Tag: US federal government

Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek admits retaliating against Maine for Gov. Mills defying Trump on trans athletes, suspending state’s birth and death registration programs

Portland Press Herald: Social Security official ended program for Maine newborns because he was ‘ticked’ at Mills (archive) (2024-03-25):

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration admitted this week that he specifically targeted Maine after watching Gov. Janet Mills clash with President Donald Trump during an event at the White House.

“I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president,” Lee Dudek told the New York Times.

Dudek directed the agency to cancel a decades-old program that allows parents to register their newborns for a social security number while at hospitals.

The mandate only applied to Maine and required new parents to show up at a Social Security office in person to register their newborns.

The change was rescinded one day later after an outcry from Maine and criticism from the state’s congressional delegation. A similar program to end electronic death records also targeted Maine and was quickly reversed. […]

Dudek issued an apology when he rescinded the order, although he never provided an explanation for the abrupt change or for the reversal.

“I screwed up. I’ll admit I screwed up,” Dudek told the Times this week. […]

Dudek said he made the decision after watching a testy exchange between Mills and Trump at the National Governors Association dinner in February.

In the February dust-up, Trump told Mills she had better change the state’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports or the state would not get any federal funding.

When Mills answered that she was following state and federal laws, Trump said, “We are the federal law.” Mills replied, “See you in court.”

Analysis

This is a clear example of a White House-selected acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Leland Dudek, retaliating against an entire state of mostly cis people by interfering with their SSA systems in a wholly unrelated manner, in reaction to a state leader challenging the president on his anti-trans policy. Dudek admits this response was inappropriate and he knows it. How do we know that other acts of inappropriate retaliation by the Social Security Administration against US residents, based on our policy disagreements with Trump on trans issues, won’t happen again?

Digital rights group warns Trump executive order eliminating information silos could enable targeting of trans people, immigrants and political enemies

The Record, Trump order on information sharing appears to have implications for DOGE and beyond (2025-03-21):

A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to expand information-sharing across federal agencies as well as between federal and state governments, but civil libertarians and other experts are warning that the main purpose is to help normalize how the Department of Government Efficiency is handling government data.

The order, issued Thursday, directs all federal agency heads to modify or rescind any regulations preventing the sharing of unclassified data and records between federal agencies.

Agency heads also must ensure that the U.S. government has “unfettered access” to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding. The order extends to all such data even when stored in third-party databases. […]

While the new EO asserts that the removal of data “silos” is designed to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, disturbing mission creep is very possible, said Elizabeth Laird, director of equity and civic technology at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.

There are no assurances that the data won’t be used for “targeting people who the administration has separately said are a priority for them,” Laird said. “That can include immigrants, it can include people who are transgender, it can include people that speak up” against the administration. […]

Allowing DOGE to co-mingle agency data also could lead to abuses against the general population, said Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the ACLU.

Individuals going through airport security could routinely be checked against a centralized database so that the Transportation Security Administration, for example, could discover they unknowingly haven’t paid back taxes and delay their travel, he said. […]

Court filings in DOGE cases have revealed examples of irregular data sharing. On March 14, a filing said a former worker in the office, Marko Elez, broke Treasury Department rules when he sent an unencrypted database containing personally identifiable information outside of the agency.

Rolling Stone: Insiders warn DOGE and Trump, Musk, or US enemies could use Social Security data to target trans people and political opponents

Rolling Stone: Nightmare Scenarios: Why DOGE Having Your Social Security Data Is Dangerous (archive) (2025-03-21):

When Mike Russo entered Social Security Administration headquarters on January 31, he introduced himself to agency staff as a representative of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to court filings.

Along with Akash Bobba, a 22-year-old former Meta and Palantir intern, Russo demanded sweeping access to data on every person in the United States with a Social Security number. Social Security Administration (SSA) insiders warn the sharing of this data puts Americans at risk of identity fraud — and that it could be used by Donald Trump’s administration to punish, threaten, or blackmail his political enemies, both at home and abroad. […]

Two SSA insiders warn the potential for misuse of this data is virtually endless: The agency data could be used by hostile foreign governments to locate defectors and political dissidents inside the United States; officials in DOGE and the Trump administration itself could theoretically use the data to threaten elected officials and journalists, among other political foes, or create databases of transgender Americans and citizens who were born in other countries.

