Search Results for: LGBTQ

Trump’s Budget Plunders Birth Control and Reproductive Health Programs—With Open Derision for Americans Who Need Them

Title X is the federal program that funds family planning and reproductive health services nationwide—and under President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for 2027, it would be effectively eliminated, reshaping access to care for women across the country.

What is perhaps most jarring, on close reading, is not only what the budget proposes, but how it speaks. The language throughout the administration’s budget and HHS documents departs from traditional bureaucratic norms, adopting a tone that is at times openly mocking and vilifying. Programs serving women, LGBTQ people and marginalized communities are described in terms that signal not just opposition, but disdain. It is a stark reminder that federal budgets do more than allocate resources—they reflect who this government is for, and who it is not.

(This essay is part of an ongoing Ms. series examining the real-world impact of President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. Across sectors—from healthcare and childcare to immigration enforcement and food assistance—the series explores what the administration’s funding priorities reveal about who government serves, and who it leaves behind.)

War on Women Report: Rise of ‘Sleep Porn’; Georgia Midwives Sue for Right to Practice; Louisiana Family Massacre Exposes Deadly Intersection of Domestic Violence and Guns

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Access to mifepristone remains protected for now, after a U.S. district court granted a stay in Louisiana v. FDA.
—A new CNN investigation reveals a sprawling online network where drug-facilitated sexual assault, marketed as “sleep porn, ” is filmed, shared and monetized, drawing millions of viewers. Meanwhile, survivors face steep barriers to reporting and justice.
—The Ohio House passed the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act, an extreme bill that seeks to ban any expression or performance of drag where minors are or may be present. The proposed ban includes even daytime family-oriented events such as drag queen story hours, where performers dress up as storybook characters and read to children at libraries or bookstores.
—In a devastating shooting spree spanning three locations, Shamar Elkins shot and killed eight children, seven of whom were his own, and severely wounded two women: his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, and Christina Snow. Both women are mothers to the deceased victims.
—In Georgia, a group of reproductive healthcare advocates is challenging the state’s restrictions on some forms of maternal healthcare, arguing that Georgia’s current laws give doctors too much control over midwives’ ability to practice.
—Nine women in Tennessee are suing the state over its abortion ban after nearly denying due to being denied abortion care.

… and more.

Five Things Decision-Makers Still Don’t Understand About Digital Violence and Young People

In the course of their lifetime, 840 million women will be subjected to physical or sexual violence – nearly one in every three women in the world, according to a new United Nations report. And if that sounds like a number you’ve heard before, it might be because despite decades of advocacy, awareness raising and lobbying for legal and policy changes, this figure has barely changed in the last 20 years.

UNFPA has been at the global forefront of identifying and addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and is preparing to release new research into the disproportionate harm this abuse inflicts on adolescent girls. 

One report shows how digital violence affects women and girls at every age, starting as young as early childhood. Yet UNFPA-supported research, forthcoming from partner Save the Children, also highlights that adults often underestimate the dangers facing adolescents.

Reads for the Rest of Us: The Best Poetry of 2025 and 2026

Happy April, and Happy National Poetry Month. Since my dormant love of poetry was reignited, I’ve found it so refreshing and inspiring to read beautiful collections each year and share them with you.

In 2021, I tried something a bit different with the poetry list: Instead of the usual blurb, I focused my thoughts about each collection into three words. Readers responded so well to it that I decided to keep doing it. Sometimes the words are nouns, sometimes verbs, sometimes adjectives—and I may have just made up some words too. The words I choose are always inspired by the collection and often taken directly from it. Sometimes I try to be clever, other times straightforward and you can tell I love my alliteration. Since I find it challenging to be succinct, this is a valuable exercise in imagination, reflection and, well, restraint. 

I hope you find some collections that will have you reflecting on how poetry moves you, challenges you and represents you.  

No Pockets, No Power? The Feminist History of the Purse

With a global market worth of over $56 billion, handbags are one of the main drivers of the fashion industry.

However, as Kathleen B. Casey shows in her latest book, The Things She Carried: The Social History of the Purse in America, they are more than just a fashionable accessory: Women’s purses are an important marker of identity and social status. They are a statement of power, of resilience, of defiance and even protection. Indeed, you can tell a lot about a person from their handbag and what’s in it.

While both women and men have carried bags in the past, it was the evolution of pockets (and lack thereof in women’s clothes) that led to the purse being specifically marked as a feminine accessory, often associated with the female body and particularly the womb. 

With pockets becoming a symbol of functionality and masculinity, it is not a coincidence that utilitarian pockets became a feminist demand. Feminists have long argued for their right to free hands and movement, while keeping their possessions secure and concealed. Pockets were often equated to votes during the suffrage campaign, as activists criticized the lack of both in hindering women’s independence.

