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Officials in blue states are vowing to build a “firewall” of reproductive health protections as they anticipate federal and state attacks on abortion access under the Trump administration. “We’re going on offense,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, told Stateline. “We are in an unprecedented war on American women and patients. State attorneys general, particularly my colleagues and I who support abortion rights and reproductive freedom, have been building this firewall for some time now.” (Claire Vollers, 11/21)

Georgia officials have dismissed all members of a state committee charged with investigating deaths of pregnant women. The move came in response to ProPublica having obtained internal reports detailing two deaths. ProPublica reported in September on the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, which the state maternal mortality review committee had determined were preventable. They were the first reported cases of women who died without access to care restricted by a state abortion ban, and they unleashed a torrent of outrage over the fatal consequences of such laws. The women’s stories became a central discussion in the presidential campaign and ballot initiatives involving abortion access in 10 states. (Yurkanin, 11/21)

Abortions dropped in Iowa after a controversial new law went into effect in late July, according to new data obtained by IPR. Iowa's so-called 'fetal heartbeat' law bans abortion when cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. State lawmakers passed the law during a special session last year, but it faced legal challenges and didn't go into effect until July 29, 2024, following an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in June. (Krebs, 11/21)

Democratic officials marked Transgender Day of Remembrance, which took place on Wednesday, honoring the lives lost to anti-trans violence and calling out rising anti-trans rhetoric and discrimination. President Joe Biden in a statement said “we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence.” “There should be no place for hate in America — and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves. It’s wrong,” he said. (Forster, 11/21)

On a mild February evening in Nashville, a curly-haired teenager and her dad climbed the steps to the public gallery of the Tennessee Senate, where a group of lawmakers in the wood-paneled chamber below would, after a brief debate and the bang of a gavel, seize control of her family’s medical decisions. ... On Dec. 4, she will climb another set of steps. This time they’ll lead to the U.S. Supreme Court, where her story sits at the center of a watershed legal case that could affect transgender youth medical treatment across the U.S. (Brown, 11/21)

For many trans and non-binary people, top surgery – the process of removing breast tissue to get a flatter or masculinized chest – is not an elective procedure. It’s essential to them feeling at home in their bodies. The Guardian spoke with three trans and non-binary people across the US about their top surgeries. (Kim, 11/19)