The data given to DOGE includes the addresses, medical and work histories, tax, banking and citizenship information, benefit amounts, and family records of every person in the United States with a Social Security number or who has applied for benefits. DOGE officials were granted access to this data over the objections of Flick and former Social Security Commissioner Michelle King, who resigned in protest over the episode. Despite the pushback, DOGE was able to access the data thanks, in part, to Dudek, who has become key to DOGE’s work inside the agency. […]

Insiders and agency veterans worry that the data DOGE has access to isn’t secure, and could be stolen or hacked by the “bad actors” that Flick mentioned in her deposition. One source close to the agency tells Rolling Stone they worried that foreign governments could use the data to locate defectors or political dissidents within the United States. The source also expressed concern that terrorist organizations could use the data to find foreign nationals who have aided the U.S. military and intelligence community in fighting in the Middle East. Another source warned that law enforcement and intelligence sources living in witness protection could be exposed by the data, as well as everyday Americans who could be viewed by Musk and the Trump administration as political enemies.

Some of those perceived enemies could include transgender Americans, according to Zinnia Jones, a transgender activist and researcher. Jones warned that the SSA data could be used to “identify nearly all likely transgender people in the US with 99 percent confidence.” Jones cited a 2015 U.S. Census Bureau study that utilized the same SSA data accessed by DOGE to estimate the number of trans Americans.

“For all we know, they may already know about the possibility of doing this and it’s part of why they insisted so forcefully on full access” to the data, Jones tells Rolling Stone. In her deposition, Flick noted that Bobba requested and was eventually given access to the SSA’s full dataset, “including source code.”

A former federal employee speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution agreed with Jones’ assessment, telling Rolling Stone that the Trump administration could use the SSA data — as well as agency hiring paperwork and passport applications — to identify and purge transgender employees from the government.

And yesterday’s memorandum opinion in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO v. Social Security Administration, 1:25-cv-00596 (D. Maryland, Mar. 20, 2025), ECF No. 49:

Plaintiffs’ members do not know if their information has been viewed or documented by any of these employees, nor how many times it has been viewed or will continue to be viewed in the coming hours, days, weeks, or months. But, plaintiffs know their sensitive, personally identifiable information is accessible to the DOGE Team on a daily basis, with no proper justification. […]

To facilitate the expedition, SSA provided members of the SSA DOGE Team with unbridled access to the personal and private data of millions of Americans, including but not limited to Social Security numbers, medical records, mental health records, hospitalization records, drivers’ license numbers, bank and credit card information, tax information, income history, work history, birth and marriage certificates, and home and work addresses. […]

In my view, plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that such action is arbitrary and capricious, and in violation of the Privacy Act and the APA. Plaintiffs have also demonstrated that their members will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a TRO, the equities tip in their favor, and the TRO serves the public interest.

Meanwhile, from Mother Jones: Tesla’s in Trouble. Elon Blames… Trans People? (2025-03-20):

Unsurprisingly, Musk ran with the fact that some of the people charged with the Tesla vandalism may be gender non-conforming, suggesting that it pointed to a larger phenomenon of violence perpetrated by trans people. “What are the statistics on trans violence?” Musk asked in his repost of Insurrectionist Barbie’s post. Ever the dilettante, Musk quickly answered his own question — with more of the baseless transphobia he has long spewed on his platform. “The probability of a trans person being violent appears to be vastly higher than non-trans,” Musk falsely claimed. “Hormone injections cause extreme emotional volatility. That is simply a fact.” […]

Musk’s latest transphobic tirade came on the same day that his estranged trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, was profiled in Teen Vogue — and she’s not giving her dad, or his unhinged X posts, any brain space. “He’s a pathetic man-child,” she told the magazine.

March 18, 2025: The United States is a deeply transphobic and increasingly uninhabitable country

Last week, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed what he called the Riley Gaines Act; a law that defines the difference between a man and a woman. His reason being, to protect the women in West Virginia.

“It’s common sense that women’s spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centers should be kept private for women only,” he said at last Tuesday’s bill signing. “The bill that I have before me defines terms like sex, male, female and the state code to allow for single sex private spaces.” […]

Others like Natasha Kerensky have decided to leave the Mountain State in hopes of feeling safer in a different environment.

“I’m heading to an area of an actual non-discrimination ordinance in place out of state mainly because I feel safer and have a place that you know isn’t going to discriminate against me and housing or employment,” she said.

She said she feels as if her identity is being taken away from her by the government.

“I don’t exist according to the government, they’re trying to erase me,” she said.

 

House Republicans ended debate early for two bills that would limit gender-affirming health care in the state after Democrats begged their colleagues not to vote for the legislation. Senate Bill 2 would end hormone treatments for 67 transgender inmates in Kentucky prisons and House Bill 495 would undo Beshear’s executive order to limit conversion therapy and, thanks to a late addition in the Senate, ban Medicaid from paying for gender-affirming transgender treatment and procedures.

