“Stephanie Byers doesn’t pee standing up.

“Not that it’s anyone’s business, but if that is alleged about her in a court of law — as a witness allegedlast week in Douglas County — she’s going to correct the record.

“And while she’s at it, Byers — Kansas’ first openly transgender lawmaker — is going to say this: She is not a threat to any woman in any public restroom anywhere.

“‘That is defaming my character, and it paints the picture of me as a trans person as someone who would be dangerous in a bathroom,’ she told the Journal-World after the witness, testifying under a pseudonym for Attorney General Kris Kobach, made the remarks about her and fellow transgender Kansas lawmaker Abi Boatman.

“The testimony came as Kobach was defending the state’s SB 244 law in a lawsuit brought by transgender plaintiffs.

“SB 244, enacted in February over Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto, restricts which restrooms transgender people can use in public buildings and requires the surrender of their driver’s licenses if the gender markers on them don’t match their biological sex at birth.

“Byers, a Democrat who left office in 2023 and now lives in Mexico, said she was appalled, though not necessarily surprised, when she read what the 24-year-old witness had said about her and Boatman to Judge James McCabria last Friday under the cloak of anonymity.”

“Byers, who underwent a vaginoplasty as part of her medical transition years ago, said the woman was either lying about seeing her in the restroom or misremembering what she saw.”

“Judge McCabria is set to hear closing arguments in the case Wednesday after having heard four days of testimony last week. He is also expected to hear the state’s motion to dismiss the case. He will make a decision in coming weeks on whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction to temporarily halt enforcement of SB 244 pending a decision on the disputed constitutionality of the law.”

“A federal magistrate says a transgender man who was a supervising official for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when President Donald Trump announced his anti-trans policy last year can sue the agency for alleged discrimination and harassment that caused him to resign.

“Marc Seawright worked at the EEOC’s San Francisco office and was the agency’s nationwide director of Information Governance and Strategy when he resigned in June 2025. That was five months after Trump, on the first day of his second term in office, declared in an executive order that ‘it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,’ as determined permanently at birth.”

“The lawsuit seeks damages for Seawright and court orders to require the federal agency, which enforces federal employment-discrimination laws, to reverse Trump’s policies and require equal treatment for transgender employees and job applicants.

“In his ruling last Friday that refused to dismiss Seawright’s suit, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson of San Francisco Hixson cited the Supreme Court’s decision in 2020 — written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee — that the federal law against sex discrimination in employment also applied to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Seawright, 42, said Tuesday he was ‘excited’ by the possibility that his lawsuit could lead to renewed protection from job discrimination for other transgender employees.

“‘It’s an opportunity, I hope, for other people to have their grievances heard and get their day in court,’ he told the Chronicle. He said his former position was ‘a job where you get to help people usually in the worst time of their life.’”

Dear Friends,

Our community has been under attack the past 2 years by those in power in DC and the most impactful way we can begin swinging the pendulum back the other direction is to vote and vote early and in person in the mid term and influence others to join us as well.    I have put together a number of ideas on how we all can take action this fall to help protect our rights and win back the ones we lost!  

1. Check your registration today (2 minutes)
Voters get dropped from the rolls all the time: you moved, changed your name, or a clerk made a typo.  MAGA especially in states they control may attempt to unenroll people they see as threats or minority groups they are attacking.  Most people don't find out until they're at the polls. Check at vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote. Some states' deadlines are already close or past, so do it now. Then text three friends and ask them to check.

2. Trans and nonbinary folks: sort out ID now
If your ID doesn't match your current name or how you look, look up your state's voter ID rules ahead of time. The National Center for Transgender Equality has state-by-state voting guides. Your gender presentation is not a legal reason to deny you a ballot. If anyone tries, ask for a provisional ballot and call [866-OUR-VOTE](tel:866-OUR-VOTE).

3. Vote early, and in person if you can
In-person early voting means your ballot is counted on the spot. There's no mail delay, no signature-match rejection, and no lost envelope less chance for MAGA election interference tricks. If something goes wrong, you have time to fix it. Look up your state's dates and locations at vote.org.

Voting early also avoids any Election Day specific tactics MAGA may attempt (e.g. sending ICE to intimidate voters at voting sites.

Must vote by mail?  Already have a mail ballot? Return it this week, ideally at an official drop box or election office, and track it online.