Despite being a conspicuous item, one that could be snatched or stolen, Casey is careful to show the power of the purse (pun intended) in offering women the ability to gain visibility in public as equal to men. Women could not only carry with them money, sanitary pads and birth control pills that allowed them freedom of movement and independence, but their bags enabled them to do it while maintaining their respectability and status. At times when women had little control over their bodies, the privacy of their purse offered them an autonomy they could not otherwise gain.

Keeping Score: Pennsylvania ERA Secures Abortion Rights Win; Civil Rights Groups Investigate Trump Admin Delays in Childcare Payments; Senate Upholds Near-Total VA Abortion Ban

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:
—In a landmark ruling shaped by Pennsylvania’s ERA, a state court struck down a decades-old ban on using Medicaid funds for abortion.
—Trump continued to attack voting rights, threatening mail-in ballots and moving towards a nationalized registration database full of errors.
—An estimated 8 million people attended the latest “No Kings” protests.
—A Michigan court ruled that the state’s Pregnancy Exclusion law, which prevents providers from honoring pregnant women’s documented end-of-life decisions, violates a voter-approved 2022 constitutional amendment.
—A federal judge blocked RFK Jr.’s changes to routine vaccination schedules.
—The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ban on dangerous “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youth.
—Housing markets are declining in states with abortion bans as young people leave or avoid those areas.
—Senators demand the Trump Administration release lifesaving Title X funding.
—Twenty-five states received a failing grade on access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
—High levels of contamination were found in braiding hair.
—Women are driven away from coaching college sports by pay inequities and other systemic barriers.

… and more.

A Public Syllabus on Feminist Resistance Across U.S. History: Books, Films, Archives and Tools to Rethink America’s Origins

This curated public multimedia syllabus spans the Revolutionary era and the long afterlife of feminist resistance—from the 19th century to the present. It includes works by series authors, books and articles, podcasts, films and television, primary-source collections, a Google Map of sites across the U.S. relevant to women’s histories, and a Spotify playlist tracing the legacy of protest music.

Many of these works center marginalized communities and are organized under the themes of Revolution, Resistance and Reclamation.

Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash

The war against “radical gender ideology” has been staggering. The ascent of President Trump brought calls for the elimination of women’s and LGBTQ centers, rollbacks on Title IX protections, the exclusion of trans women from college sports and the purging of gender and sexuality studies from college curricula across U.S. higher education. These actions signal a massive backlash against decades of progress—and are inseparable from a broader assault on civil rights-era protections for people of color.

However, this moment is nothing new. It echoes an earlier race- and gender-based backlash over a century ago, when growing numbers of white middle-class women began to attend college. Against the backdrop of Black emancipation, increased migration and the expanding feminist movement, women’s education was cast as a threat—not just to patriarchy, but to the future of the white race.

Today’s backlash is the latest attempt to restore the status quo—to draw boundaries around who is entitled to higher education and to reinforce a racial and gender hierarchy that has always shaped access to learning in the United States.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)

Mr. President, If You Care About Families, Stop Cutting What They Need to Survive

Some conservative policymakers and analysts have tried to use proposals like “Trump accounts” and medals for motherhood to frame the administration’s agenda as “pro-family.” But in reality, that framing is centered on an overly narrow definition of family: a married husband and wife, with the wife ideally staying home to care for children. (Some conservatives have also long touted the idea that public assistance is destroying the “traditional” American family.) Many of these policies make it harder for families of all types to care for their children.

Genuine support for families looks like meeting families where they are and helping to ensure that they have the resources they need to succeed. This includes policies that support everyone’s reproductive decisions, family planning goals and ability to raise children in safe and healthy environments. Access to healthcare and food assistance improves children’s chances of graduating from high school and college and leads to better health as adults. When parents facing financial hardship have access to cash support or rental assistance, they are better able to afford basic essentials for their children like housing, diapers and school supplies. 

We can help families thrive by strengthening vital supports and services, rather than cutting them. Both federal and state policymakers can play a critical role in helping families thrive.

These Fathers of Trans Children in the U.S. Are Deconstructing Their Own Masculinity to Become Better Parents

The Dads, a new feature-length documentary, follows the fathers of trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive children as they weather the rapid escalation of anti-trans legislation in the United States over the past two years. Directed and produced by Luchina Fisher, the film debuted last month at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.

The film bears witness to parents’ struggle with whether to stay in the United States or move abroad in face of bans on restrooms, sports and gender-affirming care for trans youth.

In the end, The Dads is about faith—faith in the experiment of the United States, faith in dads to know who their children are and how best to protect them, and faith in all dads to grow and learn who they are.