Democratic Rep. Lisa Willner of Louisville said ending Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care would put patients already receiving treatment in medically dangerous situations, including withdrawal symptoms and severe mental health repercussions, with some treatments requiring patients gradually wean off the medication over a multi-month period.

Some Republicans have said that they do not believe any state Medicaid providers currently cover such therapies, but Willner said she knows that is not the case. State Medicaid covers hormone replacement therapy that a doctor deems medically-necessary, and Willner said she has personally spoken with some recipients.

“People are begging us for their lives, for their children’s lives. Please, I beg you,” Willner said. “Please understand that these folks we’re talking about who we may be right now about to deliver a death sentence to — they’re somebody’s child, they’re somebody’s siblings, they’re someone’s parents … Please, folks, please, let’s show some mercy.”

 

Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill that protects widely discredited conversion therapy and prevents Medicaid from covering transition treatment.

 

“I’m in a one-income family household, so money is tight for us,” said Carma Bell Marshall, a 35-year-old trans woman living in Louisville. “It’s done wonders for my mental health. It’s done wonders for my outlook on life. It’s something that I think if I didn’t have it, my life would be in a so much darker place right now.”

For several months, Carma Bell Marshall’s hormone treatment has been covered by Medicaid. But soon that could all be changing, and she could be coming out of pocket a couple hundred dollars a month. […]

The vote to pass House Bill 495, one of the more contentious pieces of legislation this year, was divided along party lines. It’s set to protect conversion therapy, a widely discredited form of counseling, in Kentucky and prohibit the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender transition treatment. […]

“We have Kentuckians who are actively contemplating suicidality, who are contemplating leaving a state that they have called home their whole life. I’ve even thought about — is Kentucky a safe place for me to continue living and existing?” she said.

 

A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others. The Trump administration’s barrage of attacks on trans people can seem haphazard, but as elements of a denationalization project, they fall into place. In his Inaugural Address and one of his first executive orders, President Trump asserted that only two sexes exist: male and female, established at conception and immutable. Trans people, in other words, do not exist. Executive orders aimed at banning any mention of transgender people from schools, banning trans athletes from women’s sports, ordering a stop to gender-affirming medical care for people under 19, and barring trans people from serving in the military followed.

The State Department stopped issuing passports with the “X” gender marker and began issuing passports consistent with the sex the applicant was assigned at birth, even if the person had legally changed gender. In his executive order on the military, Trump asserted that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle.” During an address to Congress in February, Trump recognized a young woman who apparently suffered a brain injury during a volleyball game. Serious volleyball injuries are surprisingly common, but what stood out about this one was that the player who spiked the ball that hit her, the young woman said, was trans.

The message, consistent and unrelenting, is that trans people are a threat to the nation. The subtext is that we are not of this nation.

 

As previously reported by The Advocate, German officials have issued a warning for trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming individuals traveling to the United States, saying that transgender people “should contact the responsible U.S. authorities prior to travel to the U.S. to inquire about current entry regulations,” German officials told Erin in the Morning.

Meanwhile, InterPride — a global association of over 400 Pride organizations from over 70 countries — issued a similar notice on its social media pages. “Due to an executive order issued by the U.S. president on Jan. 20, all travelers must select either ‘male’ or ‘female’ when applying for entry or visas,” the post said, as reported by The Washington Blade. “The gender listed at birth will be considered valid. If your passport has ‘X’ as a gender marker or differs from your birth-assigned gender, we strongly recommend contacting the U.S. diplomatic mission before traveling to confirm entry requirements.”

“Like a slow death”, a “pawn in others’ political games”: Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite court rulings against Trump order

The Guardian: Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order (2025-03-07) (archive):

The executive order was quickly challenged in court. In three lawsuits filed on behalf of trans women housed in women’s prisons, federal judges have ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot withhold their medical treatment and was barred from moving them to men’s facilities. One judge said the plaintiffs had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow”.

Lawyers fighting Trump’s directive say the court rulings prevented the transfers of 17 trans women who are plaintiffs in the cases, but others not included in the litigation are now facing placements in men’s facilities.

“I’m just continuing to be punished for existing,” said Whitney, a 31-year-old trans woman who was transferred from a women’s facility to a men’s prison this week. The BOP changed her records from “female” to “male”, records show. In messages before her transfer, she said she felt like a “pawn in others’ political games”. The Guardian is not using her full name due to concerns about retaliation.

