safe and effective. 

The FDA appears to be delaying its review, and any changes it may make to mifepristone regulations based on it, until after the midterm elections likely to avoid any potential political backlash for Republicans since abortion care remains widely popular. The Supreme Court may keep mifepristone access available until after the FDA finishes conducting its review or until the other cases challenging the availability and regulations of mifepristone make their way to the Court. 

Access to mifepristone is undoubtedly in danger and any restriction to mifepristone will have a detrimental effect on people across the country. Eliminating the telehealth provision for mifepristone would sharply reduce abortion access nationwide and severely impact people living in states where abortion is banned, as well as for those who are low-income, live in rural areas, or have disabilities. While people may still be able to access mifepristone and others could receive misoprostol-only abortion care, access to and optimality of care would be negatively affected. This would not only harm patients who are seeking a desired abortion,but also significantly impact the entire spectrum of reproductive healthcare, including miscarriage care, obstetrical emergencies, and postpartum care. 

Beyond the direct harm to reproductive healthcare in communities across the country, a Supreme Court decision granting one of these states standing–and recognizing sufficient injury to challenge the FDA’s authority–could have far-reaching consequences for access to broader healthcare. The FDA regulates all sorts of medication–if states can use junk science and debunked studies to go after politicized healthcare, they will likely take their win and run with it. 

Many of these states have also opposed “shield laws” that protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care, and states like Louisiana and Texas have already attempted, with limited success, to pursue providers across state lines. A ruling in their favor could escalate interstate legal conflicts and increase risks for providers. 

Finally, some states, including Louisiana, and far-right actors are attempting to revive the Comstock Act, arguing that mailing abortion medication violates federal law. If the Supreme Court lends any support to that interpretation, the provision of abortion care across the country could be severely curtailed. 

If you want to be part of the movement fighting back against anti-abortion extremists, sign up for our biweekly reproductive rights digest and volunteer on our team’s media tracking project. 

They Promised Hundreds of Communities a Long-Overdue Lifeline, and Then Once Again Failed to Deliver.

Written by Jillian Blanchard, L4GG’s Senior Vice President, Climate Change and Environmental Justice 

I still remember talking with Benton Harbor community residents about how their families were forced to buy their daily drinking and cooking water from the local grocery stores because the water in their community was unsafe to drink. But the crisis wasn’t just the lead pipes - it was the indifference. Removing the lead pipes in their community wasn’t a high enough priority for decision makers at city hall, the state legislature, or Congress. 

This isn’t an outlier.

Whether it is the legacy of redlining that funnels pollution into specific ZIP codes or a waste facility placed exactly where a lifesaving community resource center should be, these outcomes are the historical footprints of exclusion and neglect. In America, proximity to harm and exposure to toxic pollution has never been a coincidence of geography; it is a design choice made by those who view frontline communities as disposable. 

So, when I sat down to write this Earth Day message, I wanted it to be honest. And the honest truth is this: justice is not a preference. It is an enforceable right - one that many communities have yet to be granted.

A Promise Written Into Law

View fullsize

In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a federally mandated investment in the communities bearing the heaviest pollution burdens. Under Clean Air Act Section 138, lawmakers appropriated $3 billion as a direct congressional mandate to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fund community-driven critical public health projects that had long been ignored. 

The Community Change Grants and Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants flowed from that mandate. These funds were awarded to tribal nations, rural counties, cities, and communities where residents had been asking for basic environmental protections for generations. These grants did not unlawfully prioritize one community over another, they were based on real, actionable science, sending money for the first time to the places that had the lowest air and water quality and had long been neglected. Critical grants were made to fund stormwater drainage studies and repair, air quality monitors in communities with high asthma rates in children, emergency shelters in hurricane zones, clean energy resilience upgrades, and lead service line replacement, etc. According to a 2024 economic study by Allstate, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, every $1 invested on climate resilience and preparedness saves communities $13 in damages, cleanup costs, and economic impact. That’s a big return on human investment. These weren’t wasteful programs; they were overdue ones. 

What Happened and Why It Was Unlawful

View fullsize

In early 2025, the EPA did the unthinkable. In a single day, a Trump political appointee recommended terminating the entire portfolio of environmental justice grants. The stated reason? Environmental justice was no longer an agency “priority.” Hundreds of organizations received boilerplate termination letters, funds were frozen without warning, staff were laid off, and programs that were years in the making, were shuttered overnight. 

This wasn’t a budget shortfall. This was an administration declaring that the communities Congress specifically funded EPA to protect were no longer worth protecting. 

“When the government signs a grant agreement, it creates a binding obligation. When it breaks the agreement without cause, it violates the law. And if an administration can unilaterally withhold billions in funding that Congress explicitly mandated for critical health projects, the rule of law and the Constitution become mere suggestions - and every community’s safety becomes contingent on who holds the pen. That’s not how the rule of law works.”

— Jillian Blanchard, L4GG’s Senior Vice President, Climate Change and Environmental Justice

What We’re Doing About It

At Lawyers for Good Government, we aren’t just documenting this crisis; we are arming grantees with legal support and litigating it in court. 

Through our Federal Fund Protection Initiative, we have mobilized a large-scale legal infrastructure in coordination with our partners at the Environmental Protection Network, providing bi-weekly updates, resources, and legal and technical assistance to grantees with unlawfully terminated grants. Our pro bono Court of Federal Claims Clinic provides direct representations to affected organizations - because our work here is about more than just recovering funds. It’s about holding the line, protecting communities, and protecting the rule of law. It’s about whether Congress’s spending authority means anything at all.

What This Looks Like In Communities

View fullsize

For the past year, we’ve provided legal support and advocacy on behalf of over 600+ environmental justice grant recipients across the nation. The impact of these unlawful acts isn’t abstract. It has names and ZIP codes.

In Houston, Air Alliance was prepared to launch a pollution-permit notification system that would have warned Gulf Coast residents before industrial emissions reached their lungs. The grant was unlawfully terminated without warning.

In Richmond, California, an area that is home to the Chevron refinery and well known for its battle fighting for clean air, a $19 million grant that would have funded a resilience center, planted trees, restored Wildcat Creek, and electrified 40 local homes, was canceled. 

In areas like Hartford and Bridgeport in Connecticut, where storms are getting stronger and floods recur, communities are asking hard questions about fossil fuels driving the damage, and insurance industries that decide not just who is covered, but who is left behind.  

This Earth Day, we’ve worked with three grantees to share their stories in their own words:

1. This Earth Day, Houston’s air quality is getting dirtier

2. Richmond’s Hidden Toxics: This Earth Day, Look Out Below

3. To Save the Planet, We Must Change the System

Why This Moment Demands Your Action

We’ve spent the past decade fighting in courtrooms, in Congress, and alongside communities who have been forced to fight for the most basic protections, and while this moment is not news, the scale is, and it will take all of us to fight back. 

This Earth Day, we’re marking this Administration’s failure to deliver on the promise of protecting American lives and our very basic human right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and exist on a livable planet. Join us in helping to deliver on this promise anyway, in the absence of federal leadership.

Because the child I think about - the one whose family had to save its weekly earnings to buy bottled water to cook food safely - deserves better.  Help us fight for their future.