by Staff Reporter | Feb 12, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Phoenix Children’s Hospital no longer provides gender transitions for children, parents of gender dysphoric children learned this week.
The hospital pumped the brakes for its Gender Support Program (formerly the Gender Management Program) shortly after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning gender transitions for children, “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
“Due to the recent executive order issued on January 28, 2025 Phoenix Children’s is indefinitely pausing gender-affirming medical care for children under the age of 19,” read a notice issued by the hospital to patient portals involved in their gender transition program.
Like Trump’s other executive orders, the president’s mandate ending gender transitions for children quickly faced legal challenges.
As a result of its pause on the gender transition program, Phoenix Children’s Hospital arranged for its pharmacists to wean program children off of any puberty blockers or hormones.
On Monday, parents also received letters from providers Vinny Chulani and Ashish Patel advising of the end to puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.
The hospital marketed its Gender Support Program as the most comprehensive in the state. The program offered consultation for parenting strategies, endocrinology consults, and referrals to mental health providers and specialists for various procedures.
These consultations would explore the use of puberty-suppressing medications as well as masculinizing and feminizing hormonal therapies. The hospital also provided support and advocacy for social transition endeavors in schools and the public through legal name and gender marker changes on identifying documents.
At one time, the hospital affiliated its Gender Support Program with the Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization.
Public details of the program in recent years became less available. After AZ Free News covered Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s gender transition program at length, the hospital scrubbed more public information of its program from its website.
The extension of transgender ideology to children offered a sort of community for parents affirming the gender dysphoria of their children. Parents of children who underwent gender transition procedures offered by Phoenix Children’s Hospital would join the Gender Proud Patient and Family Advisory Council.
Activist groups issued a statement lamenting Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s decision as a “betrayal” to their cause.
“Gender-affirming care has been shown to significantly improve the mental, emotional, and physical health of transgender youth,” said the coalition. “To remove access to this care in Arizona is a direct attack on the trans community and the families who have fought tirelessly for their children’s well-being.”
Those who signed onto the statement: Tami Staas, the Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization; Carol Tappenden, the Education Action Alliance (formerly GLSEN Arizona); Brandie Reiner, NASW Arizona; Dustin Griswold, Family Planning Associates Medical Group; Jeanne Casteen, Secular AZ; Civia Tamarkin, National Council of Jewish Women Arizona; Nate Rhoton, one-n-ten; Grace Chenal, SIGA Therapy; Darrell Hill, ACLU of Arizona; Lynn Davis, Rabbi Joseph H. Gumbiner Community Action Project; Lori Shepherd, Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center; Athena Salman, Reproductive Freedom for All Arizona; Maria Ingalla, psychiatric mental health nurse and practitioner; and Jodi Liggett, Arizona Center for Women’s Advancement.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Feb 11, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a secret compact with 21 other attorneys general to resist President Donald Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained the secretive agreement, dated a little over a week after Trump won reelection.
Per the agreement, the 22 attorneys general agreed to engage in collaborative legal and communicative efforts to resist Trump’s immigration enforcement initiatives, including those deemed confidential and/or privileged.
Per the agreement, all shared information would be used for the development of processes such as pre-suit investigations, litigation strategies, complaints, dispositive motions, merits briefs, and amicus briefs. The agreement prohibited third parties from accessing any of this shared information. The agreement extended its definition of shared information to include all documents, materials, information, and communications exchanged between the attorneys generals’ offices prior to the agreement.
The agreement did allow for public records access to the shared information, but required the attorneys general to give five days’ notice, minimum, to the other attorneys general about the request before it was due.
“The Parties have agreed that they have a common interest in developing potential litigation to challenge executive action related to ending or curtailing birthright citizenship,” stated the agreement.
The other attorneys general to enter the secretive agreement oversaw California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, as well as Washington, D.C.
The city and county of San Francisco, California also joined the agreement last month.
Trump issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship during his first day in office. The order extends to children born of illegal immigrant parents in the U.S. It prohibits the federal government from issuing or accepting citizenship documents from persons born under those circumstances after its effective date, which is scheduled to take place later this month.
“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’” read the order.
The order flies in the face of longstanding court precedent on the matter.
That precedent led three federal judges in separate cases to block Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. The first two occurred in Washington and Maryland, with the third occurring on Monday in New Hampshire.
Mayes joined Arizona to the case blocked in the Washington district court earlier this month. Based on the timeline of the secretive agreement and the filing of their lawsuit, it appears the case emerged directly from that agreement.
