A Biden-appointed federal judge has ruled American taxpayers must continue spending millions of dollars on transgender procedures in blue states.
A coalition of <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72077914/28/2/state-of-oregon-v-kennedy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20 states</a>, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania Governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-backyard-battle-between-dem-governor-and-couple-next-door?author=Jordan+Schroeder&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Backyard+Battle+Between+Dem+Governor+And+Couple+Next+Door" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Josh Shapiro</a>, sued Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over a December 2025 <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/declaration-pediatric-sex-rejecting-procedures.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declaration</a> that told medical providers and organizations they can be denied Medicaid and Medicare funding if they continue providing harmful &#8220;sex-rejecting procedures&#8221; to children.
&#8220;Sex-rejecting procedures for children and adolescents are neither safe nor effective as a treatment modality for gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, or other related disorders in minors, and therefore, fail to meet professional[ly] recognized standards of health care,&#8221; states Kennedy&#8217;s declaration.
Kennedy clarified in the document that the term &#8220;sex-rejecting procedures&#8221; includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, which are sometimes referred to as &#8220;gender-affirming care.&#8221;
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, who is known for his judicial <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/senate-republicans-question-oregon-judicial-nominees-support-diversity-2023-10-04/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transgender</a><a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/PronounsPrivilege.Kasubhai.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> activism</a>, vacated the declaration on April 18, calling it &#8220;unlawful&#8221; and &#8220;one man’s musings on gender-affirming care.&#8221;
&#8220;This Court is not persuaded by Defendants’ attempts to gaslight it into believing that the Kennedy Declaration does anything other than what it says: proclaims that gender-affirming care for minors falls below professionally recognized standards of care, supersedes state laws that say otherwise,&#8221; wrote Kasubhai in his <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.191371/gov.uscourts.ord.191371.93.0_2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opinion</a>. &#8220;Secretary Kennedy’s unlawful declaration harmed children. This case illustrates that when a leader acts without authority and in the absence of the rule of law, he acts with cruelty.&#8221;
&#8220;HHS will continue to fight to protect our nation’s children, as this Biden-appointed judge’s ruling puts radical ideology ahead of their safety,&#8221; HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard told The Daily Wire.
The lawsuit&#8217;s plaintiffs include: Oregon, Washington State, New York, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and the Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro.
Washington State admitted to spending more than $31 million providing &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; services to 10,000+ &#8220;transgender&#8221; individuals over three years in a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ord.191371/gov.uscourts.ord.191371.34.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal document</a> submitted in the lawsuit. The federal government financed the bulk of the state&#8217;s spending, providing $25 million of the $31 million Washington State spent on transgender procedures from 2022 to 2024. It also spent more than $2 million on transgender interventions for minors just in 12 months, according to the document.
The data was provided in a declaration submitted by Dr. Judy Zerzan-Thul, Washington State Health Care Authority&#8217;s <a href="https://www.hca.wa.gov/about-hca/who-we-are/our-leadership" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chief Medical Officer</a>.
Washington State has nearly 6,000 &#8220;distinct Medicaid providers&#8221; offering sex-rejecting interventions, and not allowing providers who accept Medicaid and Medicare payments to &#8220;provide gender-affirming care&#8221; would cripple the industry, according to Zerzan-Thul.
&#8220;The consequence will be that no provider who accepts these forms of payment will be able to provide gender-affirming care to any child or adolescent patient,&#8221; states her declaration. &#8220;This action will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for Apple Health to find health care providers willing to provide gender-affirming care to Apple Health clients, even if such services were entirely state-funded.&#8221;
Apple Health, the umbrella term for the state&#8217;s health insurance programs, spent $10.8 million providing sex-rejecting procedures to more than 10,000 &#8220;transgender individuals&#8221; in 2024, more than $10.6 million providing the procedures to 9,500+ individuals in 2023, and more than $10.1 million providing the procedures to 8,500+ individuals in 2022, according to the Zerzan-Thul declaration.
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taxpayers-pay-millions-to-surgeon-who-performs-transgender-surgeries-in-prisons" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously reported</a> that the Washington State Health Care Authority spent more than $4.3 million on a cosmetic surgery practice led by Dr. Geoffrey Stiller, MD, who offers an array of “transgender” surgical procedures, including facial feminization, “non-binary” double mastectomy, and “bottom surgery,” according to the Stiller Aesthetic <a href="https://www.stilleraesthetics.com/gender-affirming-overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>.
Zerzan-Thul cited discredited gender medical guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Endocrine Society, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) as the state&#8217;s basis for determining that sex-rejecting interventions were &#8220;evidence-based, safe, and effective, medical treatments.&#8221;
&#8220;WPATH remains a globally recognized authority on gender-affirming care, and its Standards of Care have been widely adopted by medical institutions worldwide,&#8221; states the Zerzan-Thul declaration.
In its review of pediatric gender medicine, HHS noted that <a href="https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-11/gender-dysphoria-report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">medical gender guidance</a> from the Endocrine Society, WPATH, and the AAP has been found to be of &#8220;very low quality.&#8221;
The Washington State Health Care Authority did not respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s requests for comment.

HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr Testifies At Senate Finance Hearing

