14-year-old trans girl Sophia Chavez missing in Southern California

Sophia Chavez / Photo Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

Detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are asking for the public’s help locating Missing Sophia Chavez. a 14 year-old Hispanic transgender female. Sophia was last seen on April 4, 2025 at approximately 10:49 AM on the 1700 block of East Avenue J in the city of Lancaster.

Sophia is 5’02” tall, 135 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, and was last seen wearing a blue sweater, light blue pants, and black shoes.

If you have any information, please contact Lancaster Sheriff’s Station. If you prefer to provide information anonymously, you may call "Crime Stoppers" by dialing (800) 222-TIPS (8477), use your smartphone by downloading the “P3 Tips” Mobile APP on Google play or the Apple App Store or by using the website lacrimestoppers.org or en español.

NIH to conduct an "ideologically driven" Study of the "Mutilation" of Trans Children

RFK Jr., a key player in Trump's retribution tour at his HHS confirmation hearing / Wikipedia

 

RFK Jr. has ordered the National Institute of Health to conduct a political hit job in the guise of a scientific study focusing on “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and adults — a reference to gender-affirming care and surgery.

As the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to defund nearly every research project on transgender health, the White House has directed the agency to focus on studying “regret” after a person transitions to align their body with their gender identity. Several NIH employees, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed the directive to the scientific publication Nature..

Two weeks ago, Matthew Memoli, who was acting NIH director at the time, sent an e-mail to the directors of several NIH institutes. It said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is the NIH’s parent agency, “has been directed to fund research on a few specific areas” related to what it calls “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and adults — a reference to gender-affirming care and surgery. “This is very important to the President and the Secretary” of the HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the e-mail added.

Every American Medical Association Supports Youth Gender Affirming Medical Care. Here are their statements.

Based on its priorities, the White House sometimes directs the NIH — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical science — to study certain broad topics, such as cancer or women’s health, but the latest directive’s specificity, inflammatory language and focus on a hyper-polarizing topic are unprecedented, the NIH employees say. Although the White House can sometimes “push us on various different things, we normally get to chart out the approach”, a staff member says.

Many scientists, reeling from the abrupt cancellation of more than US$180 million in NIH funding for research on transgender health, slammed the proposed studies as ideologically driven.

Studies show that youth who receive gender-affirming medications, like puberty blockers and hormones, have a lower risk of depression and suicidal thoughts. One Stanford University study found that transgender people who received hormones as teenagers had better mental health outcomes than those who received them as adults.

Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that transgender youth who started gender-affirming hormones reported higher life satisfaction and lower depression and anxiety after two years.

A study conducted at the Western Australian Pediatric Gender Clinic of 552 youth treated for gender dysphoria indicates that only 5% re-identified to the sex of birth.

Some studies suggest that rates of regret have declined over the years as patient selection and treatment methods have improved. In a review conducted by the NIH of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret. For some, regret was temporary, but a small number went on to have detransitioning or reversal surgeries, the 2021 review said.

The major American medical associations' statements remain online. So, Trump will take a different route. He apparently seeks to manufacture lies a la UK's discreited Cass Review, which was instrumental in the doubling of UK transgender suicides

Given that from day one, Trump has targeted transgender people with vile vitriol messaging, the results of these studies are a foregone conclusion.

Texas Bill Targeting Transgender Birth Certificates Advances

If these bills pass being able to drive to Austin to testify or protest will be just a memory.

The bill that requires the biological sex at birth to be indicated on Birth certificates passed the Senate Thursday.

SB 406 passed along party lines and is now headed to the House, where an identical bill, HB2291 has already been introduced.

These bills are key to AG Paxton's war on transgender people and Gov. Abbott's promise to end trans people in Texas. 

It's not clear how these bills would affect Birth Certificates from other states as some don't show the sex as assigned at birth. Both bills make an exception for intersex people.

Another bill would make it illegal for transgender individuals to identify as a gender other than what we were assigned at birth. HB 3817 would make it State felony fraud to represent ourselves authentically to law enforcement, regardless of which state we were born in. When introduced HB3817 had only one Primary Sponser Representative, Tom Oliverson [R]. It now has two primary sponsors and four co-sponsors, so you can bet your bottom dollar that these hate-mongers mean business.

Texas AG Paxton has already stopped the motor vehicles department from accepting court-ordered gender marker changes with just a letter, his latest opinion calling for all state agencies to retroactively revert gender markers on documents shouldn't be taken lightly. It's clear that once Paxton has the law behind him, he will pursue Texas transgender people unmercifully.

