|
|
|
Trump order aims to end federal support for gender transitions for those under 19
Topics |
2025/01/29 16:02
|
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at cutting federal support for gender transitions for people under age 19, his latest move to roll back protections for transgender people across the country.
“It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures,” the order says.
The order directs that federally-run insurance programs, including TRICARE for military families and Medicaid, exclude coverage for such care and calls on the Department of Justice to vigorously pursue litigation and legislation to oppose the practice.
Medicaid programs in some states cover gender-affirming care. The new order suggests that the practice could end, and targets hospitals and universities that receive federal money and provide the care.
The language in the executive order — using words such as “maiming,” “sterilizing” and “mutilation” — contradicts what is typical for gender-affirming care in the United States. It also labels guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health as “junk science.”
On his Truth Social platform, Trump called gender-affirming care “barbaric medical procedures.”
Major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support access to care.
Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are first evaluated by a team of professionals. Some may try a social transition, involving changing a hairstyle or pronouns. Some may later also receive puberty blockers or hormones. Surgery is extremely rare for minors.
“It is deeply unfair to play politics with people’s lives and strip transgender young people, their families and their providers of the freedom to make necessary health care decisions,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson.
The order encourages Congress to adopt a law allowing those who receive gender-affirming care and come to regret it, or their parents, to sue the providers.
It also directs the Justice Department to prioritize investigating states that protect access to gender-affirming care and “facilitate stripping custody from parents” who oppose the treatments for their children. Some Democratic-controlled states have adopted laws that seek to protect doctors who provide gender-affirming care to patients who travel from states where it’s banned for minors.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appeals court overturns ex-49er Dana Stubblefield’s rape conviction
Topics |
2024/12/27 03:42
|
A California appeals court has overturned the rape conviction of former San Francisco 49er Dana Stubblefield after determining prosecutors made racially discriminatory statements during the Black man’s trial.
The retired football player was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in October 2020 after being convicted of raping a developmentally disabled woman in 2015 who prosecutors said he lured to his home with the promise of a babysitting job.
The Sixth Court of Appeals found Wednesday that prosecutors violated the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, a law passed during a summer of protest over the police killing of George Floyd. The measure bars prosecutors from seeking a criminal conviction or imposing a sentence on the basis of race.
Prior to the law, defendants who wanted to challenge their convictions on the basis of racial bias had to prove there was “purposeful discrimination,” a difficult legal standard to meet.
The appeals court said prosecutors used “racially discriminatory language” that required them to overturn Stubblefield’s conviction.
The case was “infected with tremendous error from the minute we started the trial,” said Stubblefield’s lead attorney, Kenneth Rosenfeld.
In April 2015, Stubblefield contacted the then-31-year-old woman on a babysitting website and arranged an interview, prosecutors said.
According to a report by the Morgan Hill Police Department, the interview lasted about 20 minutes. She later received a text from Stubblefield saying he wanted to pay her for her time that day, and she went back to the house.
The woman reported to the police that Stubblefield raped her at gunpoint, then gave her $80 and let her go. DNA evidence matched that of Stubblefield, the report said.
During the trial, prosecutors said police never searched Stubblefield’s house and never introduced a gun into evidence, saying it was because he was famous Black man and it would “open up a storm of controversy,” according to the appellate decision.
By saying Stubblefield’s race was a factor in law enforcement’s decision not to search his house, prosecutors implied the house would’ve been searched and a gun found had Stubblefield not been Black, the appeals court said. The reference to controversy also links Stubblefield to the events after the recent killing of Floyd based on his race.
Defense attorneys said there was no rape, and Stubblefield said the woman consented to sex in exchange for money.
“The trial had a biased judge who didn’t allow the evidence from the defense, the fact that she was a sex worker, to be heard in front of a jury,” Rosenfeld said. He called the incident a “transactional occasion” between Stubblefield and the woman.
He remains in custody until a hearing next week, during which his attorneys will ask a judge to approve a motion to release him. Prosecutors have several options, including asking the court to stay their decision so they can appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, or refile charges.
The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office said it was “studying the opinion.”
Stubblefield began his 11-year lineman career in the NFL with the 49ers in 1993 as the league’s defensive rookie of the year. He later won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He returned to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-01 and the Raiders in 2003. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court seems reluctant to block state bans on medical treatments for minors
Topics |
2024/12/04 19:54
|
Hearing a high-profile culture-war clash, a majority of the Supreme Court seemed reluctant Wednesday to block Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
The justices’ decision, not expected for several months, could affect similar laws enacted by another 25 states and a range of other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.
The case is coming before a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
In arguments that passed the two-hour mark Wednesday, five conservative justices voiced varying degrees of skepticism of arguments made by the Biden administration and lawyers for Tennessee families challenging the ban.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted in the majority in a 2020 case in favor of transgender rights, questioned whether judges, rather than lawmakers, should be weighing in on a question of regulating medical procedures, an area usually left to the states.
”The Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor,” Roberts said in an exchange with ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio.
The court’s three liberal justices seem firmly on the side of the challengers. But it’s not clear that any of the court’s six conservatives will go along. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in 2020, has yet to say anything.
Four years ago, the court ruled in favor of Aimee Stephens, who was fired by a Michigan funeral home after she informed its owner that she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace.
The Biden administration and the families and health care providers who challenged the Tennessee law are urging the justices to apply the same sort of analysis that the majority, made up of liberal and conservative justices, embraced in the case four years ago when it found that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.
The issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.
Tennessee’s law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but not “across the board,” lawyers for the families wrote in their Supreme Court brief. The lead lawyer, Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first openly transgender person to argue in front of the justices.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harvey Weinstein hospitalized after ‘alarming blood test,’ attorney says
Topics |
2024/12/02 03:54
|
Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday following an “alarming blood test,” his attorney said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious jail complex.
Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for an “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention,” his attorney, Imran Ansari, said in a statement.
“It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilizes,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional rights.”
A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.
Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction in the state. The case is set to be retried in 2025. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.
In a legal filing last week, Weinstein’s attorneys accused the city of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical afflictions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IV’s, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear — hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Ansari said in a statement that likened Rikers Island to a “gulag.”
The troubled jail complex, located on an island in New York City’s East River, has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover of the jail system, finding the city had placed its incarcerated population in “unconstitutional danger.”
A publicist for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, echoed the allegation in a statement Monday.
“Mr. Weinstein, who is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not,” he said. “In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Lawyer & Law Firm Websites |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