Judge Stops RFK Mandate, Says Taxpayers Must Spend Millions On Trans Surgeries

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This article is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
In this piece, originally published in <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-college-florida-gender-studies-activism">City Journal</a>, Colin Wright argues that faculty at New College of Florida continue to advance activist scholarship in ways that undermine the state’s post-woke reforms.
* * *
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pledged to rein in “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1110842453/florida-gov-desantis-is-doing-battle-against-woke-public-schools">woke indoctrination</a>” in public education, he wasn’t bluffing. Over the last several years, he and the legislature have pursued an aggressive legal and governance strategy to push far-left ideology out of taxpayer-funded institutions. The justification is straightforward: the people have the right to demand that public universities not become subsidized activist factories.
Laws can close academic departments and impose subject-area bans on paper, but campuses are still run day-to-day by faculty and administrators who may not be interested in what voters want. When progressive activists dominate a university, they will inevitably try to circumvent the law.
Such efforts appear to be happening at New College today. Though the Gender Studies department was shut down at the Sarasota school, and Florida law forbids the use of state and federal funds to “promote or engage in political or social activism,” faculty continue to oversee work promoting activist pseudoscience, treat opposition to explicit content in K-12 libraries as equivalent to Nazism, and celebrate “queer bibliographies” and “resistance” to elected officials.
Consider a 2025 undergraduate thesis covering the “Evolution of Gender” in drama and fashion.
Nova Myhill, a professor of English and Theater, Dance &amp; Performance Studies at New College, sponsored the thesis, which explicitly lists “Gender Studies” as its “Area of Concentration.”
At a glance, the thesis appears to be a broad, benign survey of gender-expression conventions through fashion in the context of theater. But it quickly advances to extreme activist views of sex and biology. The opening section, titled “Our Idea of Sex,” portrays sex in humans not as “concrete” or “permanent” but as something “closer to being reflections of societal preconceptions than anything based only on ‘biology.’” It claims that the idea that humans have two sexes became widespread only “around the mid-1700s” due to “changing values of what was important within identity, class and gender beginning to take the utmost importance when using clothing as a symbol or sign of identity.” It even asserts that “there was a time when we conceived of the human race as only ‘one-sex’,” and that our “re-envisioning of the sexes” during the Enlightenment into two categories — male and female — actually “led to the differentiation and specific designation of reproductive organs; the penis, testicles, ovaries, and uterus.”
If this were the only undergraduate thesis at New College promoting such radical activist views, it might be dismissed. It is not.
In January 2026, the college approved and archived an undergraduate thesis in the Division of Humanities that engaged in political activism and covered Gender Queer and Fun Home — books the sexually explicit content of which has prompted parents to oppose their inclusion in school libraries. Myhill also sponsored this thesis and is thanked effusively in the acknowledgements.
Oddly, this thesis includes two abstracts. The first, more formal one describes an exploration of “book censorship, theft, and destruction,” framed as actions “employed to specifically target queer, trans, Jewish, and other marginalized communities,” and ends by describing the authors’ “queer works” as “an act of cultural legacy, heritage transmission, and resistance.” The second reads like a direct taunt of DeSantis and New College’s policy reforms:
<blockquote>This thesis is about queers, trans people, gender, Nazis, book burning, moral panics, censorship, Magnus Hirshfeld, pornography . . . queer bibliography, the Phantasma, classroom libraries, Ron DeSantis, what it’s like to be erased, and also how people fight back . . . so why not read it already?</blockquote>
This isn’t “academic” in any meaningful sense, but rather activist writing designed to indoctrinate, recruit, and promote activism.
In one section, the thesis classifies Gender Queer as essential reading and mocks DeSantis for displaying redacted pages from the book during his November 2023 debate with California Governor Gavin Newsom. It frames Florida’s higher education reforms as part of an “anti-gender movement” with “chilling reach.”
The thesis also compares Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher F. Rufo’s rhetoric to the “paranoia and persecution of McCarthyism in the 1950s” and claims that he helped incite a “reactive moral panic” like the one behind Nazi-era book purges in 1930s Germany. It compares <a href="https://x.com/christopherrufo/status/1824307070839165333">Rufo’s tweet</a> about abolishing the college’s Gender Studies program to a “long and fiery radio address” delivered by “Joseph Goebbels.” Again, such comparisons are not objective scholarship but political activism.
Other recent theses at New College also veer in an activist direction, including a 2025 thesis on “Queer Resistance and the Fight for Change in Morocco,” a 2026 thesis on “Why Queer People Like Horror Films,” and another in 2025 titled “Who Holds the Mic?: Exploring Image, Control, and Identity in Queer.”
Of course, Florida’s higher-ed reforms don’t ban students from discussing controversial topics in class or engaging in activism in their free time. State leaders intended them to prevent public institutions from using public funds to “promote, support, or maintain” programs or activities that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “promote or engage in political or social activism.”
The work required to shepherd student theses entails faculty time and labor, institutional oversight, and curriculum funded by and developed under the authority of the university. It strains credulity to present as legitimate scholarship works that push false, ideologically charged views of biology or that describe themselves as works of “resistance.” A process that produces such works appears to flout Florida law’s intent to prevent state and federal funds from being used to “promote or engage in political or social activism.”
None of this is to say that shutting down New College’s gender-studies department was in vain. The volume of activist “scholarship” produced at the institution has declined markedly, and that’s a true achievement.
Nonetheless, Florida’s academic reforms are not self-enforcing. As always, personnel is policy. True believers on the faculty will look for workarounds. If nobody is paying attention, abolished departments will soon reappear inside more traditional ones — in this case, the departments of English and Theater, Dance &amp; Performance Studies.
Institutional responsibility lies with the faculty and administrators who decide which scholarship to approve, endorse, or reward. New College’s trustees and the state legislature can pass resolutions and rewrite statutes, but they cannot monitor every thesis committee or syllabus. 
That requires constant vigilance, because the pattern is predictable: abolish the department, then watch its ideology migrate to the English department, the history department, or the library.
If New College wants to fulfill its evolution into a post-woke institution, its guardians should not approve scholarship that treats its vital reforms as analogous to a second Holocaust. Leaders should hold faculty accountable when they use university resources to resurrect discarded programs and pursue activism under new names.
* * *
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/colin-wright">Colin Wright</a> is an evolutionary biologist and Manhattan Institute Fellow.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis engages with New College of Florida

