Trans News Friday: The Fight Outside The Sports Bra
The standoff outside The Sports Bra turned violent, two more major hospitals stopped caring for trans kids to settle with the Justice Department, and our neighbors in Washington are heading toward a vote on two anti-trans ballot measures. Here's the week.
Clash Outside The Sports Bra Turns Violent
NE Broadway in Portland, the street The Sports Bra calls home. Photo: Ian Poellet via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
On Sunday, September 20, about a dozen conservative protesters faced off with dozens of counterprotesters outside The Sports Bra on NE Broadway. Mace was used, the confrontation spilled into nearby residential streets, and a rock shattered windows at the Fred Meyer on NE Weidler. Police arrested one man on an earlier warrant.
It started September 6, when the bar asked people wearing anti-trans XX-XY shirts to cover the messaging or leave. The bar hasn't budged: "We support and celebrate trans girls and trans women."
These protests are built to go viral. The people who came out to defend the bar were right to show up, and the safest way to keep backing The Sports Bra is to keep spending money there on regular nights.
NYU Langone and UPMC Settle With DOJ and End Trans Youth Care
NYU Langone's Manhattan campus, seen from across the East River. Photo: Tdorante10 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Justice Department announced September 18 that NYU Langone will pay $8.5 million and UPMC $950,000, and both will stop providing puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery to patients under 18. Neither admitted wrongdoing, and DOJ said there was no determination of liability. They're the fifth and sixth providers to settle since May.
Patients at both hospitals had already won in court against DOJ subpoenas for their records. The hospitals settled anyway. On September 22, hundreds rallied outside NYU Langone to protest.
Every one of these settlements sends families looking for care somewhere else. Oregon is still one of those somewhere elses. Let's keep it that way.
Read the full story at LGBTQ Nation →
Washington Heads Toward a Vote on Two Anti-Trans Ballot Measures
The Washington State Capitol in Olympia. Photo: Martin Kraft via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The No Hate in WA State campaign is fighting two measures from Brian Heywood's Let's Go Washington: I-638, which would ban trans girls from girls' school sports and add sex testing, and I-001, which would out students to their families and open up school counselor records.
Campaign manager Libby Watson argues the real goal is Heywood's other measure, I-645, which would repeal Washington's 9.9% tax on income over $1 million. In other words, anti-trans measures are being used to drive turnout for something else entirely.
If you've got people in Vancouver or anywhere in Washington, talk to them before they fill out their ballots.
Read the full story at LGBTQ Nation →
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More This Week
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed AB 2164 on September 20, a bill that would have barred future governors from honoring other states' extradition requests over abortion or gender-affirming care. He wrote that extradition "is an exclusively executive function" (The Advocate). In Seattle, the LGBTQ+ Center's HIV test samples now go to a lab in Texas with identifying information, including sex assigned at birth, which has advocates worried given Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's hunt for trans medical records (LGBTQ Nation). Delaware Republican Joseph Arminio was ejected from a candidate forum after misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride twice (Delaware Public Media). And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used an anti-trans slur at Texas A&M, even as his department argues in court that the trans military ban isn't based on hatred (LGBTQ Nation).
Abroad, more than 100 organizations in Australia urged lawmakers to reject a push to rewrite the Sex Discrimination Act and strip gender identity protections added in 2013. And this week's favorite moment: trans radio host Fievel Crane's on-air resignation in Charlottesville made the rounds, and the internet cheered.
What This Means for Portland
Keep backing The Sports Bra as customers, and if you go to a counter-protest, go with people you trust, have a plan to leave, and don't engage anyone who came looking for a clip. Oregon's Department of Justice also went on record this week rejecting the 9th Circuit's "harmful language" in the prison ruling we covered last week (Oregon Capital Chronicle). The case continues for the two women who brought it.
The Seattle story is a good prompt for Portland too: if you get tested for HIV or STIs here, it's fair to ask your clinic where samples are processed and what information travels with them. And with the federal Medicaid cutoff coming October 13, ask your OHP coordinated care organization (CCO) what's changing, or call OHP Client Services at 1-800-273-0557.
What This Means for Our Work
Hospitals closing their doors, states putting trans kids on the ballot, and protesters at a neighborhood bar all push in the same direction: toward people needing somewhere safe to land. TRFAN, our emergency relocation program, helps them get here. Safe Haven Home Share helps them find housing, our Peer Support Services team helps with care and paperwork, alongside partners like Dian’s Well, Folktime, and The Peer Company, and Trans Town PDX reminds all of us we're not doing this alone.
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