“First, Project 2025 came for a small group of kids…”

Write a comment against the Heritage Foundation’s attack on gender-affirming care for youth. (Deadline Feb. 17)

(This video is the best! Leeja Miller was one of the first to sound the alarm about Project 2025 – she is wicked smart and absolutely ferocious!)

(https://youtu.be/KfVE4xyNrO0?si=TJXGMeKbAHck_TT8 – Her sources she mentions are here)

Our Dr. Oz-run Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that they intended to eliminate gender-affirming health care for trans youth, hiding Project 2025’s Christian Nationalist agenda behind bad science. Their proposed rules would block Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender-affirming care for transgender youth; and punish hospitals and providers that offer this care by threatening their ability to participate in Medicare and Medicaid altogether.

Like bullies everywhere, they’ve picked the smallest and most vulnerable target to pick on first. But these kids are symbolically important to Christian Nationalists, as they challenge the narrow set of conservative values they intend to force on all of us:

  • The “Natural” Order of Gender: Maintaining the rigid binary of biological sex assigned at birth is essential to their view of “natural order” and the traditional patriarchal family structure they see as the foundation of society.
  • The Reproductive Imperative: Woman’s (or uterus carriers) highest use is defined as being a bearer of children within a heterosexual marriage. Transgender identities, same-sex marriage and access to abortion are a threat to this vision and must be eliminated.
  • Public Life and Erasure: Since imprisoning transgender people is not yet an option, they are concentrating on removing them from public life by restricting access to basic healthcare, legal recognition, education, and facilities like bathrooms.
  • Rebranding: The actual proposed regulations refer to transgender health care as “sex-rejecting,” instead of “gender-affirming.” Like they say “pro-life” and we say “forced-birth.”

Write a comment in their defense of these kids, because they are just the beginning of the repression Red states have been road-testing for Project 2025. 27 states have already banned medically necessary care for trans youth, forcing families to relocate. What will happen when there’s no place left to go?

“OK, I’ll do it! I’ll write a comment. But HOW do I do it?”

1. The easy way.

  1. Submit a public comment, using this form from the Human Rights campaign. These comments may not ultimately sway this transphobic regime, but they will be very important for future lawsuits. 
  2. Note: While the HRC form asks for some personal information, identifying information will not be submitted with your comment to the government. 
  3. Their website provides “Example Comment (You Can Edit)” This is INACCURATE! YOU MUST EDIT! IDENTICAL COMMENTS WILL BE ELIMINATED!!!

You can read other people’s comments here. Here’s just one screenshot of what the Christian Nationalists who now infest our regulatory structure are happy to see – identical or near identical comments they can remove from the total count! (AUGGH! People are COPYING LEEJA MILLER’S comment! Stop it!!!)

2. The harder, but way more fun way to comment!

Rant! You have 5000 characters to use to make the Christian Nationalists reviewing the comments very sad! If that’s not enough to thoroughly rake them over the coals, you can attach pdfs! Remember, no curse words, or smut. Our overlords are delicate souls.

We’ve attached some great resources – videos and articles – to steal from below. Copy/paste quotes at will (with proper attribution). This method will create enough diversity to prevent comments from being eliminated.

  • Talk about people you know, and how “gender-affirming” care was essential to them, or you!
  • Tell them that their”sex-rejecting” rebranding is not appropriate.
  • Ask they why they’re interfering with parents’ rights
  • Ask them why they are second-guessing doctors
  • Ask why they are suddenly so interested in kids when they won’t even give them free lunches
  • Ask they why they keep thinking about other people’s genitals
  • Ask them when was the last time they took a serious science class on biological sex
  • Ask why they won’t use the advice of accredited people and mainstream medical associations.
  • Ask them why they are allowing Christian Nationalism to interfere with the personal health care of people in a secular country.
  • Ask them if they are worried they will be sued for using shoddy materials to base their harmful policies on after the GOP is swept from power. (Yes, we can sue them! “While HHS often prevails in cases involving public health emergencies, its vulnerability to challenges increases when actions appear politically motivated or procedurally irregular.” It may even be possible to sue Dr. Oz for malpractice! Our attorney general might help!

Ready to start? Pick the regulation link below. We have links to read other comments and to submit yours. You can use the same comment for both rules, just change the name of the rule involved if you use it within your text.

RESOURCES – Videos

Great video on the transition process and the science shows.