At New College of Florida, Gender Studies Quietly Continues

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Manhattan Institute

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The First Lady is meant to embody unity, home, and family. She is the right hand of the president and, in her own way, a mother to the nation. Melania Trump has taken that charge seriously — focusing her platform on children’s well-being, online safety, and opioid abuse prevention, placing service above self and motherhood above politics.
So as 2028 rumors gather and the question of our next president looms, it’s worth considering who would stand beside him and what she would do with the platform.
If California Governor Gavin Newsom becomes our next president, ask yourself how detrimental it would be for our nation if his First “Partner,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom, assumes greater power. Not First Lady — First Partner. The title she bestows on herself tells you everything you need to know, and the damage would follow accordingly.
Siebel Newsom wouldn’t be the mother of our nation. She’d be the caregiver, the parent, whatever gender-neutral term doesn’t upset the acolytes of the far Left who propelled the couple to power.  She wouldn’t reserve that terminology for herself alone; she would conscript the rest of us into it as well.
We need not wonder how she would parent the country. She’s already told us by how she parents her kids.
I recently wrote about how she’s taken her children on what amounts to a Racism Safari through Red State America — hunting for “misogyny, racism, and bullying, oh my!” But a newly resurfaced video reveals the indoctrination began far earlier.
Siebel Newsom told an interviewer that she gives her boys dolls &#8220;to learn that caregiving is not just an activity reserved for women.&#8221; She added that when reading a book with a male protagonist, she simply &#8220;changes the he to a she&#8221; so her sons can see that &#8220;women can be at the center of a story. That women matter. That women are interesting.&#8221; You have to rewrite literature to teach your children that women are interesting? Isn’t this something they should be able to observe at home, or is that a problem in the Newsom household?
Then she went further. We are all, she said, &#8220;recognizing what it is to ultimately deconstruct all of these gender roles and ultimately be human.&#8221; She will &#8220;continue to do her work to try and deconstruct these limiting narratives about what it means to be human.&#8221;
Read that again. In order for the Newsom family to be fully human, they must first dismantle what it means to be a man or woman. I can’t imagine what their dinnertime conversations sound like, but it seems as if the Newsoms are engaging in a war against the imago Dei — the truth that every person is made in God’s image, with an unchangeable, sexed soul.
When elites like Newsom use their platform to rewrite children’s books, hand boys dolls as ideological instruments, and treat biology as a social construct to be dismantled, they don’t make us more human. They make us less. They tell boys that the natural drive to protect and provide is toxic. They tell girls that the capacity to nurture is something to be questioned.
The result? Confused children, skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and identity disorders, and a culture that treats objective reality as bigotry.
The leftist upper echelon calls this harmless. It isn&#8217;t. It is state-adjacent indoctrination with a smile and a reading circle.
True humanity is not found in endless deconstruction. It is found in accepting the Creator’s blueprint, in living out complementarity, and in rejecting the nihilism that insists man can redefine what God has made.
If the Newsoms become our nation’s next parents, we can be sure that their form of “progress” will aggressively erode that very humanity they openly vow to deconstruct — in the form of gender clinics in schools, pronouns in kindergarten, and a generation that no longer knows what a mother is.

California Governor Gavin Newsom Meets With Campaign Staff And Volunteer On Day Of Recall Election Vote

The Newsoms Are Parenting From Another Planet And They Want To Be America’s Parents, Too

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The Supreme Court issued one of its most clarifying rulings in years on Tuesday, directly challenging the cancellation efforts of modern progressivism, and the reaction from the progressive Left revealed everything you need to know about who actually believes in freedom and who doesn’t.
In <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/supreme-court-sides-with-therapist-in-challenge-to-colorados-ban-on-conversion-therapy/">Chiles v. Salazar</a>, the Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” — specifically, talk therapy that helps minors explore whether their gender dysphoria might resolve in alignment with their biological sex — violates the First Amendment rights of licensed counselor Kaley Chiles. Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, put it <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539_fd9g.pdf">poetically</a>: laws that “suppress speech based on viewpoint represent an egregious assault” on First Amendment commitments. The ruling wasn’t close. It was a near-unanimous recognition that the government cannot dictate which therapeutic conversations are permissible and which are forbidden based on the ideological conclusion it prefers. Tuesday’s ruling should send a chill down the spine of other states that have taken similar action.
Enter Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY).
<a href="https://x.com/AndyBeshearKY/status/2039018698451677322?s=20">Beshear</a> decried the ruling, saying that “conversion therapy is torture,” and invoked his progressive Christian faith to say that “my faith teaches me that all children are children of God and practices that endanger or harm them are wrong.”
Beshear is welcome to espouse his convictions of faith in public life, including as a sitting governor (even if they depart from biblical teaching). He is not welcome to abuse it in the service of a philosophical position that he and other progressives fail to reason through with consistency.
Here is the question he, along with all other leftists, cannot or refuse to answer: If you affirm a minor’s right to pursue medical intervention — puberty blockers, hormones, surgeries — to align their body with their perceived gender identity, on what principled basis do you deny another minor the right to pursue talk therapy exploring whether their dysphoria might resolve without drastic intervention? Both involve a young person, a clinical professional, and a question about identity. The only difference is the direction of the therapeutic goal. And those goals are set against what progressivism thinks sufficiently aligned with its own aims. Beshear supports state-sponsored medical intervention when the conclusion is sufficiently progressive and lines up with what he bills as compassionate; he abandons the language of compassion when it runs contrary to leftist goals for using the government to advance transgender ideology.
The compassionate appeal to “children of God” is theologically sound as far as it goes — every Christian affirms it. But it proves too much and too little simultaneously. It proves too much because it could be deployed to ban any therapy a state deems harmful. It proves too little because it says nothing about which therapeutic goals are legitimate, which is the actual question before us. That’s an anthropological question, one that liberals do not like to answer because modern progressive anthropology lies on flimsy, irrational grounds, unable to determine what a man or woman even is. What Beshear wants is for his theological sentiments to do the intellectual work that his empty platitudes cannot. But a magistrate charged with upholding the common good owes citizens more than sentiment (Rom. 13:1-7). He owes them a coherent account of what a man and woman are, and which identity claims warrant medical affirmation and which warrant further reflection — and why. He has not given one. He cannot give one, because the moment he tries, the internal contradictions of progressive gender ideology become impossible to ignore.
Consider the logical structure on display in the leftist outcries to Tuesday’s decision:
Progressives opposed the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/">Skrmetti</a> decision, the Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, on the grounds that the state should not prevent individuals from pursuing medical interventions aligned with their gender identity. The watchword was choice. Bodily autonomy. Access to care.
Now those same leftists cheer when states ban a licensed counselor from having a conversation with a minor who voluntarily seeks to explore whether their dysphoria might be addressed without medical transition. The watchword is now “protection.” Safety. Science.
The contradiction is absurd. When a teenager wants hormones, progressivism demands the state get out of the way. When a teenager wants to talk to a therapist about living in accordance with biological reality, progressivism demands the state intervene. This is the enforcement of ideological conformity through the selective and weaponized deployment of the language of compassion.
Progressivism is not, at root, about expanding choices. It is about ratifying the correct choices — the ones that affirm the progressive account of identity, selfhood, and liberation. Every other choice, including the choice to embrace one’s given sex, is categorized as harm, trauma, or abuse.
Kaley Chiles was not torturing anyone. She was a Christian counselor who believed — correctly, as it happens — that talk therapy aimed at helping a young person live at peace with biological reality is a legitimate therapeutic goal. Eight justices agreed that Colorado (which now has a long track record of punishing people of faith and losing, thanks to Alliance Defending Freedom) had no business shutting her up.
All children are indeed children of God. That is precisely why they deserve honest counsel and the opportunity to hear the truth about their design.
***
Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. He is a Fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Someone Ask Andy Beshear A Hard Question

