By Ann Rostow—
Ninth Circuit Panel Okays Release of Transgender Medical Data
A split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on August 14, 2026, ruled that Trump’s justice department is within its rights to subpoena the medical records of transgender youth seeking therapy, even after lower courts called the subpoenas unlawful. Under the terms of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the federal government may only intrude when investigating “a federal care offense,” whatever that may mean. Digging into the treatment of transgender kids out of pure Trumpian hostility violates HIPAA according to all the courts that considered the matter—until now.
The majority opinion was written by Judge Carlos Bea, a 92-year-old GW Bush appointee, who teamed up with Trumpy Judge Daniel Bress to out-vote the dissenting Clinton-appointee, Judge Richard Paez. Based on the account by Chris Geidner on his Law Dork substack, the green light was basically lit by anti-transgender sentiment rather than legal analysis. Geidner notes that Judge Bea cited a recent anti-trans study from Finland that was not presented at any stage in the case, drawing a reply from Paez in his dissent.
“As a threshold matter,” he wrote, “it is not our role to parse the merits of quantitative research neither raised before the district court nor briefed on appeal.” Paez also noted that the Finnish study has drawn “wide-ranging critiques.”
I should really read the opinions rather than relying solely on Geidner, but I choose not to. Bea argued that a court has “no warrant to override the President’s judgment on a disputed matter of public policy,” as if the whims of the Executive Branch outweigh the text of a statute passed by Congress. “It is for the American people, through the democratic process,” he went on, “to decide whether a President’s views on such topics and the policies that result from those views are ‘improper.’”
This carte blanche to the American President is our latest whack-a-mole challenge, and it’s possible that the case will be appealed to the full Ninth Circuit bench, which would likely roll back Judge Bea’s crazy thinking. If so, one assumes the case would rise to the Supreme Court’s shadow docket and on to their schedule if accepted. And from there, who knows?
Meanwhile in a different part of the country, the Justice Department dropped its appeal to get transgender medical records from Pittsburg patients, abandoning its case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Why? I don’t know exactly. Maybe they’re picking their battles and thought the Ninth Circuit panel looked more promising.
Just the Facts, Man
I read a mildly interesting New York Times article the other day about bears (the gay male type), pointing out that the bears are shedding pounds thanks to Ozempic and other weight-loss drugs. It did not cross the threshold for our news column, that is until I read another article in The Advocate discussing the complexities of the bear community and criticizing the Times for its simplistic coverage.
The Advocate quoted Richard Jones, founding editor of Bear World Magazine, who said the Times dropped a “quick headline” to garner attention, and, by implication, exaggerated a phenomenon that indeed has an effect but in no way threatens the subset of gay men who identify as bears—burly, hairy lads who come in a wide range of sizes to begin with. “We’re losing a little bit of weight, but we’re still a community, we’re still thriving, we’re still bears,” said Jones, who added that “being bears is very much a state of mind.”
According to The Advocate, another bear leader said the Times article “flattened a complex issue” and acted as though GLP-1s were “going to eliminate the bear community,” and that people were turning to the medications because “nobody was comfortable being a bear.”
I was struck by the juxtaposition of these two stories because I’m annoyed by the media’s tendency to jump to an easy headline at the expense of nuanced reporting. It’s lazy, it’s sloppy, and it’s described perfectly by the notion that “it flattens a complex issue.” And, yes, I’m talking about MSNOW because God knows what the Fox guys are saying.
The latest example is the “war” or “rift” within the Democratic Party between moderate candidates and democratic socialists. Abdul El-Sayed, our Michigan Senate nominee, is a leftist or a progressive but not a democratic socialist. Nonetheless, because he ran to the left of his mainstream opponent and because he looks like a bit of a renegade and has a scary name, he’s been gratuitously added to the list of socialists tearing the party apart. El-Sayed won by a point or so, while in Wisconsin, the actual socialist candidate for governor lost by a point or so. To me, these results are very similar, showing an even split between left and center in these neighboring states. Yet several pundits have exclaimed that the two primaries gave us “very different outcomes” or presaged a big showdown to come. I’ve also heard talking heads say that socialists have won in very blue areas, as if that’s a big trend. Why the plural? We’re talking about the mayor of New York City, but we haven’t seen big ticket socialist victories elsewhere. Why suggest it’s a widespread phenomenon?
The real story is the Democratic Party’s search for activism, youth, and authenticity. Our national committee seems shambolic, as far as I can see, bungling the analysis of our 2024 loss and failing to raise cash while the Republican committee has millions in the bank. Our leaders seem hapless. We’re looking for aggressive tactics rather than a defensive posture, and the rise of young leftist candidates echoes our frustration with complacent politicians.
