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Nearly 3 million Americans identify as transgender, including one in 30 of those aged 13 to 17, according to a new report. But data on the country’s trans community may soon be hard to come by, its authors warned, as the Trump Administration and a number of GOP-led states seek to limit the recognition, and rights, of transgender people.

The UCLA Williams Institute has been publishing reports about transgender Americans since 2011, tracking information such as the race, ethnicity, age, regional location, and mental health of transgender individuals. 

Trans adults and youth make up 1% of Americans aged 13 and older and 3.3% of 13-to 17-year-olds, according to the institute’s Wednesday report. Researchers found that younger adults, those aged 18 to 34, were more likely to identify as transgender than their older counterparts, making up more than 50% of the country’s transgender population.

For its initial 2011 report, the institute relied on just two state-level population surveys. Researchers noted that they have since been able to access broader and higher-quality data through the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): To generate the most recent findings, they used data from the CDC 2021-2023 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System and 2021 and 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The report authors noted that the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in particular “currently provides the best available data for our estimates of the size and characteristics of youth who identify as transgender in the U.S.”

But the agency will no longer collect information on transgender people in compliance with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order calling for federal recognition of only two biological sexes. 

Since Trump returned to office in January, information regarding trans people and health resources for LGBTQ+ people has been quietly removed or modified on federal websites. And the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has stepped away from its previous practice of supporting gender-affirming-care, in spite of numerous statements from all major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, declaring the care as best practice. In May, HHS called for “exploratory therapy” or psychotherapy to treat individuals with gender dysphoria instead of the medically recommended care.

Multiple states have also sought to restrict access to gender-affirming care, particularly for minors, amid broader global efforts to target such care for trans youth. A June Supreme Court decision upholding a Tennessee state-level ban on gender-affirming-care for youth delivered a heavy blow to the U.S. LGBTQ+ community, permitting similar bans that have been enacted across the country and presenting a significant obstacle to future efforts to challenge restrictions in the courts.

Amid the current political climate, the authors of Wednesday’s Williams Institute report say they are unsure whether survey respondents will accurately respond to questions regarding their gender identity moving forward. In addition to the uncertain future of data on the U.S. transgender population, they wrote, “It is also unclear whether individuals’ willingness to disclose on surveys that they identify as transgender will remain unchanged in the years to come.”  

Despite those looming challenges in gathering information, however, the authors noted it is already clear that younger people are more likely to identify as transgender and they anticipate that to continue being true.

“This has implications for institutions in our society, including educational institutions, the U.S. Armed Forces, civilian workplaces, health care settings, and other areas, regarding how to meet the needs of and provide opportunities for current youth and future generations,” they said.

Source: Solcyré Burga, “1 in 30 U.S. Teens Identifies as Transgender—But That Data May Soon Disappear,” Time, 20 August 2025

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In the Central Coast, where my father farmed strawberries, the land is mostly flat for miles in every direction so it was easy to spot the green vans and trucks of the Immigration and Naturalization Service heading our way in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust in their wake. It was the late ‘70s and raids were an occasional part of working in the ag industry.

When the trucks were spotted — most often by a worker — a loud call would go out: “La Migra, la migra.” That’s when immigrant workers without legal status would drop what they were doing and sprint away, either for a nearby riverbed or over a set of raised railroad tracks adjacent to the fields. The immigration raids on my father’s strawberry fields fascinated me when I was a boy. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood the impact on the workers who were rounded up and deported, as well as the effects on the families left behind. I now recall them in a more somber light.

My father worked as a sharecropper in the Central Coast. He oversaw several acres of strawberries and managed up to a dozen workers for Driscoll Inc., the berry company headquartered in my hometown of Watsonville.

From the time I was about 6 or 7 years old until I was 16, I spent my summers and most weekends in the fall in my dad’s strawberry fields. It was backbreaking work. I have the chiropractor invoices to prove it.

Immigration raid methods have changed. The toll they take has not

The ICE raids of the past few months across Southern California reignited my boyhood memories of the strawberry field raids.

What has not changed is the impact on the immigrant families, especially the children. Children of immigrants sustain deep emotional scars from immigration raids.