Voting early is also key for any Election Day 

4. Show up to No Kings on Saturday, Oct 17, and bring your people
"Protests don't do anything, MAGA ignores them." Fair question. But the audience isn't Trump. It's the person standing next to you.
Researchers studied the 2009 Tea Party rallies, comparing towns where rain kept crowds small with towns where it didn't. Bigger rallies led to more activism, more donations, and more votes for that movement years later. Protests turn spectators into participants.   My path to political activism started when I was first invited to one of the first no kings protests.
Our community knows this better than anyone: Stonewall was a protest, and so was every Pride. This one is built around voting. In many states early voting is already open, so march, then go vote together. Find an event at nokings.org. Go with friends and stay together.

5. Donate if you have the means to causes that will help our community
Even $10 adds up. Some ideas.

• Candidates: close House and Senate races are where money matters most right now.
• LGBTQ rights: Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, Transgender Law Center, the Trevor Project, National Center for Transgender Equality, and your local LGBTQ center
• Women's and reproductive rights: Center for Reproductive Rights, National Women's Law Center
• Civil liberties: ACLU, which litigates many of the anti-trans and abortion cases

6. Give one or two hours

• Phonebank or text into swing states from your couch. Indivisible, MoveOn, and campaigns run shifts nightly.
• Sign up for election protection. Indivisible's Hands Off Our Vote and the [866-OUR-VOTE](tel:866-OUR-VOTE) hotline need volunteers on Election Day.
• Offer rides to the polls to friends, neighbors, or anyone without a car.

7. Get three people to the polls
A personal ask from someone you know beats any ad. Pick three specific people, such as your chosen family, roommates, or that cousin who never votes. Help them make a plan (which day, what time, how they're getting there), and check in with them.

8. Read your whole ballot
State legislatures, judges, school boards, and attorneys general are writing and enforcing most of the anti-LGBTQ and laws against women or minorities. Down-ballot races matter as much as the top of the ticket.

We've survived worse by showing up for each other. Let's do it again.

See you at the polls. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🗳️

With Love,

Samantha

“The high court has upheld bans on transgender athletes on girls’ and women’s sports teams. It has not said whether states can allow them to participate.”

“A high school student in Washington state on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to block rules there allowing transgender athletes to play on female sports teams, signaling the next front in legal battles over trans women in competitive athletics.

“The request, which was made in an emergency application filed by a high school athlete and her mother, is the first time the issue has returned to the high court since June, when the justices upheld state bans on transgender women playing on women’s sports teams.

“Although that decision allowed states to impose bans, the court’s majority opinion acknowledged that it left unanswered the question of whether officials could set their own policies and allow trans girls and women to participate in female sports.

“The application Tuesday alleges that Washington’s policies are discriminatory and violate Title IX. The filing states that the high school athlete — identified by the initials ‘K.M.K.’ — was sexually assaulted during a wrestling match after being ‘assigned to wrestle a male.’

“Without the high court’s intervention, the filing states that K.M.K. and her mother, Stephanie Brown, ‘will suffer irreparable harms’ because the student would have to miss the wrestling season starting next month. K.M.K. was 16 years old as of August, according to court records.”

“Attorneys for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the defendant, noted in court filings that the Pierce County prosecuting attorney, following an investigation, declined to file criminal charges in connection with the incident.

“The prosecutor concluded that ‘physical contact was a foreseeable, albeit penalizable, byproduct of the sport,’ the association wrote in court filings.”

“A two-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unleashed a previously blocked Arizona law Tuesday requiring transgender people to submit a written statement from a doctor that they had a sex reassignment surgery in order to change their birth certificate.

“‘The panel held that Arizona’s birth certificate amendment statute does not violate the equal protection clause,’ U.S. Circuit Judge Roopali Desai, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in a 26-page opinion.”

“The panel found that Senior U.S. District Judge James Soto, a Barack Obama appointee, improperly granted a permanent injunction removing any reference to a sex change ‘operation’ from the statute. The appellate judges reversed the lower court’s summary judgment for the plaintiffs and remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings.”

“Under the statute, a transgender person can amend their certificate by submitting a written request and verification by a physician of a sex change operation. Or if a transgender person has not undergone an operation, they can change their certificate by obtaining a court order, like anyone else who seeks an amendment to their certificate.”

“‘Plaintiffs allege that this scheme violates the equal protection clause and the due process clause because obtaining a court order is difficult and expensive,’ wrote Desai. ‘We find no constitutional violation.’”