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Health

Discover the Health section of The Advocate, where readers can find the latest news on medicine, fitness, mental and physical wellbeing, scientific developments, and diseases that affect the LGBT community. Read the most recent on gay health, AIDS and HIV news, pregnancy and sex from experts like doctors and researchers. Learn about news related to health insurance, statistics, changing laws and government policy, and tools that can be used in preventing and curing illnesses in the United States and beyond.
Maura Healey speaking at a podium
Politics

Massachusetts lesbian Gov. Maura Healey signs abortion and gender-affirming care shield law

Shield Act 2.0 further strengthens protections for patients and providers of reproductive healthcare.

New York Attorney General Letitia James
Health

Over a dozen states sue to protect gender-affirming care from federal investigations

A new lawsuit argues that the Trump administration is pursuing a backdoor strategy to restrict gender-affirming care nationally, while skirting state laws.
packages of birth control pills with an IUD
News

Trump administration will incinerate $10 million worth of birth control for poor women

The Trump administration is literally torching nearly $10 million worth of birth control.

Robert Garcia RFK JR
Politics

House Oversight Democrats demand records over RFK Jr.’s HIV program cuts

Robert Garcia and Raja Krishnamoorthi accuse HHS of dismantling life-saving HIV programs based on conspiracy theories and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

Mark Pocan Sharice Davids Mike Lawler
News

Lawmakers call out Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘unconscionable’ apathy on eve of LGBTQ+ 988 Lifeline shutdown

“It’s heartbreaking, scary, and deeply harmful,” Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids, who said the Department of Health and Human Services should keep the successful suicide prevention program intact, told The Advocate.

person reviewing medical bills
Health

Louisiana Medicaid quietly stops reimbursing patients for gender-affirming care

Medicaid will no longer reimburse gender-affirming care prescriptions in Louisiana.

A guard appears to be checking on inmates of an unidentified prison
News

Trans people in Georgia prisons are being forced to detransition. Now they're suing.

A class action lawsuit representing nearly 300 incarcerated people says the state's refusal to allow gender-affirming care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Women's March in Washington demanding continued access to abortion after the ban on most abortions in Texas, and looming threat to Roe v Wade in upcoming Supreme Court.
News

BREAKING: Trump administration to limit abortion for veterans after restricting gender-affirming care

The proposed policy would eliminate access to abortion through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

RFK Jr
News

RFK Jr. mulls firing ‘critical’ panel that determines no-cost preventive care services insurers must cover

It comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force, which requires coverage for diabetes, cancer, and mental health screenings as well as access to HIV prevention, or PrEP, was properly appointed.

Planned parenthood clinic entrance
Politics

Federal judge blocks Trump's ban on Medicaid Funding for Planned Parenthood

Trump's ban preventing Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood has been blocked nationwide.

Donald Trump places hand of JD Vance knee during inauguration ceremonies
Health

Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, but what is it?

How is it treated and how serious is it?

young queer couple worried about finances
Politics

What Medicaid and SNAP cuts mean for LGBTQ+ people

Trump's "one big, beautiful" tax and spending law is poised to make drastic cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — programs on which many LGBTQ+ Americans rely.

Donald Trump signing a document 988 suicide crisis public sign Karine Jean Pierre
News

Experts brace for crisis as Trump administration’s end to key emergency resource for LGBTQ+ youth looms

Despite bipartisan pushback, the Department of Health and Human Services is scheduled to discontinue the specialized service next week.

A person looking at their hair loss in a mirror
Health

Medical experts explain hair transplants and why trans folks are lining up to get them

Is hair loss surgery gender affirming care?

​Jaymes Vaughan (L) and Jonathan Bennett (R)
Health

Jonathan Bennett shares husband Jaymes Vaughan's rare health condition

The actor, who played Aaron Samuels in 2004's Mean Girls, shared that his husband recently got corrective surgery for a rare health condition.

teen filling out medical paperwork with an adult
Health

U.K. to begin major study on health of transgender youth

The study comes at a time when gender-affirming care is under attack in the U.K.

​International Transgender Day of Visibility rally in Union Square New York City 2025
Politics

21 states that have passed anti-LGBTQ+ laws in 2025 so far

Here are all the anti-LGBTQ+ laws that have been passed so far in 2025, and which states they come from.

Kaiser Permanente
News

Kaiser Permanente ends gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19

Kaiser will stop offering the surgeries as of August 29, but said that it will still offer other gender-affirming care.

Planned parenthood clinic entrance
Politics

Trump's new strategy to restrict abortion nationwide — don't say ‘ban’

Trump's team has developed a way to make abortion difficult to obtain without the same costs as an unpopular ban.

Senator Josh Hawley walks past reporters at the US Capitol Building June 2025 Washington DC
Voices

Waffler and coward Josh Hawley runs away — again — from a problem he helped create

Opinion: Hawley is running from his big beautiful bill vote the same way he sprinted away from insurrectionists on January 6, writes John Casey.