More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Transgender individuals face unique discrimination, stigma, systemic inequality and attacks on their ability to live freely. Care and safety must be protected. Rights for trans people are at the heart of gender justice for all.
Staying motivated and positive in these uncertain times is no easy feat. We are witnessing a full-fledged patriarchal meltdown, with women’s rights under threat, jeopardized or outright stripped away.
At a recent women’s conference, an attendee told me, “I’m waiting for someone to help us and tell us what to do.” My response? Don’t wait, because nobody is coming. Change starts with us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Picking up the few remaining “all gender restroom” signs that had hung outside bathrooms at the College of Wooster in Ohio for over a decade, I found myself in a moment of reflection. My own students had worked so hard to have the signs installed, just to be removed last month in compliance with Ohio’s so-called Protect All Students Act, which was signed into law late last year. More commonly known as the “Bathroom Law,” the act requires all schools—K-12 to college, public and private—to “designate specified facilities for the exclusive use of students of either the male biological sex or the female biological sex.”
No one is being “protected” by these recent laws and proclamations. Instead, there are many students actively being hurt in their implementation and aftermath. When I think back to the important work my students did over a decade ago, it feels blatantly disingenuous to see those efforts superseded by politicians in the name of “protecting all students.” What those lawmakers have done is put some students in far more vulnerable positions; and educational institutions have been forced to forgo the needs of their students in order to comply.
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:
—At a town hall in Idaho, men from a private security firm grabbed Teresa Borrenpohl and forcibly dragged her from the room.
—Georgia relaunched a new maternal mortality committee, but will not reveal who the new members are.
—In a win for Montana, a district court permanently blocked multiple restrictions that would have effectively eliminated abortion access for most patients on Medicaid.
… and more.
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: Trump pulled university funding and arrested student leaders over pro-Palestine protests; a Texas midwife faces felony charges for providing abortion care; Congress members avoid town halls after Department of Education and other federal agencies were decimated; abortion bans threaten the lives of Black mothers; and more.
Women—especially Black women—are still fighting for equal rights and opportunities in the U.S. Meanwhile, members of Congress are threatening to undermine the hard-fought, fundamental right to vote for all Americans, including millions of women, under the guise of misleading allegations of voter fraud. And they’re ironically calling it the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
Make no mistake: The SAVE Act is not going to “save” anything. This legislation would create unnecessary barriers to registering to vote in every state. It would require all voters to provide proof of citizenship documents in person when registering to vote or updating their registration—provisions that effectively end online, automatic, and mail-in voter registration. Women who change their name after marriage or divorce would face unnecessary barriers to registering to vote.
As we face the arrival of authoritarianism, it is to our democracy’s peril if we lose sight of the ways comparable regimes worldwide regularly and deliberately target women’s and LGBTQ equality. They do so to consolidate and exert power. They acknowledge the correlation with brazen certainty.
And, therefore, so must we.
Earlier this week, President Trump shared an article on his Truth Social platform celebrating his elimination of trans and queer people from military advertising. The opinion piece published by reporter Jeremy Hunt of The Washington Times, featured a crossed out upside down pink triangle. The inverted pink triangle was a symbol used by Nazis to identify LGBTQ+ prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. In response, LGBTQ+ Americans and allies are expressing fear surrounding the post—marking the third time that someone within or associated with the Trump administration has used Nazi symbolism.
In late January, Target announced an end to its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program in response to external political pressures and as a preemptive measure to avoid potential legal or financial repercussions under the Trump administration’s executive orders cutting DEI from the federal government.
Now, in the season of Lent, Black faith leaders are calling for a 40-day “fast” from Target, urging people to boycott the retail giant to protest its caving to the federal government’s anti-diversity rhetoric. So far, more than 100,000 shoppers—many involved with Black churches—have joined the pledge to abstain from shopping at Target for 40 days. Target stock is already down 57 percent.
Beyond the sheer cruelty, Trump’s antagonism toward government—and the attempts to swiftly dismantle federal agencies’ productivity and purpose—is a simultaneous affront to and attack on women and LGBTQ communities. Make no mistake: That is by design. As Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom underscores: “By giving people a scapegoat, giving men a scapegoat … it says not only are women the enemy, are people of color and minorities the enemy, but the government is protecting them. So not only do we need to push these people out, but we need to delegitimize and gut the government that made them possible so it doesn’t happen again.” In the weeks and months to come, as we collectively continue to litigate and report and write and resist, we must not lose sight of this reality—because countering attacks on gender is foundational to the work of protecting and preserving democracy.
As today’s headlines highlight Trump’s withdrawal of aid to Ukraine and imposition of tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico—and the lowlights of his remarks to a joint session of Congress—here are stories that also warrant attention.
A number of prominent U.S. publishers, including the “Big 5”—Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks—along with several best-selling young adult authors, parents, teens and a library district, filed a lawsuit last week against an Idaho bill that restricts access to books accused of inappropriate “sexual content.”
The lawsuit is the latest in an ongoing battle against right-wing book bans, which often target LGBTQ+ content under the guise of “protecting children.”