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erin reed
'Have You No Decency?': House Hearing Ends After GOP Chair Misgenders Trans Lawmaker
After doubling down on calling Rep. Sarah McBride "mister," Rep. Keith Self explained, "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female."
Mar 12, 2025
The Republican chair of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee abruptly ended a hearing Tuesday after a Texas lawmaker repeatedly misgendered a transgender U.S. congresswoman, sparking a heated response from one of their Democratic colleagues.
Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, introduced Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) as "Mr. McBride," prompting the first openly transgender woman elected to Congress to retort, "Thank you, Madame Chair" before beginning her remarks.
McBride was interrupted by Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), the subcommittee's ranking member, who said, "Mr. Chairman, could you please repeat your introduction again?"
Texas Republican Keithself storms out of the meeting he's supposed to be running because a Democrat asked him to treat his colleague Sarah McBride with respect. These people would not last one day as a trans person.
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— Ari Drennen (@aridrennen.bsky.social) March 11, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Self, a 71-year old former Army colonel and county judge, replied that "we have set the standard on the floor of the House."
When pressed by Keating to explain that standard, Self doubled down on calling McBride "mister."
Keating shot back: "Mr. Chairman, you are out of order. Have you no decency? I mean, I've come to know you a little bit, but this is not decent. You will not continue [this hearing] with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way!"
Self then adjourned the hearing. He later explained on social media that "it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female," a reference to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on the first day back in office.
As journalist Erin Reed noted:
This is not the first time McBride has been treated this way by her colleagues. Just one month ago, Rep. McBride was referred to as the "gentleman from Delaware" on the House Floor by Republican Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.). Like Self, Miller also bragged about it afterwards, stating: "Today on the House floor, I refused to deny biological reality… President Trump restored biological truth in the federal government, and I refuse to perpetuate the lie that gender is open to our interpretation. It is not."
McBride has been a frequent target of Republican attacks, facing bathroom bans and dehumanizing rhetoric from her colleagues.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and commentators cheered Self and misgendered McBride. Miller even deadnamed the congresswoman.
McBride responded to Tuesday's incident on the social media site X, writing: "No matter how I'm treated by some colleagues, nothing diminishes my awe and gratitude at getting to represent Delaware in Congress. It is truly the honor and privilege of a lifetime. I simply want to serve and to try to make this world a better place."
The congresswoman has repeatedly stressed that she intends to "pick her battles" and eschew biting at Republicans' bait, while acknowledging that, as hurtful as it can be, bigoted attacks against her are a GOP ploy to distract attention from policies that harm working-class Americans.
"Now that I've got your attention," McBride
said in a separate X post demonstrating this ethos, "Our economy is tanking because of Trump's tariffs."
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Democratic State AGs Vow to Fight Trump's Attacks on Transgender People
"We will not let the president turn back the clock or deter us from upholding California values," said Rob Bonta, the state's attorney general.
Feb 05, 2025
Fifteen Democratic state attorneys issued a joint statement Wednesday vowing to protect access to gender-affirming healthcare amid the Trump administration's attacks on transgender people, which include a new executive order aiming to ban trans girls and women from competing on female sports teams.
"We stand firmly in support of healthcare policies that respect the dignity and rights of all people," the attorneys general said in a statement decrying Republican President Donald Trump's January 28 executive order banning federal support for gender-affirming care—which the president described as "chemical and surgical mutilation"—for young adults and minors under the age of 19.
"Healthcare decisions should be made by patients, families, and doctors, not by a politician trying to use his power to restrict your freedoms," the statement continues. "Gender-affirming care is essential, lifesaving medical treatment that supports individuals in living as their authentic selves."
"The Trump administration's recent executive order is wrong on the science and the law," the attorneys general asserted. "Despite what the Trump administration has suggested, there is no connection between 'female genital mutilation' and gender-affirming care, and no federal law makes gender-affirming care unlawful. President Trump cannot change that by executive order."
"State attorneys general will continue to enforce state laws that provide access to gender-affirming care, in states where such enforcement authority exists, and we will challenge any unlawful effort by the Trump administration to restrict access to it in our jurisdictions," they added.
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin signed the statement.
"California supports the rights of transgender youth to live their lives as their authentic selves," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Wednesday. "We will not let the president turn back the clock or deter us from upholding California values."
"I understand that the president's executive order on gender-affirming care has created some confusion," Bonta added. "Let me be clear: California law has not changed, and hospitals and clinics have a legal obligation to provide equal access to healthcare services."
The statement from the 15 attorneys general came on the same day that Trump signed an executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" that directs the Department of Education—which the president has vowed to abolish—to notify school districts that allowing transgender girls and women to compete on female teams violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in education.