Trump Proclaims April as Anti-Trans Month

Trump designated April as "National Child Abuse Prevention Month" and ergo the month to stop "the sinister threat of gender ideology." The proclamation, which could have had value, quickly transitions into an anti-transgender screed filled with hateful terminology:

"Sadly, one of the most prevalent forms of child abuse facing our country today is the sinister threat of gender ideology. Proponents of the gender ideology movement are outrageously indoctrinating our children with the devastating lie that they are trapped in the wrong body — and that the only way they can be truly happy is to alter their sex with hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sexual mutilation surgery. The evil and backwards lies of gender insanity are robbing our children of their happiness, health, and freedom, while imposing unimaginable heartbreak on parents and families. As I stated during my Joint Address to the Congress last month, my message to every American child is simple: you are perfect exactly the way God made you."

"As President, I proudly signed Executive Order 14187 prohibiting public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology, while also taking action to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. To further protect our children, I have taken historic action to secure our southern border and end child trafficking — and am working diligently to make our young people healthy again."

"This National Child Abuse Prevention Month, we pledge to stop the atrocity of child abuse in all its forms. We affirm that every perpetrator who inflicts violence on our children will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Above all, we vow to give our children the tools they need to fully embrace God’s gift of life, and to carry that radiant torch of American Liberty generations into the future."

Seattle man charged with a Hate Crime in Attack on Transgender Woman

Andre Karlow / Booking Photo

Andre Karlow, 39, was arrested Tuesday and charged with a hate crime for beating a university district transgender woman. Police are looking for two other men who participated in the violent attack that occurred last Thursday.

Karlow, who has 13 prior felony convictions, was out on $3,000 bond for a September hate crime in which he was arrested for beating a transgender transit worker. Karlow is currently being held on a $200,000 bond, according to The Seattle Times

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Deep River looking for those responsible for "hate Crime" Flyers

The community of Deep River Ct. woke Wednesday to find transphobic flyers, one resident described as a "hate crime," strewn about in bus stops and on people's lawns. They are asking for Ring videos to identify who did this.

California Lawmakers Overwhelmingly Reject GOP Transgender Sports Ban

AP / Heather Rogue said that everyone who wants to live in a society based on human rights becomes affected when you try to codify the removal of rights.

The California Assembly on Tuesday soundly rejected Republican-sponsored bills to ban trans women from playing on high school sports teams.

This would have been a non-issue if not for Gov. Newsome's surprise announcement that he was opposed to trans athletes on his first podcast. Newsome stated that position when he was asked by guest Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and founder of Turning Point USA.

Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a prominent Democrat and long an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ issues, scrambled the debate when he called transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports “deeply unfair” on his podcast.

Republicans have been amplifying his comments ever since, LA Times reports.

Erika Knoll, who came to speak in support of the legislation, told the AP that she has five daughters and two sons who are athletes. She has as many offspring as trans athletes playing in California and nearly as many playing at the collegiate level in the USA. This isn't about fairness; it's about bigotry.

Many in the LGBTQ community felt blindsided and were bitter toward Newsome. Others said they weren't surprised by his anti-trans views and never trusted or voted for him in the first place.

Trans man Gabriel Haaland, former president of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and a union activist, was delighted by the news and offered this invaluable insight.

"The legislators were asked by Newsom to not move any legislation that supported transgender people and they ignored him and supported us anyway."

Transgender Woman Arrested for Using a Florida Women's Restroom

Photo by ato de from Pexels:

Marcy Rheintgen, a transgender woman from Illinois, was arrested for washing her hands in a women’s restroom at the Florida State Capitol, according to reports.

This is most likely the first time a person has been arrested since the Florida bathroom bill was signed by DeSantis in 2023.

According to reports, Ms. Rheintgen sent letters earlier in March to Florida lawmakers, informing them that she planned to use a specific women’s bathroom in the Capitol and included a photo of herself for identification.

Ms. Rheintgen, a moderate conservative, was sure that common sense would prevail.

On the day Rheintgen planned to use the bathroom, she was met outside by two officers who said they would try to work with her. Rheintgen decided to use the bathroom anyway.

Officers in the restroom told Rheintgen that they would issue her a notice to appear in front of a judge, which would avoid her being sent to jail. They ended up arresting her and charging her with trespassing, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail.

Equality Florida's Executive Director, Nadine Smith, released the following statement in which said in part:

We were not aware of Marcy’s planned action and cannot speak for her personally, but what has been reported aligns with the long tradition of civil disobedience: the intentional breaking of an unjust law, done publicly and deliberately without causing harm, to expose its cruelty. She wrote lawmakers, identified herself, and made it clear that this was a protest, not a threat.

We’ve seen laws like this before. Whether it was denying access to lunch counters, water fountains, or restrooms, the goal was always the same: to diminish a group’s humanity and license public cruelty. That strategy failed then, and it will fail again because people are standing up, telling the truth, and refusing to be erased.”