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America&#8217;s most influential psychological association told The Daily Wire it still recommends children receive so-called gender affirming medical interventions, despite downplaying its support of child transgenderism in a letter to government <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/commissioners-staff/commissioners" target="_blank" rel="noopener">officials</a><a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/chairman-ferguson-gender-affirming-care-workshop-speech.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> investigating</a> fraud in pediatric gender medicine.
The American Psychological Association (APA) confirmed in a written statement that it continues to &#8220;support treatments for minors seeking gender affirming care&#8221; in alignment with its 2024 <a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender-nonbinary-inclusive-care.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policy statement,</a> which endorses minors receiving harmful gender medical interventions, condemns state laws banning child sex-changes, and says &#8220;non-affirmation&#8221; of a child&#8217;s transgender identity can cause &#8220;significant harm.&#8221;
In a September 2025 <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/American-Psychological-Assocation-Response-to-FTC-RFI_Gender-Affirming-Care-9-26-2025_Signature.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the Federal Trade Commission — which is actively investigating <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/06/ftc-announces-workshop-exploring-unfair-or-deceptive-trade-practices-gender-affirming-care-minors#:~:text=Home-,FTC%20Announces%20Workshop%20on%20Exploring%20Unfair%20or%20Deceptive%20Trade%20Practices,whistleblowers%2C%20detransitioners%2C%20and%20parents.&amp;text=Tags:,Health%20Care" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unfair and deceptive</a> practices within the field of pediatric &#8220;gender affirming care&#8221; — the APA downplayed its support of &#8220;gender affirming care,&#8221; stating the primary role of a therapist treating children with gender dysphoria is assessment, not affirmation.
&#8220;It is important to stress that during the assessment and evaluation process, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or the identification of a youth as gender-questioning is not an automatic or singular pathway to medical intervention or even social transitioning,&#8221; the letter reads.
This statement contradicts the idea that &#8220;non-affirmation&#8221; poses a direct harm to children, as included in the 2024 policy.
Kurt Miceli, the chief medical officer at Do No Harm, says the APA wants to &#8220;have it both ways.&#8221;
&#8220;The American Psychological Association continues its attempt at having it both ways,&#8221; Miceli told The Daily Wire. &#8220;In its 2024 Policy Statement, the APA explicitly endorses &#8216;medical gender‑affirming care,&#8217; even urging insurers to cover these interventions for minors.&#8221;
The APA told The Daily Wire the &#8220;2024 policy statement and the FTC letter are consistent&#8221; and that &#8220;both documents reflect APA&#8217;s consistent commitment to evidence-based psychological care.&#8221;
The APA is the latest medical group to try to shed its reputation for radical transgender ideology. When President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration purged gender ideology from the government and launched investigations into practices within pediatric gender medicine. Since then, gender clinics <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hospitals-across-u-s-stop-transitioning-children-after-trump-signs-order-protecting-kids">across the country</a> have closed their doors, while the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-fight-is-not-over-major-medical-org-rejects-transgender-surgeries-for-kids">American Society of Plastic Surgery</a> has backed away from supporting sex-rejecting procedures for minors.
&#8220;The APA’s 2024 and 2025 statements cannot be reconciled,&#8221; Miceli told The Daily Wire. &#8220;It is an audacious contradiction for the APA to try to claim that their definition of ‘affirming care’ means anything other than sex-rejecting interventions.&#8221;
The Daily Wire asked the APA how it simultaneously viewed the &#8220;non-affirmation&#8221; of a child&#8217;s gender identity as causing &#8220;significant harm&#8221; while recommending a psychologist&#8217;s role is to assess, rather than affirm, a child&#8217;s gender confusion. The Daily Wire also asked for clarity on what clinical standards the APA recommends to help therapists determine when non-affirmation of gender identity is harmful versus when it&#8217;s an appropriate part of a clinical assessment.
The APA did not provide a straightforward answer to these questions, but said, &#8220;In APA’s professional framework, affirming care does not mean a predetermined outcome, automatic validation of any particular intervention, or bypassing clinical judgment.&#8221;
The Daily Wire asked the APA if a therapist should withhold using a child&#8217;s preferred pronouns — a form of &#8220;social transition&#8221; — until the child undergoes an extensive assessment.
&#8220;Affirmation and assessment work together,&#8221; the APA told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Supporting a child does not mean steering them toward any particular outcome, and neither a diagnosis nor a youth’s questions about gender automatically lead to social or medical transition.&#8221;
The APA also said it &#8220;cautions that equating gender‑affirming care solely with medical transition can stigmatize and limit access to essential mental health services.&#8221;
With more than<a href="https://www.apa.org/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 190,000 members</a> nationwide, the APA has a far-reaching impact on the psychological field and the practice of therapy throughout the United States. The APA has received more than 20 million dollars in federal funding since 2020, according to a government transparency <a href="https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/RecipDetail?arg_EntityId=EiNnLpTBhhCS2ZCRaSuz3Q%3D%3D">website</a>.

