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On Wednesday, Gallup released a striking new poll showing support for LGBTQ+ people declining for a second consecutive year. The drop is not limited to transgender people—similar declines have hit support for same-sex marriage and the moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships, which is now at its lowest point since 2016. When examined closely, the decline is driven almost entirely by Republicans, whose support for same-sex marriage has collapsed 18 points in five years and whose moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has fallen back to where it was in 2010. The numbers come as the political crackdown that began with transgender people has broadened to target the wider LGBTQ+ community—with state legislatures now hearing bills to overturn same-sex marriage and a sitting Republican congressman declaring this week that "homosexuality has no place in America." The data makes one thing clear: there is no LGB without the T. As it has been for our entire history, our rights are deeply interconnected, and those who target one part of this community will not stop until they have come for all of it.

What I soon discovered was that some people are mad about this event. And not just mad at the Trump administration, which I could easily understand. They’re also mad at the UFC. They’re mad at me for writing about it, even critically. They’re mad at the fighters for participating in it. They’re mad at anyone who watches this sport. It’s all trashy bullshit, according to them, and it’s our fault there’s a gaudy arena going up on the White Houe lawn right now. I was surprised by this reaction, and maybe that’s on me. I’ve been inside the fight sports bubble for so long that I’ve gotten desensitized to a lot of different aspects of it. Not just the violence, either (but definitely also the violence). I’ve also become numb to some of the more absurd and sensationalized aspects of the fight business, mostly because it’s always more or less like that. At some point you lose the capacity to be shocked. Oh, they’re gonna put a UFC cage on the White House lawn? Yeah that sounds like some shit they would do. In the years I’ve worked within this weird world we’ve had fights at the Playboy mansion, a Brazilian police special forces base, a U.S. military base, a Spanish bull ring, and a medieval castle, just to name a few. Couple weekends ago there was a boxing match at the pyramids. The real ones! The ones in Egypt! So yeah, when I heard that the UFC would team up with its pals in the Trump administration for a fight at the White House, it did not seem all that surprising. Tacky? Sure. A possible sign of a republic in decline? O absolutely, it’s some dwindling days of the Roman empire type of shit for sure. (My podcast co-host Chad Dundas has suggested we call this event “UFC: Bread And Circuses,” which just feels right.) But I have to admit that I didn’t seriously consider the possibility of any meaningful backlash against the UFC itself, maybe in part because I assumed that all the people who usually ignore this sport would ignore this event. Then we saw that giant “claw” structure going up in front of the White House. Suddenly it got a lot harder to ignore. Especially when paired with the super important ballroom construction site right next to it, there’s an inescapable quality to this visual reminder of what our nation has become.

We now know that going back at least 15 years, immigration officers have been putting themselves in front of cars to create the conditions that justify deadly force. The tactic is prohibited by most police agencies around the country, and a clear violation of federal policy. But a policy is only effective if it’s enforced. And this administration takes pride in not enforcing restraints on immigration officers. We also know that when DHS has charged people for hitting federal officers with their vehicles, those charges aren’t holding up in court. And we know that such charges have been repeatedly contradicted by video and witness statements. Despite all of that, mere allegations against a motorist are apparently enough to reduce the life insurance payout to the surviving family.

A STAT News analysis found that more than 40 hospitals across the country have paused or stopped offering some form of gender-affirming care to trans youth since Trump issued his first executive order. In these cases, hospitals are capitulating preemptively, out of fear of losing the Medicare and Medicaid funding the Trump administration has threatened to withhold, even before any rule allowing him to do so has taken effect. In New York, that capitulation is almost certainly illegal: Attorney General Letitia James warned hospitals early last year that denying care to transgender patients while providing it to others violates the state's anti-discrimination laws. But those laws have gone largely unenforced, and hospitals like NYU Langone have shuttered their programs anyway, with no apparent consequence. A dedicated state fund—or direct provision of care through public hospitals—would at least offer transgender New Yorkers a second avenue to treatment, one that does not depend on the state successfully compelling private hospitals to follow a law it has so far declined to enforce. The state budget is not the only place where New York's elected leaders have failed to act. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a $65 million pledge to fund gender-affirming care through public hospitals and community clinics, but Prism reported that the money did not appear in his February preliminary budget, with the city's Independent Budget Office unable to locate the funds and the mayor's office declining to say where they were. He also has not demanded the city's public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals to expand access, and has not coordinated with state officials to hold noncompliant hospitals accountable. Writing in The Nation, Sophie Hurwitz noted that despite his promises—and despite his having personally protested NYU Langone's capitulation as a candidate—"many of his promises to the trans community have yet to become reality."

The onlookers I was trying to reach see a famous scientist and assume the science has spoken. It hasn’t. He’s done exactly what the pub did. He’s just done it in a lab coat.

Key court appearances in the Trump administration’s attack on transgender children’s right to obtain gender-affirming medical care are scheduled this month. The outcome of those appearances — and decisions regarding the underlying requests at issue — could represent the most critical moment in the past year for Justice Department’s effort to target the provision of medical care for transgender minors. As Law Dork has covered in depth, from the opening day of the second Trump administration, President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi had aggressively sought to challenge the provision of gender-affirming care for trans minors — even in states where such care is allowed or even explicitly protected by law. Among other steps, the Justice Department issued administrative subpoenas last summer to more than 20 providers of such care seeking extremely invasive data about individual patients, in addition to other records. The shifting rationales for the requests have included “health care offense“ claims related to off-label prescribing of medication used in gender-affirming medical care, coordination with pharmaceutical companies regarding the provision of such medication, and billing of such care. Despite that attempt at nuance, last August a DOJ lawyer admitted the broader goal, telling a court that “the executive branch wants to reduce or eliminate gender-related care to minors, especially … medicalized gender-related care to minors.“

Musk is an abuser, and part of the way abusers inflict psychological abuse is through gaslighting and victim-blaming. When Musk denies his own agency as an abuser, he is not explaining the abuse; he is inflicting it. Wilson is well aware of this. In an interview with Teen Vogue (and in quotes that Them itself reproduced), Wilson said, “It’s such a convenient narrative, that the reason he turned right is because I’m a fucking tr*nny, and that’s just not the case. That’s not what that does to people.”

Where Things Stand in 2026 The anti-trans/LGBTQ+ “groomer” slur still persists. A few examples of headlines from just last year include “Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Sarah McBride a ‘groomer’ and ‘child predator’ for reading to kids”; “Parent accuses Satellite High teachers of ‘grooming’ teen to transition”; and “Republicans accuse PBS of ‘grooming’ children with Sesame Street Pride post.” As for anti-trans legislation, well, that has increased roughly ten-fold since early 2022, with many of those bills invoking the false accusation that trans people are “grooming” or “sexualizing” children.