If his intentions were unclear, Trump’s budget proposed ending all CDC HIV prevention programs this past June, and Congress continues to negotiate next year’s budget, proposing massive cuts to HIV programs. 

For many young people who never lost friends or family, there may be the misconception that the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s was localized and small, but nearly 300,000 men who have sex with men have died from AIDS-related complications, with over 6,000 deaths in 2019 alone. To put this in perspective, this would be as if over half of Wyoming’s population disappeared, or if everyone in Pittsburgh, Penn., vanished overnight. 

Even Madonna criticized Trump’s move, posting on Instagram, “It’s one thing to order federal agents to refrain from commemorating this day, but to ask the general public to pretend it never happened is ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s unthinkable. I bet he’s never watched his best friend die of AIDS, held their hand, and watched the blood drain from their face as they took their last breath at the age of 23.” 

The post Trump’s Silence on World AIDS Day Revives a New Lavender Scare appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Many were outraged and shocked, observing the Trump administration’s new expansion of the “public charge” rule—directing visa officers to deny entry to people with disabilities, chronic illnesses or age-related conditions—as a modern revival of eugenic immigration policy designed to exclude, control and institutionalize disabled and marginalized people.

When Trump first took office in 2016, the Trump administration broadened the definition of public charge to include people who receive SNAP benefits, medicaid, housing assistance, childcare subsidies and more. This new rule was published in 2019 and went into effect in 2020 and early 2021; President Biden ended the use of this public charge rule definition in March 2021, returning it to the older but still restrictive version. Following Trump’s new rule, visa denials based on the “public charge” rule exploded during Trump’s first residency, rising from just over 1,000 denials in 2016 to over 20,000 in 2019, and it had disastrous effects.

As the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) found, broadening this public charge rule led many people to reduce or stop using benefits or services for themselves.

The post A Century After the Eugenics Movement, the U.S. Is Again Barring Disabled Immigrants appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

As justices question Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors, decades of research show the practice causes lasting harm and drives suicide risk among LGBTQ+ youth.

The post As the Supreme Court Appears Ready to End State Bans on Conversion Therapy, a Reminder: The Practice Is Harmful and Discredited appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The irony, of course, is that Kirk is now CEO of Turning Point USA—a position she could never hold without the very feminist progress she disavows. Tradwife rhetoric may promise dignity and purpose, but as the Cult of Domesticity and later social purity movements revealed, these ideals have always come at women’s expense. They strip away autonomy, enshrine patriarchal power and ultimately sacrifice women—even those who embrace the gospel themselves.

The post The Return of the Tradwife Gospel appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a video on Aug. 7 with the endorsement “All of Christ for All of Life,” in which a far-right conservative pastor, Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), argued that women should not have the right to vote.

As Wilson told the Associated Press, “He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen,’ at some level.”

But a deeper dive into CREC reveals troubling gender politics where women cannot hold church leadership positions and married women are expected to submit to their husbands.

The post A Trump Cabinet Member Endorsed a Pastor Who Wants the 19th Amendment Repealed, and the Danger Is Growing appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The post Marriage Equality Remains a Distant Goal for Disabled Americans appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The post Quilt Honors Survivors of Forced Sterilization in California Prisons: ‘Together We Rise’ appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The post ‘Women’s Place Is in the Conclave’: Pink Smoke Rises in Vatican City appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Conversion therapy originated from medical violence against women who did not conform to gender-based norms, arguably the same reason that Christian conversion therapy practitioners today target LGBTQ+ people who do not conform to heteronormative, cisgender norms. It sets a dangerous precedent for what other kinds of medical violence can be leveraged to reinforce far-right gender normative ideals.

The post Legalizing Conversion Therapy Sets a Dangerous Precedent for Medical Violence appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The post Trump Attacks Queer Communities Using Nazi Symbolism appeared first on Ms. Magazine.