“Trans people could face delays and a greater risk of ‘corridor care’ under new NHS England guidance that means they will no longer be able to use same-sex wards, according to an internal report.

“An NHS England impact assessment, seen by the Guardian, stated that trans people may also potentially experience discrimination and this could lead to them ‘avoiding accessing healthcare at all’.”

“It also highlighted benefits for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, people with certain religious beliefs and minority-ethnic groups.

“But it said there were a ‘number of potential adverse impacts for trans people’ adding: ‘There may be delays and a greater risk of “corridor care” for trans people with a negative impact on their physical and mental health and wellbeing if side rooms are not available.

“‘Trans people may fear and potentially experience discrimination by being “outed” as trans through not being accommodated in a ward that aligns with their lived gender or being placed in a side room.’

“It said there was a risk that hospitals would not have the capacity to provide side rooms when needed, ‘forcing trans people into the potentially distressing situation of being accommodated on wards aligned with their biological sex’.”

“One Southeast Michigan school district is banning transgender students from participating in girls sports under a new policy approved by the local board of education this week.

“The board for Monroe Public Schools green-lit a policy update Tuesday, Oct. 13, limiting participation in athletics and use of related facilities, including locker rooms, to just ‘biological females’ based on what sex was listed on a student athlete’s birth certificate at the time they were born.

“The decision comes amid a new lawsuit against the district in U.S. District Court from a Monroe father who alleges federal rights violations on behalf of his teenage daughter after her volleyball team unknowingly played against a transgender athlete who competed with the girls’ team of an Ann Arbor high school in 2025. The complaint, filed Oct, 9, accuses district and athletics officials with knowing prior and not informing families.

“Tuesday’s approval followed the second reading of Monroe schools’ new policy in a 4-2 vote from board members.”

“The policy update itself is two sentences long, citing the birth certificate requirement and extending the ban for transgender girls for the use of girls’ athletic facilities.”

“During Hispanic Heritage Month, leaders in the trans community are working to lift up a part of the community they say has long been in the shadows.

“Data from UCLA show more than 174,000 transgender immigrants live in the U.S. 41,000 are in California, and of those, 38% are of Latin descent.

“Khloe Rios-Wyatt founded the nonprofit Alianza TransLatinx in Orange County in 2020 to create a space of cultural connection and community empowerment for trans migrants.

“‘Hispanic Heritage Month is about celebrating our culture and making sure that trans and immigrant people are part of that celebration as well. We are Latinas, we are immigrants, and we have stories and contributions that also deserve to be recognized,’ Rios-Wyatt explained.

“The organization helps people access healthcare, housing supports, mental health services, financial literacy classes and legal resources. They also work to build community, including a welcoming, safe space where people speak their language and share their concerns.”

“Last year, a judge struck down the city of Huntington Beach’s plan to restrict library materials with sexual content in response to a lawsuit filed by Alianza Translatinx.”

“Public opinion in the United States has grown more conservative regarding restroom access for transgender individuals over the past several years, a shift the researchers link to changing beliefs about safety and discrimination. When people hold conflicting views about the rights and risks involved in this debate, they are now much more likely to side with restrictive policies than they were in the past. These shifts are detailed in a new study published [online: 24 Apr 2026] in Politics, Groups, and Identities.”

“Public restrooms have historically served as a political battleground regarding gender, space, and safety. As the study notes, the modern sex-segregated restroom emerged during the Industrial Revolution as women entered the paid workforce. At the time, separate facilities were framed as necessary safe spaces for women. Similar arguments about restroom safety appeared during the mid-twentieth century to police the behavior of gay men, and again in the 1970s by opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment.”

“The research team utilized data from two nationally representative online surveys. The first survey polled 1,291 adults in 2016, a year when national media coverage of bathroom legislation peaked. The second survey polled 1,618 adults in 2022, a period when media attention on this specific issue had cooled but conservative political focus on transgender policies remained high.”

“The researchers found that overall support for restrictive bathroom policies grew between the two survey periods. In 2016, about 54 percent of respondents supported laws restricting restroom access based on state identification. By 2022, support for these restrictions had risen to roughly 62 percent.”

“Because people do not always hold perfectly aligned political views, the research team looked closely at respondents who agreed with conflicting statements. A substantial portion of participants believed both that open restroom policies pose a security risk to women and that restrictive policies discriminate against transgender people. The way these conflicted individuals resolved their internal tension changed dramatically over the six-year gap.

“In 2016, conflicted respondents were highly likely to resolve their ambivalence in favor of transgender rights. A person who held both beliefs had about a 62 percent chance of opposing restrictive bathroom policies. They appeared to discount their own security concerns and elevate their concerns about discrimination when deciding on a final policy stance.

“By 2022, this pattern flipped entirely. Conflicted respondents became much more likely to support restrictive bathroom laws. A person holding those same competing beliefs in 2022 had only about a 29 percent chance of opposing bathroom restrictions. They began weighing the perceived security risks much more heavily than their concerns about discrimination.”