Pride Flags Above Regent Street In London

Your Therapist Is Being Told To ‘Affirm’ Child Transgenderism

American Psychological Association

When the European Union adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), officials insisted that the sweeping regulation was necessary to tackle “illegal content,” “disinformation,” and other harmful online activity. The message was that responsible regulation would make the internet a safer place. The reality, however, is that the DSA grants the EU enormous <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-europe-plans-to-strangle-american-free-speech?author=Lorcan+Price&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=How+Europe+Plans+To+Strangle+American+Free+Speech">censorship powers</a> that endanger free speech in the digital public square, in Europe and across the world.
Now, for anyone wondering what kind of speech these powers might ultimately be used to suppress, the answer is becoming clearer. On March 5, the European Commission adopted its new <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/gender-equality/gender-equality-strategy_en">Gender Equality Strategy</a>. The document leaves no doubt about the EU’s highly ideological direction, which has positioned it to become the world’s online censor through the DSA.
In the strategy, the European Commission states plainly that the DSA “recognises gender-based violence as a systemic risk, which providers of very large online platforms… have to assess and mitigate”. But what exactly is “gender-based violence”? 
According to the Commission, “online violence” includes acts that cause “psychological” harm or “suffering to women”. What this means is that if the ideological NGOs tasked with patrolling online content under the DSA object to a social media post on the grounds that it is “likely” to cause “harm” to women, major online platforms like X and Meta would be pressured to remove it as “violence”.
The nebulous definition of “online violence” put forward by the new Gender Equality Strategy makes it little more than a vehicle for digital censorship. The strategy presents itself as a roadmap for advancing equality across Europe. Yet what it reveals is a metastatic, habitual tendency on the part of EU institutions to embed contested ideological positions into policy and then frame any dissent as a threat. 
One notable passage in the strategy frames opposition to gender ideology as dangerous, warning that “anti-gender narratives … threaten the EU’s democratic space”. The strategy explicitly identifies “<a href="https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/1f5fa936-9fba-4435-93f5-32fa220bac82_en?filename=gender-equality-strategy-2026-2030.pdf">LBTIQ+</a> women” as a protected group and links gender equality efforts with other EU initiatives focused on sexual orientation. It also adopts an “intersectional approach,” asserting that sex and gender intersect with multiple forms of discrimination and should therefore be addressed through overlapping identity-based policies.
The strategy explicitly supports so-called “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” referencing a recent pro-abortion European Citizens Initiative. This signals continued normalization and support for abortion access on the part of the EU, which it has no authority to promote.
In the strategy, the European Commission refers to the Neil Datta report <a href="https://www.epfweb.org/node/1144">&#8220;The Next Wave&#8221;</a> as a trustworthy study identifying “well-resourced global movements, and increasingly exploited through foreign information manipulation and interference”. But what this “report” does is identify <a href="https://www.epfweb.org/node/1152">pro-life NGOs</a> and research centers promoting biological reality as radical, anti-gender, conservative, and religious extremists.
It does not take much imagination to see how this framework could be deployed in the world of online censorship.
In place since February 2024, the DSA gives the European Commission unprecedented power over the world’s largest online platforms, requiring them to remove certain content and manage “systemic risks” on their services. When authorities view legitimate criticism of gender ideology as part of “anti-gender narratives” threatening democracy, the next evident step is censorship in the name of “content moderation”.
Consider the prosecution of Finnish Member of Parliament <a href="https://adfinternational.org/campaign/free-speech-on-trial">Päivi Räsänen</a> under Finland’s national “hate speech” law. With the legal support of ADF International, Räsänen, a medical doctor, grandmother, and parliamentarian since 1995, has spent more than six years defending herself against criminal charges for posting a Bible verse on Twitter in 2019. She posted the verse to support her Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality. Despite being acquitted twice by Finnish courts, the state prosecution has relentlessly pursued the case, which now awaits a decision from Finland’s Supreme Court. Under the DSA, we should expect to see more aggressive censorship for the simple expression of traditional Christian views like Räsänen&#8217;s.
Of course, the EU can, and should, advance authentic policies to promote equality between the sexes. But this is not that. There is no doubt that the Gender Equality Strategy strengthens the censorship regime created by the DSA. Democratic societies depend on open debate to promote true equality, not the suppression of views that challenge elite orthodoxy.
Platforms that fail to comply with DSA censorship directives face enormous fines, as evidenced by the €120 million fine levied against X, an American platform, last December. Although the penalty was formally tied to procedural violations, the platform was targeted for its pro-free speech stance, which it is now <a href="https://adfinternational.org/news/x-challenges-e120m-fine-under-eu-censorship-law">appealing</a> before the Court of Justice of the EU.
Both in Europe and across the world, including in the United States, the DSA creates powerful incentives for platforms to remove lawful content subjectively deemed problematic or suffer the consequences, which can range from crippling fines to suspension of services.
Europe has long presented itself as a defender of fundamental rights and democratic values. Yet the trajectory of its speech policies increasingly points in the opposite direction. Make no mistake about it: the EU is coming for your free speech, regardless of where you live, and it’s taking no pains to hide the kind of speech it’s after.
* * *
Dr. Adina Portaru is senior counsel, Europe, for legal advocacy organization ADF International, which is supporting X’s legal challenge before the General Court of the EU.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Symbol of transgender and female and male gender symbols

The EU’s Censorship Regime Has A New Gender Strategy And It Threatens Free Speech Everywhere

The EU's Censorship Regime Has A New Gender Strategy And It Threatens Free Speech Everywhere

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Europe

European Union

Alabama Attorney General Stephen Marshall is leading a coalition of 20 states demanding the American Medical Association halt its support of hormonal therapies as treatment for gender dysphoria in children, after the organization withdrew support for child sex-rejecting surgeries.
“We thus find it concerning that the AMA continues to support the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria in minors,” the attorneys general wrote in a letter to AMA President John Whyte. “The quality of evidence is the same as it is for surgeries: low and very-low quality.”
&#8220;The American Medical Association has finally admitted what many have warned for years: its recommendations for surgeries on children were not grounded in solid evidence, despite telling doctors and families otherwise,” Attorney General Marshall told The Daily Wire. “Yet the same weak science underpins puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. You cannot dismiss one intervention as unsupported while continuing to push the rest. When children&#8217;s lives and futures are at stake, anything less than full scientific honesty is reckless. The AMA must follow the science completely, not selectively.&#8221; 