“The court’s decision to block this illegal executive order nationwide protects the basic right to birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment,” said Mayes. “I will keep fighting to protect the Constitutional rights of all Arizonans from the Trump administration’s illegal actions.”
Several of those states signed onto the secretive agreement — Washington, Oregon, and Illinois — were partnered on the lawsuit with Mayes.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Feb 9, 2025 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
One of Arizona’s most powerful lawmakers was in Washington, D.C., this week to attend a significant event at the White House.
On Wednesday, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen attended an event at the White House, where President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to keep men out of women’s sports.
The executive order stated that, “In recent years, many educational institutions and athletic associations have allowed men to compete in women’s sports. This is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
President Trump’s order went on to mandate that, “It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Petersen has been instrumental in leading legal efforts to defend Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act in 2022. After a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled to sustain an injunction against this law, Petersen and other Arizona officials appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States to request a hearing at the nation’s high court. The state is still awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to accept cert on the case.
In a statement previewing his appearance at the White House, Petersen said, “The war against women and girls is now taking a dramatic turn for the better, and sanity is being reinstated. This is exactly the common sense that Arizona and America voted for. Thanks to President Trump, American girls can once again pursue their dreams. No longer will athletic titles be stolen from them by males. An overwhelming 70% of Americans agree on this issue, which is a key reason why approval ratings of Democrat elected officials are at an all time low.”
Petersen added, “I’m proud to join President Trump today in Washington D.C. for this historic moment. He is going to make girls’ sports great again, and I know that he will never stop fighting for us.”
According to a recent poll from Gallup, 69 percent of Americans believe that transgender athletes “should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender.” This number was a seven percent increase in public perception over two years.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Feb 8, 2025 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
President Trump’s historic victory in the November election gave him a clear mandate from the American people. And so far, he hasn’t wasted any time getting to work. In his first month back in office, Trump signed 45 Executive Orders (EO) in an effort to put America first and undo much of the damage created by the Biden administration. And that’s especially true with his executive actions to unleash American energy.
Ending the Net Zero Climate Cult Fantasy
For four years under President Biden, the American people were forced to endure an administration that was hellbent on pursuing a net zero agenda. Across the country, they pushed these radical and costly climate action plans to fundamentally transform and restrict the energy options available to consumers. Along with this came calls from the Left to ban gas stoves, gas cars, gas-powered lawn equipment, and hundreds of other draconian ideas to limit the freedom of the American people.
If the high cost of these plans wasn’t enough, they have also proven to be unreliable. States and countries that have committed to energy sources like solar and wind as part of this net zero fantasy have experienced rolling blackouts, continually demand that their customers use less, and eventually have to make haste to open reliable sources of generation they had closed down. Isn’t that right, California?
But Trump’s Executive Order 14154 unleashes fossil fuel production and use in America while unwinding much of the damage caused by the Biden administration…
>>> CONTINUE READING >>>
by Matthew Holloway | Feb 8, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
In an Executive Order signed by President Donald Trump on Thursday, newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi has been handed a mandate to chair a new Justice Department Task Force to eradicate anti-Christian bias.
According to the White House, the task force is to include Bondi’s fellow cabinet members in addition to ”the heads of such other executive departments, agencies, and offices that the Chair may, from time to time, invite to participate.”
In the text of the order, the President cited the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against government interference with the free exercise of religion and the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s protections against religious discrimination. He declared, “The previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.”
Trump added that, “The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities.” He also referred to the arrest and prosecution of “a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father,” for praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in protest, as well as an FBI memorandum that claimed “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats.
Trump also pointed to attacks against Christian churches and organizations noting, “At the same time, Catholic churches, charities, and pro-life centers sought justice for violence, theft, and arson perpetrated against them, which the Biden Department of Justice largely ignored. After more than 100 attacks, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning this violence and calling on the Biden Administration to enforce the law.”
Trump also laid “hostility and vandalism against Christian churches and places of worship,” at the feet of the Biden Administration noting “the number of such identified acts in 2023 exceeding by more than eight times the number from 2018.”
He also highlighted Biden’s Department of Education seeking to repeal religious liberty protections for faith-based organizations on university campuses and attempting to compel “Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology,” contrary to their beliefs via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and drive them out of the foster-care system. Finally he pointed to the highly controversial declaration of a “Transgender Day of Visibility,” on Easter Sunday 2024, by the Biden Administration which drew widespread scorn.
In the text of the order, the President concluded, “My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians. The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms. My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.”
In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Trump told the gathered press that the task force’s mission is to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination in the federal government.”
“In addition, the task force will work to fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society, and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide,” he continued.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
