Republicans made government funding all about trans rights. Democrats need to speak up too.https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/republicans-made-government-funding-all-about-trans-rights-democrats-need-to-speak-up-too/ 🔗Faefyx Collington (3 Oct 2025)
When the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed in July, it included a huge increase in funding for ICE. That was a canary in the coal mine for the government's attack on immigrants' rights and the rights of anyone who might be profiled by ICE. The new appropriations bill that the Republicans have been trying to push through has led to a shutdown for now, but it's still part of the authoritarian long game, and the bill's swathe of anti-trans riders is another human rights canary that's about to drop dead.
And not enough people are talking about that canary.
The Republican-driven appropriations bills include riders that seek to remove LGBTQ+ discrimination protections, ban federal funding for gender-affirming care, codify a trans sports ban, codify policies around denying trans inmates' gender-affirming care and housing them based on their assigned sex at birth, and more.
Those riders represent an attempt to make existing in the United States as a trans person, if not impossible, then at least intolerable for many. The continuing resolutions that failed to pass did not include these anti-trans riders, but any appropriations bills that Republicans bring forward to reopen the government are likely to include them, and Democrats need to be ready to fight that battle. This is Republicans further testing the water for how much they can do to a marginalized community and have it be accepted as part of a legitimate political agenda.