Marshall warned the AMA’s inconsistencies could be misleading the public and violate Alabama’s consumer protection laws, which state it is unlawful for an organization to represent that “goods or services” have “uses, benefits, or qualities that they do not have,” according to the letter. 
“We remain concerned that providers, patients, and their families in our States are being confused or misled by the AMA regarding the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria in minors,” the letter says.
To avoid a “formal investigation” Marshall asked the AMA to answer a series of questions meant to clarify its position on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria, within 30 days.  
“While we hope to avoid a formal investigation under our consumer protection laws, we do have concerns that the AMA may be violating those laws,” the letter says.
The AMA recently told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/health/gender-surgery-minors-ama.html">New York Times</a> and other news <a href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/patient-safety-outcomes/ama-alters-position-on-gender-affirming-surgeries-for-minors/">outlets</a> that “surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood” due to the absence of “clear evidence&#8221; supporting their use. 
“If you agree that there is insufficient evidence to support using surgical interventions to treat gender dysphoria in minors — as your recent statement indicates — we do not understand how you can find that there is sufficient evidence to support using hormonal interventions to treat gender dysphoria in minors,” Marshall writes in the letter.  
“These interventions have not been shown to be any safer for children than sex-change surgeries are, and in fact may be all the more dangerous precisely because they are viewed as not as serious. But hormones can leave a child sterilized just as surely as surgery can,” the letter states. 
The AMA’s turnabout came shortly after the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) published a February 3 <a href="https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/health-policy/positions/2026-gender-surgery-children-adolescents.pdf">position statement</a> recommending “surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old,” after reviewing available evidence. The ASPS also pointed out in the statement there is &#8220;substantial uncertainty” of the “long-term benefits and harms” of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. 
Marshall successfully <a href="https://www.alabamaag.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2025.5.1-Attorney-General-Steve-Marshall-Announces-Victory-in-Defense-of-Alabamas-Law-Prohibiting-Sex-Change-Procedures-for-Minors.pdf">defended</a> Alabama’s law banning sex-rejecting procedures for minors during Boe v. Marshall and through litigation discovered hundreds of pages of documents revealing the political forces informing transgender medicine. This included emails showing former Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard “Rachel” Levine <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admins-rachel-levine-met-with-wpath-as-he-pushed-for-removal-of-trans-surgery-age-restrictions?author=Spencer+Lindquist&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Biden+Admin%E2%80%99s+Rachel+Levine+Met+With+WPATH+As+He+Pushed+For+Removal+Of+Trans+Surgery+Age+Restrictions">controversially</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trans-identifying-biden-official-allegedly-behind-push-to-ditch-age-guidelines-for-transgender-procedures-docs-show?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trans-Identifying+Biden+Official+Allegedly+Behind+Push+To+Ditch+Age+Guidelines+For+Transgender+Procedures%3A+Docs+Show">pressured</a> the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) into removing gender surgery age minimums from its clinical guidance, called the Standards of Care Version 8.
WPATH’s clinical guideline, which recommends children receive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, has been discredited and heavily criticized for lacking scientific rigor.
A 2025 <a href="https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-11/gender-dysphoria-report.pdf">report</a> from the Department of Health and Human Services on the treatment of pediatric gender dysphoria said the WPATH guidelines were “rated among the lowest in quality” and “have not been recommended for implementation by systematic reviews (SRs) of guidelines.” 
“Despite their lack of trustworthiness, for more than a decade WPATH guidelines have served as the foundation of the healthcare infrastructure for gender dysphoric (GD) youth in the United States,” states the report. 
Marshall views the AMA’s recognition of a lack of evidence to support child sex-change surgeries as a “tacit acknowledgement” that WPATH’s standards are not &#8220;evidence-based,” according to the letter. 
The letter asks the AMA if it views the WPATH guidelines as “evidence-based, reliable, and consistent with the best practices of evidence- based medicine.”
The letter was signed by attorneys general from Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.
“We know that we share a common goal in wanting to protect patients and their families and ensure that they receive trustworthy information about their medical care,” the letter reads.
The AMA did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment.

Transgender Rights Advocates Rally Against The Supreme Court’s Ban On Gender-Affirming Youth Care

Medical Giant Retreats On Trans Kid Surgeries — But Stops Short Of Full Reversal

Alabama

American Medical Association

A liberal Maryland county will shell out $1.5 million to a group of religious parents who sued the school board over a policy that blocked parents from opting their children out of instruction on books pushing transgender ideology.  
In addition to paying damages, the board of education for Montgomery County must inform parents whenever there will be instruction related to family life and human sexuality. The <a href="https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20260219151333/Consent-Judgment-in-Mahmoud-v-Taylor.pdf">settlement</a> comes after a group of parents from various religious backgrounds won a major victory at the Supreme Court that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-sides-with-parents-says-schools-cant-mandate-lgbt-curricula">struck down</a> the county’s opt-out policies as unconstitutional. 
The settlement was announced on Friday by Becket, a non-profit law firm focused on litigation issues related to religious liberty. It was approved by Judge Deborah Boardman in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. 
“Public schools nationwide are on notice: running roughshod over parental rights and religious freedom isn’t just illegal — it’s costly,” said Eric Baxter, senior counsel at Becket and lead attorney for the parents. “This settlement enforces the Supreme Court’s ruling and ensures parents, not government bureaucrats, have the final say in how their children are raised.” 
Montgomery County is a heavily Democratic area that borders Washington, D.C. 
In June 2025, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-sides-with-parents-says-schools-cant-mandate-lgbt-curricula">ruled 6-3</a> in favor of the parents against the county, with Justice Samuel Alito writing the majority opinion. 
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Alito wrote.
The legal battle first began in March 2023, when the school board said that it would no longer let parents opt out of books pushing transgender and queer ideology. In response, a group of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish parents challenged the county in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
“It took tremendous courage for these parents to stand up to the School Board and take their case all the way to the Supreme Court,” Baxter said. “Their victory reshaped the law and ensured that generations of religious parents will be able to guide their children’s upbringing according to their faith.”
Chris Persak, a Catholic father whose children attend Montgomery County schools, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/caught-in-a-scotus-clash-over-trans-ideology-parents-turned-to-faith-and-the-constitution">previously told</a> The Daily Wire it was his faith that helped him stay calm throughout the whole legal process. 
“We said prayers of the Holy Spirit, and just felt this unbelievable calmness as we’re walking in,” he said. “Even with the protesters, even with members of the leadership of Montgomery County, who were protesting against us live that day.”

Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Parental Rights Regarding LGBTQ Books In Schools

Liberal County Took On Religious Parents — Now They’re Paying For It

Liberal County Must Pay Parents After Losing SCOTUS Case On Trans Ideology

Maryland

Montgomery County

We are now witnessing a massive cultural retreat from the most controversial elements of activist-driven gender ideology aimed at children. And corporate America is a major part of that shift.
For years, the gender ideology narrative captured our society’s most prominent institutions. The notion that the provision of hormone regimens, puberty blockers, and gender transition surgeries was the only compassionate response to young people facing confusion about their gender morphed from a fringe theory into a near-unquestionable dictate during the last decade. In 2019, a doctor who believed in the Biblical and scientific notion of differences between the sexes was<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-49904997"> told</a> that his views were “incompatible with human dignity.” Parents of children struggling with gender dysphoria were often <a href="https://www.centerforbiblicalunity.com/post/would-you-rather-have-a-dead-daughter-or-a-live-son">presented</a> with a ghoulish, faux-paternalistic ultimatum by therapists and psychologists: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son?”
Perhaps the most impactful driver of this narrative was the boardroom. The dictates of gender ideology were not only pushed forward by activists but also supported by some of the most recognizable brands on Earth. One of the most high-profile examples was Amazon: scholar Ryan T. Anderson, whose 2018 book When Harry Became Sally offered a thoughtful Christian response to gender ideology, had to fight through a <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-statement-on-when-harry-became-sally">book ban</a> and <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-statement-on-when-harry-became-sally">smears</a> of “hate speech,” before it could be sold in the world’s largest online market. Countless companies, from Apple to Target, were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-left-wing-activists-are-trying-to-save-corporate-wokeness">participating</a> with corporate activist organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, one of the major promoters of gender ideology in corporate America.
In the 2010s and early 2020s, it was perfectly reasonable to believe that the way major companies handled gender ideology was less about science and more about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/corporations-that-pushed-gender-ideology-owe-america-an-explanation?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=8&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Corporations+That+Pushed+Gender+Ideology+Owe+America+An+Explanation">placating</a> goalpost-shifting activists. And then, as so often happens with activist movements, the goalposts got shifted too far. It wasn’t just adult choice that was the focus of gender ideology. It was about the attempted normalization of surgical interventions for children. That was when the momentum shifted.
Three recent occurrences illustrate just how quickly the tide is turning.
First, a 22-year-old ‘detransitioner’ — someone who regrets their gender transition — just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-court-case-has-gotten-little-attention-but-just-changed-everything">won</a> a $2 million lawsuit against the New York doctors who approved her surgery. Fox Varian, who had a double mastectomy (surgical removal of both breasts) when she was just 16 years old, is the first detransitioner to take a medical malpractice case to trial and win.
That ruling came on January 30. On February 3, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons <a href="https://www.plasticsurgery.org/for-medical-professionals/health-policy/position-statements">released</a> a statement asserting that “there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for … gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents.” 
Days later, the American Medical Association <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/health/gender-surgery-minors-ama.html">announced</a> its agreement: “The AMA agrees… surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”
Let’s be clear about what that means: in the span of approximately a week, two absolutely critical points have been proven about gender ideology: (1) performing gender transition surgeries on children is a source of major legal liability, and (2) the medical consensus does not neatly support the necessity of such treatments.
These are precisely the arguments we have made to companies for years about their healthcare coverage. For companies that spent the early 2020s placating activists pushing gender ideology, the mid 2020s may be a painful reckoning with how out-of-touch with reality those activists truly were.
Activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=11&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Radical+Intolerance+Behind+Woke+Corporate+Activism">told</a> companies that covering hormone regimens and transition care were prudent ways to minimize risk. It’s incredibly apparent that this was a wild guess at best, and a cleverly worded activist ploy at worst. As the era of corporate wokeness comes to an end, companies seeking to stay politically neutral and avoid becoming entrenched in culture war issues (remember, companies have a fiduciary duty to do this) are taking a serious look at their healthcare coverage.
For companies that cover gender transition care for adults, do they also cover detransition care? If not, that hardly reads as politically neutral. Do companies have clear stances on not covering gender transition care for children? These are the questions that we, as corporate engagement professionals, are asking hundreds of companies.
Some companies are setting the standard. Walmart, the world’s largest company, <a href="https://me.walmart.com/content/dam/themepage/pdfs/AssociateBenefitsBook-2026.pdf">publishes</a> its full Associate Benefits Guide, which includes a clear carve-out prohibiting health plan administrators from providing transgender medical interventions to minors. The company has also been incredibly constructive in engaging with its shareholders on this issue. Other companies should follow Walmart’s example. You’d be amazed by how many haven’t. But the winds are blowing in our favor.
One major example of the large-scale retreat is the widespread drop in support for the Human Rights Campaign, whose ‘Corporate Equality Index’ grades companies in part by their adherence to activist criteria surrounding hormone regimens, transition surgery, and the like. In 2025, almost 380 Fortune 500 companies participated in the Index. In 2026? Fewer than 150. Many of the major names that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=11&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Radical+Intolerance+Behind+Woke+Corporate+Activism">ceased participation</a>, including Capital One, Goldman Sachs, and Google (Alphabet), are companies we’ve engaged with surrounding these issues.
If these signs are any indication, there’s much more to come. As the consequences of such treatments become more widely understood, by major companies, providers, and especially insurers, we may well see the forming of a new consensus, the one that always should have been: the dictates of gender ideology, that promoted and supported major and often irreversible medical interventions for children, are being rejected by the brands that make up our capital markets. For the sake of America’s children, that rejection can’t come fast enough.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Wall Street Sign