Kara Janssen, an attorney representing trans women in litigation, said she learned of another trans woman not included in the lawsuits who was recently transferred to a facility that houses men, and also had the gender marker in her records changed. Janssen also learned of a trans woman newly entering the BOP system who had gender-affirming surgeries before her incarceration, but was placed in a men’s facility. […]

Whitney, who was recently transferred, said in interviews prior to her move that staff for weeks gave her conflicting information. In mid-February, she and another trans woman were placed into a form of isolation called a “special housing unit” and told they could be there for months, she said. The other woman attempted suicide out of fear of being transferred, she said.

Days later, the women were moved back to the general population. Whitney’s doctor, however, then told her that her hormone therapy medications would start to be tapered down. Whitney said going off those medications would wreak havoc on her body and mind, describing it “like a slow death”. The doctor also said staff would start using male pronouns for her, though she said that had not happened yet.

Zinnia Jones: Remarks on Trump 2025-03-04 speech to Congress

Zinnia’s commentary and remarks:

— He’s misgendering the trans girl in high school who played volleyball against Payton McNabb, and calling trans women “men”.

Trump:

$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho which nobody has ever heard of.

— Everyone has heard of Lesotho. He can’t even pronounce it.

Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. … Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229. One person between the age of 240 and 249 — and one person is listed at 360 years of age.

— There’s all sorts of possible reasons those Social Security records are still in that database. Any number of complexities could apply here. He could be listing all sorts of ad hoc edge cases, or odd formatting hacks, that came up in the course of everything all people in the United States can experience across the course of their lives.

Deals are being made — never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it?

— He thinks tariffs are “beautiful”? The markets were a bloodbath today [2025-03-04], yesterday as well.

And Elliston Berry, who became victim of an illicit deepfake image produced by a peer. With Elliston’s help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act.
And this is so important, thank you very much, John [Thune]. … The publication of such images online is terrible, terrible thing. And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing the bill into law. Thank you. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too, if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.

— A disgusting suggestion by Trump that an anti-deepfake law, primarily protecting women targeted by AI creation of pornography, would be necessary to protect him because of how desirable he is, which he is not. The implication diminishes what she has been through, to her face, in front of the country, which is extremely insulting. I am offended deeply on her behalf.

All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murderers…

— Anyone in any group can act heinously, but choosing to dehumanize anyone is a choice that diminishes every one of us.

Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS.

— Terrorism involves attacks on civilians to achieve political aims and send a message. These gangs and cartels are not intending to do so in any of these cited incidents.

— This is all a disgrace, shameful, cowardly, pathetic, small, and utterly chickenhearted.

I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer, and tonight I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.

— He doesn’t specify what degree of murder, or the circumstances. If the accused were 10 miles away, it could be attributed to them as being a murder when an officer is killed by someone else, due a legal mechanism of associated responsibility. This has absolutely happened before. See: “Sentenced to Life for an Accident Miles Away” (The New Yorker, 2023-12-11).

My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools. A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their thirteen-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging their daughter to use a new name and pronouns – they/them pronoun, actually – all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.

— Notably, he’s describing even social, non-medical transitioning as “child abuse” in a national address, suggesting anything other than parental enforcement of stereotypical gender-conforming expression of cisgenderism (as defined by the state) is “child abuse”.

Stories like this are why shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

— This is notable for the invocation of religion (presumably Christian) as imposing a fundamentally anti-trans and cis-only reality on everyone, which precludes from the outset even the existence of trans people at all. This is the president’s claim that a Christian God has determined everyone will have specifically cis genders, and more broadly, that there is any kind of purpose or teleology in the universe at all.

— It is an assertion that trans people’s genders are against the intentions of an external, higher being. This assertion is baseless; there is no evidence of the proposed being or its intentions; the belief is an individual preference that falls within private practices; it is a matter for interpersonal coexistence within a pluralistic society; and it is not a vision for our secular government to select as its model of reality and then impose on everyone in the country.

As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome missile shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA. And Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago but the technology wasn’t there, not even close, but now we have it

— Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back? Nope! Sorry, Cold War/nuclear strategy/missile defense special interest engaged. This will never happen.

I was saved by God to make America great again, I believe that.

— Anyone can say that about any activity they engage in at any time.

— His vision of God wants nothing more for us than a falsified cisgender fraction-of-a-life, filled with many years of President Donald Trump.

And from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk to the astronauts who touched the moon, Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers…

— He said “transcended all dangers”, but it sounded like “transgendered all dangers”.

We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.

— Is he suggesting manned spaceflight to the Galilean moons?

And we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in

— A reference to the attempt on his life; a “fight” chant now breaks out.

It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before

— Anyone can say that, but this time, in this context, it seems loaded with threat.

I’m really glad this speech is over! ⬣