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The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether states can ban gender-affirming care for minors. Two dozen states, including Alabama and Tennessee, have banned hormone therapy for transgender youth. On Dec. 4, the high court will begin hearing a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on hormone treatments, including puberty blockers, for patients younger than 18. “Tennessee’s ban is very similar to Alabama’s…and that’s very important because if the Supreme Court finds that these laws single out transgender people, then these bans in states across the country will likely be struck down,” said Shannon Minter, an attorney who represented transgender children and their families in Alabama and the legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. (Tryens-Fernandes, 10/23)

Donald Trump and other GOP candidates are increasingly targeting transgender people in the election campaign’s closing days, invoking them at rallies and pouring millions into advertising tying Democrats to transgender rights. At a recent Trump rally in Reno, Nev., the Trump campaign played a video that included Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking transgender official in the Biden administration, wishing people a happy Pride Month. The crowd booed. When the screen cut to a TikTok video of a drag queen, the crowd booed even louder. (Caldwell, Goodwin and McDaniel, 10/22)

The biennial 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report, which was released Oct. 16, shows that 73 percent of 199 U.S.-based LGBTQ community centers that participated in the survey reported they had experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment during the past two years. The survey, which included LGBTQ centers in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, is prepared by the Fort Lauderdale-based CenterLink, which provides services and support for LGBTQ community centers; and the Boulder, Colo.-based Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a research organization that focuses on social justice issues impacting the LGBTQ community. (Chibbaro Jr., 10/23)

The City Council on Tuesday banned transgender people from using restrooms outside of the sex assigned to them at birth, following an emotionally charged exchange between residents and city leaders. In a 5-2 vote, members of the council expanded a 1989 ordinance that prohibits individuals from entering restrooms of the opposite sex, suggesting they were doing so to protect Odessans and their own families. (Ramos, 10/23)

An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. ... The researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health. An older Dutch study had found that puberty blockers improved well-being, results that inspired clinics around the world to regularly prescribe the medications as part of what is now called gender-affirming care. But the American trial did not find a similar trend, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. (Ghorayshi, 10/23)

Long-acting injectable PrEP is now to be covered without cost-sharing under Affordable Care Act rules, the Biden administration announced October 21. The news comes just weeks after it was announced that all forms of PrEP will be covered without cost-sharing for Medicare patients under Medicare Part B. "With low uptake of PrEP among the communities most impacted by HIV, this insurance coverage requirement with zero cost-sharing will help jumpstart the use of more effective forms of PrEP and lead to fewer HIV transmissions," Carl Schmid, a gay man who is executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, stated about the Biden administration's announcement. (Ferrannini, 10/22)