(https://youtu.be/Kr8RbY8uB_0?si=07icqYxU0y0fU91h)

(https://youtu.be/x5SoTvUXH9Q?si=RB7QuJhuVdM6w8a6)

(https://youtu.be/a6AqrKMZj4s?si=3KtX2QMpsPdWzU71)

(https://youtu.be/x5SoTvUXH9Q?si=RB7QuJhuVdM6w8a6)

(https://youtu.be/x5SoTvUXH9Q)

(https://youtu.be/kT0HJkr1jj4?si=XgauKFHa6dUC2sKe)

(https://youtu.be/A-zBVzq1jMo?si=qEpcIECAjeo9Xtom)

RESOURCES – Articles

  • Here’s a nice one-pager on who gets rights in their world.
  • (scientificAmerican) What the Science on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Kids Really Shows – Laws that ban gender-affirming treatment ignore the wealth of research demonstrating its benefits for trans people’s health
  • (hrc.org) Get the Facts on Gender-Affirming Care
  • (hrw.org) “They’re Ruining People’s Lives” – Bans on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth in the US
  • (aclu) Why the Fight for Trans Rights Never Gets Easier – or Less Vital
  • (CABudgetCenter.org) TGI Californians Face New Risks from Harmful Federal Proposals – Federal Policy Threats Jeopardize Lifesaving Care for Transgender, Gender-Expansive, and Intersex Communities
  • (ACLU) Five Things to Know About Gender-Affirming Health Care – Here’s what transgender youth, their parents, and doctors have said about Arkansas’ ban on gender affirming care.
  • (Childtrends.org) Discriminatory Transgender Health Bills Have Critical Consequences for Youth – Research Brief
  • (ACLU-NM.org) Your Guide to Talking About Attacks on Trans Youth
  • (ACLU) Doctors Agree: Gender-Affirming Care is Life-Saving Care – Arkansas has become the first state to pass a bill banning health care for transgender youth and 16 other states have introduced similar legislation.
  • (AU.org) Christian Nationalists are attacking trans rights. Here’s how we’re fighting back.
  • (thefulcrum.us) Project 2025: A blueprint for Christian nationalist regime change
  • (19thnews.org) How anti-trans policies in Project 2025 could impact all families – The vision for Trump’s second term in the White House purports to protect families — but its anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is centered in exclusion.
  • The following was developed by coalition partners and was created for informational purposes only. This page does not contain legal advice by those partners or the Human Rights Campaign.
    • DO NOT COPY THESE MESSAGES VERBATIM !!
      • Transition-related care is essential health care. It allows transgender youth who need it to live full and healthy lives.
      • These proposed regulations are not about protecting young people. Evidence shows that transgender youth suffer when they don’t have access to effective and supportive health care.
      • Health providers and health care organizations in many states across the country continue to provide transition-related care because they know it’s essential to their patients’ health and well-being.
      • The evidence for the safety and effectiveness of medical care for transgender people of all ages is as strong as the evidence for treatments across many other forms of care that are provided without political interference. Every legitimate major U.S. medical association supports young people’s access to age-appropriate transgender health care.
      • Decades of research, including a comprehensive systematic review commissioned by the state of Utah earlier this year, show that care for transgender youth is safe, effective, and essential.
      • These proposed regulations would restrict evidenced-based care that has been found to reduce negative mental health outcomes and improve a trans young person’s overall health and quality of life. For this reason, many
      • experts rightfully describe this care as being lifesaving.
      • The Trump administration relies on misinformation about this care to justify these proposed regulations. In the absence of reliable evidence supporting their claims, they rely on junk science, distortions, and baseless speculation.
      • We all want kids to be happy and healthy. Just like any other family, the families of transgender youth have the right to support their child in accessing the care they need.
      • The proposed regulations also hurt intersex children by making exceptions for unnecessary procedures that change their bodies without their consent. This makes it clear that these regulations are an effort to discriminate, not to protect children, and sends both trans and intersex people the message that they can’t be who they are.
      • Transgender young people, like all young people, have the best chance to thrive when they get the individualized care and support they need from providers they and their families trust. We don’t need politicians making their lives harder by denying them essential care and singling them out for increased bullying and harassment.
      • If these proposed regulations were to go into effect, they would be especially harmful low-income people and their access to healthcare. Instead of working to make health care more affordable for everyone, the Trump administration is taking away care from people struggling to make ends meet.

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