This week, California Gov. Jerry Brown made history by signing a bill that guarantees transition-related healthcare for youth in foster care.

Assembly Bill 2119 “guarantees that both minors and nonminors in foster care can receive ‘medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient,’ including but not limited to puberty blockers, surgery, and appropriate mental health services.” 

Children and young adults in foster care are covered by California’s Medicaid program. Under the new law, the state Department of Social Services will develop a plan to support foster youth with their transition-related needs.

“Once again, Governor Brown has taken decisive action to protect LGBTQ youth in foster care,” Equality California executive director Rick Zbur said in Gloria’s press release. “No young Californian should be denied gender-affirming health care simply because of who they are. Thanks to Assemblymember Gloria’s AB 2119, our transgender and gender-nonconforming youth in foster care will now have life-saving — and historic — protections.”

The bill’s signing comes the same day the American Academy of Pediatrics announced the issuance of a policy statement calling on its members to assure that transgender and gender-nonconforming youth “have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space.”

This is truly phenomenal. Well done, California. 

Yesterday, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed into law the Youth Mental Health Protection Act, making anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy for minors illegal. 

With the new law, child care providers or health practitioners will be disciplined if they are found trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Countless medical organizations agree that conversion therapy doesn’t work, and worse, can inflict lifelong trauma on those who experience it.

Young people who are rejected by their families over their sexual orientation or gender identity are more than eight times more likely to attempt suicide than youth from accepting families, according to the Trevor Project, a pro-LGBTQ advocacy group that is working to ban conversion therapy across the U.S.

Maryland joins a growing number of states that have adopted similar legislation to protect LGBTQ youth. Connecticut, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington state and the District of Columbia have all banned conversion therapy; New Hampshire and Hawaii recently passed protections that are awaiting approval from their governors.

This is so important. Congratulations, Maryland. 

The Trump administration is planning to slash an Obama-era rule that prevented healthcare and insurance providers from discriminating against transgender people, according to recent reports. 

The Obama-era rule prohibited discrimination based on race, age, color, national origin, sex or disability for health programs that received federal funds, the Times reported.

Because most practicing physicians accept patients using Medicare or Medicaid, the rule widely applied to health-care providers across the U.S.

LGBTQ advocates say that Trump’s planned move would erase gains made for transgender Americans and get rid of treatments that transgender people have been denied in the past.

For fuck’s sake. 

This week in Colorado, the House of Representatives passed a bill banning the harmful and ineffective practice of conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors. The bill now moves forward to the Senate. 

“No child should be subjected to this dangerous and debunked practice condemned by every major medical and mental health organization,” said HRC Legislative Counsel Xavier Persad. “Right now, it’s incredibly important that fair-minded voices across the state of Colorado speak out and demand the Senate pass this crucially important legislation. Young LGBTQ Coloradons deserve to live their lives authentically and should never be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called conversion therapy.”

There is no credible evidence that conversion therapy can change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. To the contrary, research has clearly shown that these practices pose devastating health risks for LGBTQ young people such as depression, decreased self-esteem, substance abuse, homelessness, and even suicidal behavior. The harmful practice is condemned by every major medical and mental health organization, including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Medical Association.

Connecticut, California, Nevada, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New York, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Washington all have laws or regulations protecting youth from this abusive practice. A growing number of municipalities have also passed similar protections, including cities and counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, Florida, New York, Arizona, and Wisconsin. In addition, the Maryland state legislature passed similar protections earlier this week.

Go, Colorado, go! 

The Trump administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community just keep coming. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services removed a section from the website on women’s health about the specific health needs of lesbian and bisexual women. 

The page featured several “multiple LGBT-specific questions — such as ‘What are important health issues that lesbians and bisexual women should discuss with their health care professionals?’ — that are not explicitly addressed elsewhere across the website,” according to Politico.

“Remnants” of the previously available information remain on the site but are hard to find, the Sunshine Foundation notes. “Searching for ‘lesbian’ using the website’s search bar, for example, yields a ‘Lesbian and bisexual health’ fact sheet, which has been unavailable for months at its previous URL and was quietly put up at a separate URL. The document was last updated in 2009, compared to the removed lesbian and bisexual health webpage which was last updated in 2012. The fact sheet is also not linked from any other pages on the website, remaining inaccessible by navigating through the website.” The information that remains available is also less comprehensive than that which was removed, according to the foundation’s report.

Some of the removed information is accessible at the Federal Depository Library Program Web Archive, but WomensHealth.gov does not mention that archive or link to it, the foundation adds.

Sigh. 

Last week in Ireland, Senator Fintan Warfield proposed a bill that would ban the harmful, ineffective practice of conversion therapy nationwide. Only three nations have completely banned the practice: Brazil, Ecuador and Malta. 

Warfield’s bill would ban conversion therapy for youth and adults and also explicitly includes therapy attempting to change gender identity. It calls conversion therapy a “deceptive and harmful act or practice against a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and, or gender expression.”

Such therapies could have a “negative impact on people’s mental health, as they can lead to lower self-esteem, depression and suicidal ideation,” Evelyne Paradis, ILGA’s executive director in Europe, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Legislation sends out a powerful message that stigma masquerading as ‘therapy’ will not be tolerated by modern societies … and we encourage Irish parliamentarians to quickly pick up this really important issue,” she said by email.

Under the bill, individuals found guilty of performing conversion therapy on another person could be fined up to 10,000 euros ($12,351) and face up to a year in prison.

Go, Ireland! 

Last week, legislators in Washington State approved a bill to ban the harmful, ineffective practice of anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy for minors. This makes Washington the 10th state to ban conversion therapy. 

Under the new law, licensed healthcare practitioners found to be practicing conversion therapy on minors could be prosecuted for “unlawful conduct” and face a fine or the loss of their license. 

“Children across the Evergreen State deserve to live their lives authentically and should never be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called conversion therapy,” said Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof, as cited by Pink News.

“It’s time for Washington to join the growing number of states and municipalities who are enacting these critical protections. We thank the state legislators who voted to protect LGBTQ youth from this dangerous practice and now call on Governor Inslee to sign this crucially important legislation.”

Well done, Washington.