A study published last month on Psychiatry News said immigrant children or children of mixed-status parents endure serious trauma when their parents are deported.

“Forced family separations, particularly those resulting from immigration enforcement (e.g., detention, deportation), introduce acute psychological risks,” according to the study, which list the results as an “elevated risk of suicidal ideation, externalizing behavior and alcohol use.”

Even living under the threat of having a parent deported is traumatizing to children.

“These fears have been shown to lead to school absenteeism, academic disengagement, and heightened emotional distress,” the study says.

Even as a boy, the fear and desperation were palpable

When I worked in the fields, the raids came about once or twice a summer. I didn’t witness this myself, but the family lore includes the story of a worker who was so desperate to escape the INS that he jumped into a nearby port-a-potty — hiding among the feces and urine in the holding tanks — until the INS agents departed.

Each summer, two or three of my father’s workers would be deported, only to return the following season. That was more common back in the ‘70s than it is today. My dad tried to help his workers without green cards by connecting them with legal aid groups or lawyers so they could straighten out their legal status. Not all of them did and some who had green cards ran at the sight of INS trucks anyway.

In a recent conversation with my younger brother, Peter, he recalled panicking during the first raids he witnessed. He said he asked my older siblings if he should run from the agents, too.

“No, you’re an American. Just shut up,” they told him.

“How do they know that?” my brother asked.

Source: Hugo Martín, “Essential California” newsletter (Los Angeles Times), 22 August 2025

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[…]

A lost white race of Bible giants—literally bigger, stronger, and whiter than everyone else—fashioned as a symbol of everything conservatives wanted to remake America into, is an all-too-convenient bit of lore for the conspiracy-besotted right. (Never mind that the Nephilim were technically the villains in Genesis!) And the Smithsonian was, if anything, a useful foil for a fringe movement looking for an enemy to accuse of suppressing the truth.

Soon enough, claims that the Smithsonian intentionally hid the bones of Bible giants went mainstream, presaging the country’s own rightward shift. By the 2010s, the Smithsonian’s secret giants appeared in popular paranormal books, on late-night radio shows, in multiple cable TV documentaries (including at least two separate History Channel shows), and across a network of evangelical and far-right media outlets.

Among the most popular of these were the Christian DVDs and later podcasts produced by Steve Quayle and his Nephilim-hunting partner, Timothy Alberino. Quayle, an archconservative, blamed Bible giants for “teaching” men to be gay. He and Alberino were regulars on the right-wing podcast circuit in the 2010s, often appearing with figures like Alex Jones and Jim Bakker so Quayle could hawk their merch, attack Democratic politicians as demonic, and advocate for a targeted genocide of Nephilim-controlled liberals.

Burlinson told Blaze TV that he had been radicalized against the Smithsonian through Alberino’s podcasts and videos. In his podcasts, Alberino has described Bible giants as a “superior race society.”

In recent years, Alberino has made moves to go more mainstream. He has appeared on Ancient Aliens, the History Channel show advocating historical conspiracies, where David Childress is a featured star. That same show also hosted Tucker Carlson, Tennessee Republican Representative Tim Burchett, and others to peddle conspiracies about government cover-ups of space aliens, interdimensional beings, demons, and more.

For the far right, the E.T.s of Ancient Aliens—the same ones Congress is currently hunting in various UFO hearings—are actually angels and demons, and those demons are the souls of the giants who died in the Flood, according to a nonbiblical text Alberino endorses. Burlinson said in 2023 that he thinks UFOs could be angels, and more recently he promised that a congressional UFO hearing to be held on September 9 would feature witnesses who “handled the bodies” of these beings.

Conspiracies about Bible giants are basically the Christian version of UFOs and aliens, and it’s no wonder there is significant cross-pollination between believers in the two camps, even in Congress, where several representatives like Burlinson and Burchett have publicly discussed their belief in both. In fact, both conspiracies give pride of place to the Nephilim narrative from Genesis 6:4 as proof of either fallen angels or alien intervention.

It would be laughable if the Smithsonian conspiracy theory and tales of Bible giants now being spread on Blaze TV, on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and across right-wing media, were not a kind of Trojan horse to soften up the public to accept political propaganda in place of history and complete the assault on America’s museums that failed in the 1990s. But the conspiracists continue to spread their lore, and mainstream conservative politicians continue to escalate their attacks on the Smithsonian—a far-right pincer movement directed at an institution that is both the nation’s premier repository of historical fact and a potent bolsterer of America’s civic fabric. And that is no laughing matter.

