Author: Orion Rummler, The 19th

Orion Rummler is a reporter on The 19th's breaking news team. He previously anchored live news coverage at Axios, including the January 6 Capitol attack, the coronavirus and the 2020 election. He also researched “Axios on HBO” stories on former President Donald Trump and expanded the outlet’s LGBTQ+ coverage.

Sarah McBride Makes History as First Transgender Member of Congress

Sarah McBride won Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat, after she campaigned on expanding Delawareans’ access to healthcare—an effort on which she has focused her career in the state’s 1st Senate district. In January, McBride will be sworn in as the first out transgender member of Congress. 

McBride’s ascension marks yet another milestone for the millennial state legislator. As the country’s first out transgender state senator, the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention and the first out trans woman to intern at the White House, McBride has repeatedly broken barriers in politics and proven that voters are ready to elect transgender candidates into elected office.  

A Second Trump Term Would Double Down on Erasing Trans Rights. Here’s How Advocates Are Preparing.

If former president Donald Trump is reelected, advocacy groups expect him to enact anti-LGBTQ+ policies that are more far-reaching and extreme than those he put in place during his first term—based on his campaign promises and policies suggested by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that has shaped the GOP’s agenda for decades. 

Students and Advocates ‘Frustrated’ With Biden Administration’s Slow Response to Finalize Title IX Changes

Democrats in Congress, students and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are growing frustrated with the Biden administration’s slow pace to finalize proposed updates to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools. More than 60 House Democrats sent a recent letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, calling on the agency to act. 

“So for the last three years, and now fourth school year, student survivors have fewer rights. Now it’s getting close to 2024 and we don’t know when a final rule will come out. So students are frustrated, and we’re frustrated as advocates.” 

Nebraska Filibuster Over Trans Rights Echoes Wendy Davis’ 2013 Abortion Standoff

State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh ground Nebraska’s legislative body to a halt for three weeks, stonewalling every bill regardless of whether she personally opposed it. In eight-hour stretches, she fulfilled the promise she made to her colleagues last month: to “make it painful” for the statehouse to target trans youth—even if it meant sleeping on the hardwood floor of her office between committee hearings.

Her use of the filibuster to keep a bill from being quietly slipped through the legislature echoes another one-woman statehouse stand from 10 years ago. Both Wendy Davis and Cavanaugh took advantage of tools available to them as the minority party in their statehouses—and used it to amplify dry procedural politics into a powerful rallying cry. 

Transgender Minors Have a Right To Gender-Affirming Care, Justice Dept. Warns States

The Justice Department said last week that states seeking to block transgender minors from accessing gender-affirming care may be violating federal law—and signaled that it is prepared to pursue legal action or support existing litigation against states seeking such restrictions.

“It’s probably the most powerful and progressive step we’ve seen on transgender rights ever from the federal government, at least today,” said Ezra Ishmael Young, who teaches constitutional law at Cornell Law School.