The executive order also directs the administration to "convene representatives of major athletic organizations and governing bodies, and female athletes harmed by such policies," and "convene state attorneys general to identify best practices in defining and enforcing equal opportunities for women to participate in sports and educate them about stories of women and girls who have been harmed by male participation in women's sports."
Wednesday's directive is the latest salvo in Trump's war on transgender people, which includes a day one executive order declaring that only two genders exist, another order advocating action against educators who "facilitate the social transition of a minor," a reinstatement of his first-term ban on new military enlistment by trans people—who, according to the White House, cannot lead an "honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle"—nominating a transphobe to head the Justice Department's civil rights office, and scrubbing all mention of transgender people and issues from federal agency websites.
Trans people and their allies are fighting back. Lawsuits have been filed
challenging restrictions on access to gender-affirming healthcare and the transfer of transgender women inmates to men's prisons. On Wednesday, a federal judge appointed by former Republican President Ronald Reagan temporarily blocked federal prisons from moving transgender women to men's facilities and cutting off their access to hormone therapy, citing the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At least two federal judges have also issued temporary restraining orders on Trump administration efforts to freeze funding for federal agencies and programs.
Protests in defense of gender-affirming healthcare and other trans rights have also taken place at hospitals and other locations across the country as Trump and allies including Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk pressure the U.S. Treasury Department to defund any programs specifically helping transgender and other LGBTQ+ people.
"The protection of marginalized communities will not come solely from elected officials or bureaucratic processes—it will come from sustained, organized resistance," trans rights activist Erin Reed wrote Wednesday. "History shows that real power lies not in centralized institutions but in the collective action of those who refuse to be divided."
"Authoritarian governments rely on fragmentation, banking on the idea that the public will see themselves as isolated rather than interconnected," Reed added. "As protests grow and solidarity strengthens across movements, the coming months may test just how powerful a unified public can be."
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Trump Bans Federal Support for Gender-Affirming Healthcare Up to Age 19
"This order will kill kids, there's no other way to say it," asserted one critic.
Jan 28, 2025
In his administration's latest attack on LGBTQ+ Americans, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order banning the federal government from supporting a wide range of gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.
Trump's order—titled "Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation"—states that the federal government "will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures."
"Child" is defined in the order as anyone younger than 19—including 18-year-old adults. The directive covers treatments and procedures including gender-affirming surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone replacement therapy. The ban will adversely affect people who rely upon federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE, through which the Department of Defense provides health coverage for nearly 2 million youth dependents.
This order will kill kids, there's no other way to say it. It's the government forcibly taking control of the bodies of thousands of children.
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— Katelyn Burns (@katelynburns.com) January 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Furthermore, the order—which is almost certain to be challenged in court—places hospitals, clinics, and other providers of gender-affirming care at risk of losing federal funding.
"This executive order is a brazen attempt to put politicians in between people and their doctors, preventing them from accessing evidence-based healthcare supported by every major medical association in the country," Kelly Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. "It is deeply unfair to play politics with people's lives and strip transgender young people, their families, and their providers of the freedom to make necessary healthcare decisions."
"Questions about this care should be answered by doctors—not politicians—and decisions must rest with families, doctors, and the patient," Robinson added. "Everyone deserves the freedom to make deeply personal healthcare decisions for themselves and their families—no matter your income, zip code, or health coverage."
Trump made opposing rights for transgender people—especially children—a major part of his 2024 campaign, as it was during his first term.
The president's executive order claims that "medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child's sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions."
"This dangerous trend will be a stain on our nation's history, and it must end," asserts the directive, which dubiously claims that "countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding."
However, trans advocate Erin Reed pushed back, noting on social media that "detransition is rare, 1-4% in most studies, and regret even lower."
Furthermore, many doctors and medical experts agree that gender-affirming care saves the lives of trans youth, who are at higher risk of suicide and other self-harm, partly due to discrimination, bullying, and other societal pressures.
Trans people and their allies are already fighting back against Trump's policies. On Tuesday, half a dozen active-duty transgender U.S. troops and two people seeking to join the military sued to block a revival of the president's first-term ban on trans people enlisting in the armed forces.
The previous day, a transgender woman inmate in a federal women's prison sued the Trump administration over a recent executive order narrowly defining sex, arguing it is motivated by hate, violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and places her in mortal danger if she is transferred to a men's facility as ordered by the government.
In stark contrast with the direction in which Trump is steering the U.S., health officials in Thailand—which last year became the first nation in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage equality—this week announced a multimillion-dollar initiative to provide gender-affirming care for 200,000 transgender people in the country.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said last week that the marriage equality law, which went into effect this month, "marks the beginning of Thai society's greater awareness of gender diversity, and our embrace of everyone regardless of sexual orientation, race, or religion—our affirmation that everyone is entitled to equal rights and dignity."
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