Source: Jason Colavito, “The Super-Weird Origins of the Right’s Hatred of the Smithsonian,” New Republic, 21 August 2025

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THE BIZARRE TWISTS AND TURNS of Donald Trump’s Ukraine peacemaking project continue: Just three days after the president announced in a triumphant Truth Social post that Vladimir Putin was willing to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky—either one on one or in a trilateral summit with Trump—and to accept an arrangement in which NATO countries would provide postwar security guarantees for Ukraine, the Putin regime has unequivocally shot down both proposals. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (last seen sporting a “USSR” sweatshirt on his trip to Alaska) has made it clear that there won’t be a meeting with Zelensky until “all the issues” have been resolved—including the question of Zelensky’s legitimacy as president, given that Ukrainian elections have been put on hold on account of the war—and that Russia will not accept the presence of foreign troops, presumably other than its own, on Ukrainian soil.

Trump’s stormy bromance with Putin seems to be off again, too: in social media posts on Thursday, he criticized “crooked and grossly incompetent” Joe Biden for not allowing Ukraine to strike back at Russia and (speciously) compared his chummy-seeming interaction with Putin in Alaska with Richard Nixon’s confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959.

It’s impossible to tell whether Trump’s social-media posturing will translate into action. There is still no word, for instance, on whether the administration is greenlighting Ukraine’s proposal, unveiled after the Monday White House meeting, for $100 billion in U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine (with the Europeans footing the bill) and an additional $50 billion project for joint U.S.-Ukrainian drone production. Nor is there any word on whether or when new sanctions will kick in.

WHILE THE CIRCUS PLAYS ON in Washington and Moscow, the war on the ground—and in the air—continues in Ukraine, and sometimes in Russia. Ukraine is in an undeniably tough position, though nowhere near the desperate predicament imagined both by haters and by worriers who keep predicting an imminent “collapse” of its defenses. On August 12, just before the Alaska summit, many thought they saw a sign of such collapse in a Russian “breakthrough” not far from the long-contested city of Pokrovsk (Donetsk region), near the former coal-mining town of Dobropillia, where Russian forces managed to make rapid advances past severely undermanned Ukrainian lines, move about nine miles forward, seize three villages (now mostly deserted, though some residents who have not been able to get out still remain there), and cut off a vital supply route for Ukrainian troops. These gains appeared to augur the fall of Pokrovsk itself, a prospect that has been discussed since late last year.

But a few days later, the supposed catastrophic defeat turned into an impressive Ukrainian victory thanks to the quick deployment of new units from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard, which retook two of the captured villages as well as four previously occupied settlements and cleared the area of Russian troops, reportedly inflicting significant losses. As for Pokrovsk itself, there have been some clashes inside the city, with incursions by small Russian units; but observers such as expatriate Russian military expert Yuri Fedorov think it’s extremely unlikely that the city will fall before inclement weather forces the Russian offensive to wind down.

It is true that momentum is on Russia’s side, in the sense that only Russia is currently conducting offensive operations. But Russian forces’ progress is snail-paced and intermittent, with the Ukrainians often successful in pushing them back (and using drones to make up for manpower and ammunition shortages). The result, more often than not, is a ghastly tug-of-war over small patches of devastated land—contests in which a “win” may consist of planting a flag in a ghost settlement.

Overall, analysts agree that Russia has no chance of capturing the entirety of the Donetsk region—as it has tried to do since the start of Putin’s covert war in Eastern Ukraine in 2014—anytime in the foreseeable future; doing so would require taking heavily fortified urban areas, and even the most cavalier willingness to sacrifice men may not accomplish that goal without several more years of costly fighting. Hence Russian demands for Ukraine to surrender the remainder of the region without a fight.