That said, the socialist platform with its wacky calls to abolish the Senate itself, gradually defund the police, dismantle the prison system, and whathaveyou is a millstone around the neck of all democrats. The Democratic Socialists seem to be a hodgepodge of left-wing factions, and have only recently emerged as a thing. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has drawn their ire for supporting incumbent congressmembers and Mamdani got rebuked for planning to grow his police budget. Most leftist candidates have distanced themselves from the label, to the extent that I don’t see the big “rift” as anything more than a left-to-center spectrum of Democratic opinions.
Even more irritating than the media’s urge to turn every gray area into a black-and-while crisis is the fact that many pundits present their views as new, original thoughts when we’ve been hearing the exact same observations for weeks.
“Yes, Andrea, but I think we can’t lose sight of the fact that the Democratic Party is torn between two ideologies; the mainstream party positions and the Democratic Socialists who are now surging—at least in the blue states, but now in a purple state like Michigan.”
“Good point, Jim. Do you think this will affect the midterms? Because we also saw a very different result in Wisconsin where the centrist came from behind to beat the socialist candidate for governor.”
You get the picture.
Look at Me!
Have you seen the latest photos of Nancy Mace, the sex-obsessed three-term Congresswoman from South Carolina who recently lost her bid to run for governor? She came in fifth place and promptly launched a YouTube show and displayed shots of her full arm tattoos that previously had not been on public display. I don’t care who gets tattoos, of course, but I’ve been drawn to this nutcase ever since she told a Prayer Breakfast audience about how her boyfriend wanted to have sex that morning but she told him no dice because she had to get to a prayer breakfast. Why on Earth would you say something like that to a large audience? Particularly if you’re a member of Congress. Particularly if it’s a prayer breakfast.
She went on to represent hateful things. She became antigay, virulently anti-trans, and just nasty. Then she gave another inappropriately intimate speech on the House floor, telling her colleagues about how her now ex-boyfriend and some other guys raped her, and I forget what else. (He’s suing for defamation.) She often posted shots of herself in provocative poses, seemingly obsessed with getting a certain type of attention. And, now, after losing badly, she still seeks the spotlight with her new YouTube gig, and photos.
But why spend valuable GLBT news space on Nancy Mace, you ask? It’s because her tattoo includes the first line from Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf’s classic novel of romantic malaise: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Because Mrs. Dalloway at one point loved and lost a Sapphic relationship, GLBT observers have jumped on the quote, wondering if Mace read the book or what she intended to convey. Oh, and in my research, I just learned that Mace believes space aliens are in contact with Earthlings.
Hmmm. I believe there are intelligent beings somewhere else in the universe, but I doubt they are hanging out among us with their universal translators and facial implants. Perhaps they’re based in a holographic viewing station that looks like a cliffside watching our pre-warp society develop.
“Captain, these people have given their leadership role to a psychopath.”
“I’m sorry, lieutenant, but we can’t interfere.”
“I’ve spoken to one of them, Nancy, who said she can overthrow the dangerous government.”
“Cut off contact at once.”
From Russia With Hate
In Pope Leo news, our man in the Vatican has appointed fifteen new consultors [SIC] to the Vatican’s office for religious life. I have no idea what this means, but several of the newbies are females who have criticized the Church’s stance on women. I include this tidbit from Letters From Leo dot com because the item concluded with: “They will now advise the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Vatican office governing the world’s religious orders, where Sister Simona Brambilla presides as the first woman ever to lead a dicastery.”
What’s a dicastery? I had to find out! It turns out that it’s a major department in the Roman Curia, the central administrative body that advises the Pope. It used to be called a “congregation” or a “pontifical council” until Pope Francis changed it to “dicastery” in 2022. A “consultor,” in turn, is an advisor. Like a consultant. We love adding satisfying-sounding words to our vocabularies, but was the “dicastery” switcheroo really necessary?
It’s lots of fun to learn new words, but many times these words are too obscure to use without sounding pretentious. Further, when you use a word nobody knows, you defeat the whole purpose of communicating ideas and thoughts. That said, I so love the word “Canicula,” which describes the dog days of summer, that I use it once a year. Twice would be showy. But it gives me such pleasure that I allow myself the annual indulgence. That was it for 2026. And I’ll never be able to use “dicastery.”
In other Pope news, the Russian publishers of Pope Francis’s autobiography have censored out any reference to GLBT people, especially a section that welcomes us to the Catholic Church, which has been completely blacked out.
This comes as the Russian LGBT Network, founded in 2006, has been forced to disband after a court in St Petersburg ruled it fit the definition of an extremist organization. Various high courts in Russia have defined gay-positive groups as extremist organizations, subject to punitive sanctions. Many groups have been banned and defunded and dozens of individuals have been heavily fined or arrested under the “extremist” rubric, which Russia’s highest court said back in 2023 would encompass GLBT advocates. I used to report these stories out of Russia as outlandish attacks on our community, but under Trump 2.0, they resonate as precursors to our own fate.
Finally, I noticed in checking out the Democratic Socialists that they oppose aid to Ukraine and are against sanctions on Russia. Do they really think Putin’s Russia represents a Marxist utopia?
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on August 27, 2026
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