President Trump has appointed noted anti-abortion activist Charmaine Yoest as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
News of Yoest’s appointment rankled congressional Democrats who balked at her past anti-abortion activism. Yoest, a senior fellow at American Values, is the former president of Americans United for Life, one of the groups behind state-level legislation to restrict abortion access.
Yoest’s appointment has raised eyebrows among abortion rights advocates because of her claims that abortions are linked to higher rates of breast cancer, that IUDs shorten a woman’s lifespan, and that there is no correlation between higher rates of contraception use and lower rates of abortion.
Yoest also kept her own blog, “Reasoned Audacity,” in which she made a number of anti-LGBTQ statements, with the bulk of her rage focused on the transgender community. In her many writings, Yoest has called transgender people “crazy,” “creatures,” frequently referred to chopping off one’s genitalia, and implied that medical care for transgender people (or as she refers to it, “the surgical removal of body parts”) is “a joke.”
Yoest has also promulgated the age-old trope of LGBTQ individuals as sexual predators, writing: “Parents should ask if McDonald’s will embrace open unisex restrooms where transgenders and transvestites and cross-dressers can have proximity to the wee ones.” In that same post, Yoest said she and her family would be boycotting McDonald’s because of the company’s support of LGBTQ equality.
Yoest’s position does not require Senate confirmation, meaning she was essentially ensured the position once Trump appointed her.
The National Center for Transgender Equality was aghast at Yoest’s appointment to HHS, which administers policies relating to transgender or transition-related medical care — which Yoest has specifically said she does not believe in.
“It’s almost as if President Trump is trying to find people who say the most mean, spiteful, hateful things about transgender people to fill roles in his administration,” Mara Kesiling, NCTE’s executive director, said in a statement.
The parent company of Bud Light may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales due to a boycott against the once-popular beer brand.
The boycott was mounted after the company partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an online promotion last year.
Mulvaney appeared in a TikTok video highlighting Bud Light's "March Madness" promotion during the annual NCAA Division I men's and women’s basketball tournament.
She also appeared in an online ad where she sat in a bubble bath, clad in a bathing suit, sipping Bud Light.
As part of that promotion, the company also sent Mulvaney a commemorative can with a picture of her face on the exterior, celebrating the first anniversary of her “Days of Girlhood” video series documenting her gender transition.
The state of South Dakota has issued an apology letter and paid $300,000 to a transgender advocacy group for abruptly canceling a state Department of Health contract with the group.
The payment and apology are part of an agreement reached between South Dakota and The Transformation Project to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that the state discriminated against the organization in violation of provisions contained in the Affordable Care Act prohibiting anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
The Transformation Project had signed a $136,000 contract with the state, paid for with federal funds, to provide community health worker services to the LGBTQ community from its Sioux Falls headquarters.
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, blasted "radical leftists" for allegedly using the death of nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict to push a political agenda.
Speaking with The New York Times, Walters accused LGBTQ advocates of misrepresenting the facts about Benedict's death. He pushed back on suggestions -- primarily those circulating on social media -- that Benedict's death, which occurred on February 8, was linked to a fight in a girls' bathroom at Owasso High School on February 7.
Local police have since said that preliminary autopsy results found that Nex "did not die as a result of trauma." The state medical examiner's office has not yet publicly released its report on the autopsy and toxicology results.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!