Ukraine also continues to score successes in its aerial war on strategic Russian targets such as oil refineries, arms and ammunition depots and factories, and trains carrying weapons and fuel to the frontlines. (Russian troops aren’t the only ones feeling the effects: there are reported miles-long lineups for gasoline in parts of Russia.) And, Western arms deliveries aside, Ukraine is making strides in developing its own weaponry, like the new Flamingo long-range cruise missile capable of hitting targets more than 1,800 miles away; Zelensky has said that it could be mass-produced by February.

In other words: Ukraine is still not losing. But there is no question that it is exhausted—and that the enemy’s continuing terrorism against its civilian population is taking its toll. On Wednesday night, Russia launched one of its heaviest assault waves yet: 574 drones and 40 missiles, with targets located as far away from the frontlines as Lviv and Transcarpathia. Most were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses, but one person was killed and over a dozen wounded.

Was this a deliberate middle finger to Trump over his supposed peace effort? It sure looks like it, especially considering the bombing of an American factory in the Transcarpathian city of Mukachevo—the premises of Flex Ltd., a manufacturer of civilian electronic goods. At the very least, it shows that Russia is not de-escalating. Likewise, it’s unclear whether the incursion of a Russian drone that crashed and burned in a rural area in eastern Poland during the overnight attack on Ukraine was a deliberate provocation, as the Polish government charged. But it certainly doesn’t tell us that Putin wants peace.

He can still be forced into it, however. A scenario in which Ukraine drives Russian troops and occupation forces out of its territory is as impossible as one in which Russia makes major territorial gains in Ukraine; but there may come a point, perhaps soon, when the war’s economic and political burdens for the Putin regime become too heavy. Even with rigged elections and a thoroughly owned population, Putin still cannot afford too much discontent among the Russian middle class—or among the elites. There is a reason he has not undertaken another round of mobilization since 2022. But right now, recruitment is dropping, soldiers recovering from wounds or suffering from serious physical and mental health problems are being forced into combat, and mobilization may be the only way to keep the war going. The war will end when Putin starts to see its costs as too high and the chances of achieving his aims, stated and unstated, as too low.

U.S. policy could be instrumental in making that happen. But for that, the Trump administration would have to commit to a firm and consistent pro-Ukraine policy. For starters, the president’s promises of “very severe consequences” if Putin stands in the way of peace should mean something more than memes and empty talk. (And the vice president shouldn’t keep fawning about the “soft-spoken” Kremlin dictator who “looks out for the interests, as he sees it, of Russia.” Sorry, JD, but you sound like a jackass.)

Yet here we are, with Putin doing everything to sabotage any meaningful peace talks but put up an “I ♥ WAR” neon sign on the Kremlin walls—and what is Trump’s response? Another deadline: this time, he says, we’ll know whether a deal can be made “within two weeks”—famously, Trump’s “placeholder” unit of time. No doubt they’re quaking in their boots in the Kremlin.

Source: Cathy Young, “Putin Tanks Trump’s Supposed Peace Effort,” The Bulwark, 22 August 2025

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The Trump administration has quietly rescinded long-standing guidance that directed schools to accommodate students who are learning English, alarming advocates who fear that schools will stop offering assistance if the federal government quits enforcing the laws that require it.

The rescission, confirmed by the Education Department on Tuesday, is one of several moves by the administration to scale back support for approximately 5 million schoolchildren not fluent in English, many of them born in the United States. It is also among the first steps in a broader push by the Trump administration to remove multilingual services from federal agencies across the board, an effort the Justice Department has ramped up in recent weeks.

The moves are an acceleration of President Donald Trump’s March 1 order declaring English the country’s “official language,” and they come as the administration is broadly targeting immigrants through its deportation campaign and other policy changes. The Justice Department sent a memorandum to all federal agencies last month directing them to follow Trump’s executive order, including by rescinding guidance related to rules about English-language learners.

Since March, the Education Department has also laid off nearly all workers in its Office of English Language Acquisition and has asked Congress to terminate funding for the federal program that helps pay for educating English-language learners. Last week, education advocates noticed that the guidance document related to English learning had a new label indicating it was rescinded and remains online “for historical purposes only.”

On Tuesday, Education Department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann said that the guidance for teaching English learners, which was originally set forth in 2015, was rescinded because it “is not in line with Administration policy.” A Justice Department spokesman responded to questions by sending a link to the July memorandum and said he had no comment when asked whether the guidance would be replaced.