“If you ask Sonja Shaw why she’s running for state superintendent of public instruction, she’ll say she wants to refocus schools on the basics. Enough of the division, enough of the culture wars, she says — it’s time to get politics out of the classroom.”

“But for someone who wants to focus on the basics, Shaw — who was elected to the Chino Valley school board in 2022 — has generated plenty of headlines for implementing divisive policies, particularly ones that affect the LGBTQ community.

“Under her leadership as its president, the board has fought a yearslong battle with the state over its policy of involuntarily outing transgender kids to their parents and expelled current Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond from a board meeting after he criticized that policy while it was still under discussion.

“The board also barred the display of gay-pride flags in the classroom, and approved a policy to quickly remove books from school bookshelves in response to parent complaints that they are sexually explicit.”

“Central to her run for superintendent against San Diego Unified School Board President Richard Barrera has been her opposition to transgender girls competing in female sports — despite the fact that the number of them doing so is vanishingly small.

“The Examiner spoke with Shaw last week about why she’s running for superintendent, what her priorities would be if she won and why she’s so focused on transgender girls in sports. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.”

First Nation Community Declares Itself Safe Haven For Trans People

“Many of the migrants in a sprawling tent village in Ceuta came searching for better economic opportunities. Others fled war and violence, or sought refuge in Spain because of their gender or sexuality.

“With a humanitarian crisis unfolding, some have come forward with allegations of abuse.

“Interviews at the now-demolished camp revealed migrants’ motivations for seeking protection.”

“A transgender teen swam to Ceuta in July from the Moroccan city of Fnideq. Soon, he thought, he would be in a shelter. Instead, he spent nearly two months at the beachside camp.

“He left home because of the challenges of being transgender, he said. He spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisals for his gender identity.

“‘People in Morocco don’t have any mercy,’ he said in an interview on Sept. 29. ‘They look at the outside of you, not the inside.’

“In Ceuta, he said he briefly lived with extended family, but they kicked him out after learning about his identity. ‘They didn’t accept my situation,’ he said.

“Spain’s asylum law recognizes gender identity and sexual orientation as valid grounds for seeking protection. Cases are assessed individually.

“In early October, he returned to Morocco after police cleared the camp.”

“

“Restrooms are private spaces under state and federal law. Non-consensual recording of others in private spaces is also illegal, as is sharing such images.

“But what if such an image also had a political statement?
What if the subject is transgender?

“Those are the legal questions raised in a 2023 lawsuit brought by Michelle Evans, chair of the Williamson County Republican Party, which seeks to block Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza from enforcing Texas' invasive visual recording law against her.”

“The district court denied Evans' request for a preliminary injunction on June 30, 2023. Her legal team appealed to the 5th Circuit on July 28, which affirmed the lower court's ruling on Dec. 9, 2025.”

“Evans' attorneys petitioned the court on Dec. 23, 2025, to rehear the appeal ‘en banc,’ which means to have all of the 5th Circuit appellate judges weigh in on the case.”

“The 5th Circuit's judges considered and voted 10-7 to reject Evans' petition for a rehearing. The court's Oct. 9 filing included that result, as well as two dissenting opinions and one concurrence.”

“If SCOTUS chooses to review the case, it'll be at least another year until it might hear arguments on if Evans should be shielded from prosecution that Garza says he can't bring.”

“Avery Rowland, a transgender woman in small-town Kansas, is running as a Democratto represent a state legislative district in the bottom-right corner of the state, about two hours south of Kansas City. She wants to bring more highways, hospitals and schools to her rural, deep-red district.

“Her race was fairly uneventful, until she got wind of a Kansas Republican Party official questioning her eligibility to vote.

“Kansas Reflector, a local news outlet, came to her with records showing that the state GOP treasurer, Roger Lomshek, had called the secretary of state’s office and asked why a new law invalidating transgender Kansans’ licenses wasn’t being applied to voter registration.

“Specifically, he wanted to know why that law didn’t apply to Rowland and her ability to vote.

“‘I was a little bit pissed off,’ she told The 19th. ‘That’s kind of a chicken move to do. Just be a man, but, whatever.’

“Lomshek was asking about** **SB 244, which invalidated thousands of Kansans’ drivers licenses based on gender identity and required immediate replacement. 

“In response to Lomshek’s inquiry, state officials found that election officers are not responsible for enforcing SB244 when it comes to voting or running for office.

“‘Gender discrepancies can never be a basis for denying anyone the right to vote,’ a spokeswoman for the Kansas secretary of state office said in a statement to Reflector.”

“So far, when it comes to voting, these mismatched IDs don’t seem to be a problem. That could be a rare good sign for Kansans, who are living under the most restrictive ID law for transgender people in the country.”

“I look, sound and live as a woman – but new NHS guidance says transgender patients should be placed on hospital wards according to their birth sex rather than their gender identity. It’s as though I don’t deserve the same kindness and compassion as others, says Diana Thomas”