After Bishops’ Vote, Catholic Hospitals Ban Gender-Affirming Care Across US
According to the Catholic Health Association, more than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated at Catholic hospitals daily, with some communities having no alternative medical centers. Meanwhile, transgender service members are suing the Air Force after an announcement that it would deny them retirement benefits.
U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care. From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation鈥檚 thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers. (Stanley, 11/12)
A group of 17 transgender members of the Air Force are suing the U.S. government over what they say is the military鈥檚 unlawful revocation of their early retirement pensions and benefits. The lawsuit, filed in federal court Monday, comes several months after the Air Force confirmed that it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits. (Toropin, 11/12)
For some people, gender shifts over time, often through changes in one鈥檚 sense of self. A transgender man may realize they are nonbinary and stop hormone replacement therapy. A trans woman may face so much discrimination that she represses her identity. And some trans people medically reverse their transition to live as their sex assigned at birth.聽(Rummler, 11/12)
For Ara Kareis, the Trump administration鈥檚 rhetoric about detransitioners and transgender people is not just wrong 鈥斅爄t鈥檚 scary.聽鈥淭he whole administration is scaring me right now,鈥 said Kareis, a 22-year-old North Carolina resident who detransitioned a few years ago. To her, the rhetoric shared by the president and the vice president that portrays gender transition as a form of mutilation聽is deeply harmful. (Rummler, 11/12)
Also 鈥
The number of married same-sex couples in the United States doubled in the last decade to 774,000, according to government data. The possibility of a reversal on Obergefell led some same-sex couples to speed up their marriage plans, advocates said, and added fuel to state campaigns to repeal old statutes and constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage. In Virginia, L.G.B.T.Q. advocates are hoping legislators will approve a state constitutional amendment in 2026 enshrining a right to marry, regardless of race, sex and gender. (Harmon, 11/10)