For decades, the federal government has held that failing to provide resources for people not proficient in English constitutes discrimination based on national original under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

In rescinding the guidance, the Trump administration is signaling that it may stop enforcing the law under that long-standing interpretation. The Education and Justice departments have been responsible for enforcing the law.

In the July memorandum, Attorney General Pam Bondi cited case law that says treating people, including students, who aren’t proficient in English differently does not on its face amount to discrimination based on national origin.

Other guidance related to language access for people using services across the federal government is also being suspended, according to the memo, and the Justice Department will create new guidance by mid-January to “help agencies prioritize English while explaining precisely when and how multilingual assistance remains necessary.” The aim of the effort, Bondi said in a statement published alongside the memo, is to “promote assimilation over division.”

The consequences for school districts were not immediately clear, but advocates worry that rescinding the 2015 guidance could open the door for weaker instruction for English learners and upend decades of direction from the federal government to provide English-language services to students who need them.

“The Department of Education and the Department of Justice are walking away from 55 years of legal understanding and enforcement. I don’t think we can understate how important that is,” said Michael Pillera, an attorney who worked at the Office for Civil Rights for 10 years and now directs the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

Without pressure from the federal government to comply with the law, it is possible that some school districts will drop services, Pillera said, particularly as many districts struggle with financial pressures.

“It’s going to ripple quickly,” he predicted. “Schools were doing this because the Office for Civil Rights told them they had to.”

Many districts will probably not change their services, but rescinding the guidance opens the door, said Leslie Villegas, an education policy analyst at New America, a think tank. Advocates may watch for changes in districts that previously had compliance problems or those that had open cases with the Office for Civil Rights related to English-language instruction, she noted.

“The rescission of this guidance may create the mentality that no one’s watching,” Villegas said.

In recent months, the Justice Department notified at least three school districts — in Boston; Newark; and Worcester, Massachusetts — that the government was releasing them from government monitoring that had been in place to ensure they offered services to English-language learners.

Officials in Worcester said they expected the action even before Trump took office. But in Boston, some parent advocates questioned why the monitoring had ended, the Boston Globe reported.

Supporters of immigration restrictions argued that relieving pressure on schools to provide these services might be helpful, especially given the costs to districts.

“If you devote all these resources to these kids coming in [to school] completely unprepared, inevitably it will diminish the quality of education others are getting,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Todd DuBois, communications director for U.S. English, a group that advocates for English as the official and common language, said some education is needed to help “bridge the gap” for students who do not speak English, but the group is concerned that multilingualism “gets in the way of teaching English literacy earlier in life.”

The requirement to serve English-language learners in school is based on two federal statutes. The first is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on national origin, among other traits. Alandmark 1974 Supreme Court case, Lau v. Nichols, interpreted this law to include a mandate for English-language services in schools.

The second federal law at issue is the 1974 Equal Educational Opportunities Act, which requires public schools to provide for students who do not speak English. A 1981 case decided in federal appeals court, Castañeda v. Pickard, laid out a test to determine whether schools were properly providing services to English learners in school.

In 2015, the Justice and Education departments published their 40-page guidance document, explaining how schools can properly comply with these laws and avoid potential federal investigations and penalties.

“For a teacher, it was kind of like the Bible,” said Montserrat Garibay, who headed the Office of English Language Acquisition under the Biden administration. “If, in fact, we want our students to learn English, this needs to be in place.”

In her memorandum, Bondi said that in addition to cutting back on multilingual services the administration deems “nonessential,” federal agencies would be tasked with boosting English education and assimilation.

“Instead of providing this office with more capacity and more resources to do exactly what the executive order says — to make sure that everybody speaks English — they are doing the total opposite,” Garibay said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration enforcement measures, suggested the federal government should not direct how school districts offer services. But he also said that teaching children English is consistent with efforts to make sure people living in the United States speak English.

“I’m all for English-language education. We probably need to do even more of that,” he said. “If you’re going to let people in who don’t speak English, then you want them to be acquiring English as soon as possible.”

Source: Laura Meckler and Justine McDaniel, “Education Department quietly removes rules for teaching English learners,” Washington Post, 20 August 2025