Corporate America Quietly Backs Away From Gender Ideology For Children

Business

Children

Corporations

kids

Teenagers

transgender surgery

Trans flag

This Court Case Has Gotten Little Attention But Just Changed Everything

Doctors

Lawsuit

Matt Walsh

Medical

Opinion

New details have emerged in the case of a young female detransitioner who last week <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/detransitioner-awarded-millions-in-first-malpractice-verdict-this-is-how-it-all-ends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">won</a> a $2 million judgment against the doctors who performed a double mastectomy on her when she was just 16 years old.
Notably, the plaintiff, Fox Varian, had her healthy breasts removed about one year after she first started questioning her gender. The teen&#8217;s mother was also pressured into signing off on the surgery, as one medical professional effectively said Varian would kill herself without the surgery.
Varian was given the name Isabella at birth, but changed it numerous times during the fallout from her parents&#8217; split, which included the estrangement of her father, independent journalist Benjamin Ryan said on X. Ryan was in the courtroom for the entire trial, and reported for the <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/a-legal-first-that-could-change-gender">Free Press</a>.
The young girl suffered from depression, anxiety, and social phobia and was diagnosed with autism and bounced around various schools, Ryan said. She also suffered from eating disorders and body-image issues.
However, at just 15 years old, she started to question her gender &#8220;during sessions with her psychologist,&#8221; who has been identified as psychologist Kenneth Einhorn. Just 11 months after Varian started to socially &#8220;transition,&#8221; the 16-year-old was on an operating table, where Dr. Simon Chin removed her healthy breasts.
In another shocking, yet unsurprising detail, Varian&#8217;s mother, Claire Deacon, was pressured by medical professionals, namely Einhorn, into signing off on her daughter&#8217;s surgical transition. Einhorn insisted Varian was going to kill herself without the surgery. Deacon was effectively presented with the option of having a dead daughter or a &#8220;son&#8221; who has undergone trans procedures.
The jury found that medical professionals failed to consider other possible explanations for Varian’s mental health issues — like depression, ADHD, autism, or body dysmorphia — and rushed to approve an irreversible surgery.
Varian, who recently turned 22, was awarded roughly $1.6 million for past and future suffering, and an additional $400,000 for future medical costs.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Claire Deacon, mother to Fox Varian, the detransitioner who won a $2M jury award after suing her care providers over the mastectomy she got at 16, testified that Varian&#8217;s psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, browbeat her into consenting with threats of her child&#8217;s suicide.
I report… <a href="https://t.co/3vCfk54FNT">pic.twitter.com/3vCfk54FNT</a>
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/2018183382513930585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
There are more than two dozen cases still pending similar to Varian&#8217;s, with detransitioners suing medical professionals for irreversible harm. Varian&#8217;s verdict could be the beginning of the end of the mutilation of children in the name of transgenderism.
&#8220;The case could be a model for other lawsuits over such surgeries performed on minors,&#8221; legal expert Jonathan Turley said. &#8220;There are more than two dozen such lawsuits currently pending in various courts.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The case could be a model for other lawsuits over such surgeries performed on minors. There are more than two dozen such lawsuits currently pending in various courts. <a href="https://t.co/78RuLrf1Q8">https://t.co/78RuLrf1Q8</a>
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/2017934402903277738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
Activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole, who started to medically transition at just 13 years old, said Varian&#8217;s verdict gives her hope.
&#8220;Varian V Einhorn is the first detransitioner lawsuit to reach a verdict, and Fox Varian was awarded $2M Even better is that this was in New York!&#8221; Cole posted online. &#8220;I am going to trial as well against my doctors with the Center for American Liberty and this gives me even more hope that I will get justice for myself.&#8221; 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Varian V Einhorn is the first detransitioner lawsuit to reach a verdict, and Fox Varian was awarded $2M
Even better is that this was in New York!
I am going to trial as well against my doctors with <a href="https://twitter.com/Liberty_Ctr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Liberty_Ctr</a> and this gives me even more hope that I will get justice for myself <a href="https://t.co/TpbuFvFwuQ">pic.twitter.com/TpbuFvFwuQ</a>
— Chloe Cole ⭐️ (@ChloeCole) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChloeCole/status/2017715062845095966?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2026</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/detransitioner-awarded-millions-in-first-malpractice-verdict-this-is-how-it-all-ends?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Detransitioner+Awarded+Millions+In+First+Malpractice+Verdict%3A+‘This+Is+How+It+All+Ends’">Detransitioner Awarded Millions In First Malpractice Verdict: ‘This Is How It All Ends’</a>

Diverse people holding transgender flags

Shocking Details Emerge In Landmark $2 Million ‘Trans’ Malpractice Judgment

New Details Emerge In Landmark ‘Trans’ Malpractice Payout Case

Chloe Cole

detransitioner

malpractice

Belgian authorities have opened an investigation into the 2025 arrest of Lois McLatchie Miller and &#8220;Billboard&#8221; Chris Elston, one year after the activists were detained while conducting interviews on the street.
Miller, a British citizen, and Elston, a Canadian, were in Brussels interviewing passersby about radical gender ideology in June. Miller was holding a sign that read “Children are never born in the wrong body” and Elston — known for debating people on the streets while wearing sandwich boards — held one reading “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
When a threatening crowd began to form, Miller called the police. Four police vans and fourteen officers arrived on the scene, only to arrest and strip-search Miller and Elston, who were held in custody for four hours.
“Opening up a criminal investigation into what happened is a major development,” Miller said. “It’s clear by any measure that our right to free speech was violated when we were put in jail cells for speaking about puberty blockers.&#8221;
Belgian authorities have not yet disclosed the scope of the criminal investigation, leaving open the key question of whether the inquiry is focused on potential misconduct by the police officers involved in the arrests or the conduct of the campaigners themselves. Miller and Elston have spent the past year petitioning the government to offer an apology and financial settlement for what they call an unlawful detention.
The scope of Brussels’s criminal investigation could signal a shift in Europe’s approach to free speech, which American officials warn is under attack on the continent.
“Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Vice President JD Vance said last year. “I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful content’. Or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny’ on the internet.”
The vice president added that he believes Europe will rise to the occasion, and expressed his confidence that Europe’s democracies “are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.”
&#8220;We should be able to speak freely about one of the greatest medical scandals in modern history,” Elston said. “Children are being maimed, chemically castrated, and sterilized for an ideology which teaches they were born wrong.”
Elston is no stranger to brushing up against foreign speech codes and hostile crowds. In 2023, he was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/canadian-cops-watch-as-radical-trans-activists-assault-lone-man-defending-kids" target="_blank" rel="noopener">assaulted</a> during an event in Canada, an attack police did nothing to stop. The following year, he was put on trial in Australia <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/he-shared-a-link-on-x-now-hes-in-an-australian-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">simply</a> for sharing a link on X.
Months after his arrest in Belgium, Elston <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/billboard-chris-launches-global-nonprofit-to-fight-child-gender-exploitation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">launched</a> a nonprofit dedicated to fighting “medical malpractice of child transition” and defending free speech worldwide.
&#8220;We’re formalizing a grassroots movement to educate, activate, and equip people to protect children,&#8221; Elston told The Daily Wire in an exclusive interview after the organization&#8217;s launch.“We will always endeavor to follow the law, while at the same time challenge abuses of authority.”

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Belgium Investigating Arrest And Detention Of ‘Billboard Chris’ And British Activist

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