| | | 2025 PFLAG National Convention Registration is open! Get early bird rates now for Learning With Love: The 2025 PFLAG National Convention. Through workshops, panels, and presentations from PFLAG National staff, chapter leaders, organizers, and community leaders, we’ll provide insight, expertise, training, strategies, and best practices so that PFLAG friends, families, members, supporters, and leaders can work together to fulfill our organizational mission to create a caring, just, and affirming world for LGBTQ+ people and those who love them. Don't miss early-bird rates—visit pflag.org/2025convention/ now to get started. Federal Actions Tell your Senators to vote NO on the reconciliation bill! Early in the morning on May 22nd, while most of the country slept, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a budget package that makes many changes to Medicaid, including eliminating coverage for transgender youth and HIV coverage, and restricts SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. The bill also excises transgender healthcare as an EHB (essential health benefit) for plans available on state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. This bill would force millions of families to choose between paying for healthcare, food, or housing each month. It especially impacts every family who relies on Medicaid for healthcare, from HIV prevention and treatment, to transgender healthcare, to general well-being. This bill must be stopped by the Senate. Contact your Senator and tell them to vote no NOW! State Actions Mainers LD 233, LD 868, and LD 1134 might reach the State House floor very soon. Those bills would keep trans kids from playing sports and ban them from bathrooms, locker rooms, and other school facilities. Tell your legislators to respect trans kids and vote NO on these bills! New Hampshirites SB 211, an anti-trans athlete and facilities ban, and HB 377, an anti-trans healthcare ban, have each passed one chamber of the state legislature. We need your help to stop these bills from getting to the Governor's desk. Tell your legislators to respect trans kids and vote NO on these bills! Texans The Texas legislature has been busy all week advancing discriminatory legislation – and now the State House looks ready to move SB 240, an anti-trans bathroom ban. Tell your legislators that trans people belong in Texas and to vote NO on SB 240! |
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| |  | | Supreme Court split vote blocks religious charter school in Oklahoma. The justices voted 4-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself, in the case of Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. A tie vote leaves in place a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which held that public money could not be used to establish an explicitly religious charter school. The split also means, however, that this ruling only applies to Oklahoma, and does not set a nationwide precedent. Federal judge strikes down Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines to combat workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Federal District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled the 2024 guidelines exceeded the EEOC’s statutory authority and were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.” Conservative group, three softball players sue Minnesota over inclusive athletics policies. The suit seeks to invalidate Minnesota’s policy, based on its human rights law, allowing trans athletes to play sports on teams aligned with their gender identity, arguing that such a policy violates Title IX. |
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| | | In addition to other federal issues, this section includes ongoing activity regarding the executive orders (EOs) signed by President Trump since January 20, 2025. Please know that EOs do NOT override the United States Constitution, federal statutes, or established legal precedent. EOs are required by law to follow a process before changes can be implemented, and for many of these EOs, litigation is not only expected but is also already happening. To inform your activism, advocacy, and media work, please use our Executive Order explainers and resources web page, which is updated frequently as we gather information from our many trusted partners. House of Representatives passes budget reconciliation bill. The vote took place overnight on May 22nd and the bill was approved 215-214, with one Member voting “Present,” almost entirely along party lines. The bill includes cuts to Medicaid including eliminating coverage for transgender youth and HIV coverage, and restricts SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. The bill also excises transgender healthcare as an EHB (essential health benefit) for plans available on state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. “As a person living with HIV who is able to get healthcare, this bill is mortifying and will cost lives. It will burden our healthcare system. It’s mean-spirited, short-sighted, politically motivated, and is government malpractice,” said PFLAG CEO Brian Bond in a statement. Congressman Gerry Connolly (VA-11) dies at 75. The Congressman, who was the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in November. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refuses to confirm whether Andry Hernandez Romero, deported gay asylum seeker, is still alive. During a Homeland Security Committee hearing, Rep. Robert Garcia (CA-42) asked Secretary Noem to commit to doing a wellness check on Hernandez Romero, who has not been heard from in over a month. Secretary Noem refused to commit to this, saying the question regarding Hernandez Romero’s health and wellness would be “best asked to the president and the government of El Salvador.” Justice Department to drop police reform agreements with Louisville and Minneapolis police departments. The Biden administration reached agreements, called consent decrees, with the police departments of both cities in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police officers. The consent decrees are intended to systemic unconstitutional policing and civil rights violations; the Trump Administration is asking a federal court to dismiss these decrees with prejudice, meaning that the government will not be able to return to these agreements with Louisville and Minneapolis in the future. |
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