Keeping Score: More Attacks on Trans Rights; Sexual Assault Should Disqualify Cabinet Nominees, Americans Say; Female Professors Win Lawsuit and Backpay for Pay Disparity

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week: The Supreme Court considers a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans teens; data shows crimes in public restrooms and changing rooms are extremely rare, and are not decreased by laws preventing trans people from using public bathrooms; analyzing Trump’s cabinet nominees; midwives say climate change is harming their communities; Nevada maintains a majority woman legislature; criminal justice reform for probation, parole and bail is critical; Arizona moves to end 15-week abortion ban; Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal have asked the Biden administration to limit the federal government from deploying troops domestically; and more.

A Second Trump Term Could Worsen Inequalities for Women Student-Athletes

Since 1972, when Title IX was signed into law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex by any educational program receiving federal financial assistance, colleges and universities have faced questions about what constitutes “discrimination” under the statute, specifically in the universe of college athletics.

Now, 52 years after the law was passed, the Department of Education is under threat by the incoming presidential administration at a crucial time for Title IX enforcement, as new NCAA policies could spell a threat to gender equality in the college sports space even as female student-athletes continue to gain visibility and marketability.

‘Significant Victory’: Ninth Circuit Court Mixed Ruling ‘Frees Idahoans to Talk With Pregnant Minors About Abortion’

In April of 2023, Idaho passed the nation’s first abortion “trafficking” law (travel ban) making it a crime to procure an abortion for a minor. The law was challenged by reproductive rights advocates, who argued that the legislature had created a statute that makes unclear when lawful mentoring support stops, and unlawful conduct begins. Agreeing with the plaintiffs, in November of 2023, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect.

On Dec. 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mixed decision in the case. Although not a complete win, as Wendy Heipt of Legal Voice, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs put it: The “decision is a significant victory … as it frees Idahoans to talk with pregnant minors about abortion healthcare.” 

“Encouragement, counseling, and emotional support are plainly protected speech under Supreme Court precedent,” wrote the Ninth Circuit Court last week, “including when offered in the difficult context of deciding whether to have an abortion.”

Mifepristone Access, and What Comes Next for the Medication Abortion Drug

The future of mifepristone access is up in the air on multiple fronts right now—just five months after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s treatment of the medication abortion drug.

Now, though, Donald Trump has won election to the presidency—and questions about what his new administration will do to federal policy surrounding the drug are front and center.

Iraq’s Planned Child Marriage Bill Threatens the Rights of Women and Girls

Iraqi lawmakers’ proposal to amend the country’s family law and grant religious courts the authority to legalize marriages for underage girls is being pushed by the country’s Shiite parliamentary factions, as part of their appeal to conservative voters ahead of the country’s October 2025 elections, if not sooner.

The proposal has sparked a firestorm, particularly after initial reports suggested it could allow marriages for girls as young as 9 years old. Some experts contend the bill could also further fracture Iraq’s stability.

Women’s Independence, Credit Cards and Economic Power: Celebrating 50 Years of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) of 1974 enabled women to get credit cards or a mortgage without a co-signer, making it a pivotal milestone for women’s financial independence. The 50th anniversary of ECOA being signed into law by President Gerald Ford fell just a week ahead of the recent presidential election, considered by many to be a referendum on women’s rights in a political climate still reeling from the revocation of Roe. That critical landmark for women’s autonomy was overturned by the Dobbs decision in 2022, one year short of reaching its own half-century observance. 

By focusing on women’s independence through the lens of economic power over the last 50 years, a new Smithsonian exhibit—”We Do Declare Women’s Voices on Independence,” commemorating ECOA’s passage—hones in on another essential factor in women’s ability to achieve freedom, security and power: financial independence.

We Heart: Trans Activists Stage Peaceful (and Joyful) Dance Party Protest in Capitol Hill Women’s Restroom

Anyone walking into the bathroom on Capitol Hill Thursday morning found a buoyant dance party in progress: A group of trans artists and activists staged a protest in a women’s restroom in the U.S. Capitol, dancing to the song “Meeting in the Ladies Room” by the all-women pop and R&B band Klymaxx.

“It always starts with things that people feel are insignificant, like public restrooms, but it never stops there,” said Hope Giselle-Godsey, one of the Capitol Hill dancers. “We’re here today to ensure they understand that we will not be erased—one bathroom at a time—or shoved back into the proverbial closet out of deference to the comfort of those who speak to eradicate us.”

Conservative Supreme Court to Rule on Right to Be Trans, Medical Care, Parents’ Rights, Constitutional Sex Discrimination—and the Right to Be Different

“I’m here to stand up for my kid,” Brian Williams told me outside the Supreme Court on Dec. 4. Williams and his wife Samantha have been fighting for their daughter—known as L.W. in the legal papers the ACLU filed to challenge Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors—for years.

Though difficult to sit through, the two-plus hours of argument in United States v. Skrmetti—a challenge by trans youth, their families, the ACLU, Lambda Legal and the Biden administration to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors—was a nearly perfect distillation of this moment in our gender politics.

‘Project 2025 Is Tennessee 2024’: Dispatches From the Front Lines

With Donald Trump set to take over the White House next year, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda for the next conservative president looms large. But what if Project 2025 has already arrived?
Republican state legislative supermajorities never needed Trump in power to begin enacting parts of the Heritage Foundation’s policy agenda. 

“Project 2025 is Tennessee 2024,” said Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, “because we have been the tip of the spear in experiencing some of these rollbacks that would be expanded nationally under this proposal.”

While Trump’s return to the White House is discouraging, we cannot afford to despair or stagnate. There are still spaces for collective action, particularly at the local level, and we must continue conversations across the aisle. 

How a Pennsylvania Middle School Violated the Privacy of Its LGBTQ+ Students: A Window Into SORVO

You’re a student at Emory H. Markle Middle School. You’re trans, and your teachers aren’t allowed to use your correct name or pronouns. They’ll be punished if they address you with any identifier other than what you’ve been legally assigned. LGBTQ-inclusive books have been banned. A transgender student at a nearby school was killed in a hate crime earlier this year.

The gender-neutral bathroom is the only place in your school that brings you refuge from the transphobia swirling around you. Then, the school cuts a window into the bathroom wall, and everyone can see in.

The school district’s board president stated the reasoning for the window was to “better monitor for a multitude of prohibited activities such as any possible vaping, drug use, bullying or absenteeism.” The kicker? The windows were only installed in Markle’s gender-inclusive bathrooms.