Looking to speak with trans Kansans about how SB 244 (the law affecting driver's licenses, birth certificates, bathrooms and more) is affecting your life so far and plans for the future.
Jo.Yurcaba@nbcuni.com or Signal @joyurcaba.91
Looking to speak with trans Kansans about how SB 244 (the law affecting driver's licenses, birth certificates, bathrooms and more) is affecting your life so far and plans for the future.
Jo.Yurcaba@nbcuni.com or Signal @joyurcaba.91
Kansas is invalidating trans residents' licenses even if they HAVEN'T changed their gender markers, according to this reporting from @natezuke.bsky.social @assignedmedia.org:
www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
Very happy to share that I wrote a gay hockey story. Here's how "Heated Rivalry" has driven more LGBTQ+ people to join queer hockey leagues nationwide.
For @nbcnews.com:
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Huge thanks to the leagues, including Coachella Valley Pride founders Bob Tranchida and Paul O'Kane, who met at an LGBTQ hockey tournament in 1998 and have been together ever since.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Very happy to share that I wrote a gay hockey story. Here's how "Heated Rivalry" has driven more LGBTQ+ people to join queer hockey leagues nationwide.
For @nbcnews.com:
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Have you started playing hockey or are in the process of joining a team due to "Heated Rivalry"?
DM me or email Jo.Yurcaba@nbcuni.com
Trump admin removes Pride flag from Stonewall National Monument
The change, first reported by Gay City News, reverses a decade-long tradition at the New York City monument, which commemorates a major turning point in the LGBTQ rights movement.
For @nbcnews.com:
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
In August, NBC found that at least 21 hospitals had paused or ended care, so the number has more than doubled.
www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-...
Per this new report: Since January 2025, more than 40 hospitals have restricted transition-related care for trans young people.
The article also includes a scrollable chart of all the hospitals, with useful details like what patient population they have paused or stopped care for.
Maria is one of hundreds of children, who — like Liam Ramos — have been held at a Texas detention facility where parents say children languish as they’re served contaminated food, receive little education and struggle to obtain basic medical care.
Here's our attempt at telling their stories. 2/
Photo shows a young girl with her cat
This is Maria, a 6-year-old detained by ICE last year.
She began to unravel soon after arriving at a detention center in Texas, wetting the bed after years without accidents, crying through the night and begging to breastfeed again.
Most of all, she wanted to be reunited with her cat, Milo. 1/
Most Heated Rivalry coverage has been focused on what young people, particularly younger straight women, think. I cover aging and decided to ask older gay men about their thoughts.
I found: A founder of what may have been the first gay hockey blog, a wedding cake shaped like a Zamboni and more.
I love this story so much.
Children's Minnesota will pause providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to patients under 18 effective Feb. 27.
If your family will be affected, I'd love to speak with you: Jo.Yurcaba@nbcuni.com or @joyurcaba.91 on Signal.
I see what you’re saying, but I think we were able to do a lot of things that other mainstream sites couldn’t because of the expertise of the vertical editors/reporters.
Thank you for reading and sharing the article.
NBC Out was shuttered in October along with the other diversity verticals. Some of the reporters and editors who staffed them were hired back in new roles (I was lucky to be one of them). The existence of the verticals built deep trust with those communities, so I respectfully disagree.
Thank you so much! That means a lot coming from you.
The federal govt's threats "jeopardize the stability of Minnesota’s only comprehensive pediatric health care system," the hospital said in a statement today.
"This is not the decision we wanted to make. This is the decision we had to make to protect our hospital and our providers."
Children's Minnesota was one of few remaining health systems still providing this care to new patients.
One of the Gender Health programs doctors told me they had many patients who came there after their home state banned care.
Children's Minnesota will pause providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to patients under 18 effective Feb. 27.
If your family will be affected, I'd love to speak with you: Jo.Yurcaba@nbcuni.com or @joyurcaba.91 on Signal.
ASPS' position statement recommends that surgeons wait until patients are at least 19 years old — over the age of legal consent — to provide transition-related surgery. It is the first U.S. medical organization to take such a stance.
www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/he...
HHS is applauding the American Society of Plastic Surgeon's statement on transition-related surgery for minors, but ignoring the part where ASPS opposes government efforts to ban & criminalize the care.
ASPS statement: www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/he...
HHS release: www.hhs.gov/press-room/a...
One last add: I'm super grateful to B., the trans woman at the center of this story, for doing her only interview with me.
The end of her story will surprise you in the best way.
The anti-trans panic has spread to the world of competitive pinball.
Yes, pinball.
@joyurcaba.bsky.social has the story.
A screenshot of an X post from ICONS, an anti-trans sports group. The post includes photos of a recent NBC article about an incident in which a trans woman was removed from the restroom at a pinball tournament in NC. The ICONS post states the following about the story: 📣 MEN overwhelm WOMEN’s pinball championship: At a North Carolina state title tournament, several men entered the women’s national qualifier became outraged after a male player, Kat Lake (41), was removed from the women’s restroom by a female venue manager. 🧵
Like clockwork, an anti-trans sports group is spreading misinfo about the pinball story.
The reality:
1. Lake was not the person removed from a bathroom.
2. The incident didn’t happen at the women’s state tournament.
3. No one at the state tournament was outraged by trans women’s participation.
One more thing: I learned so much pinball trivia while immersed in this. For example: There’s a 90s game called FunHouse with a creepy talking ventriloquist doll named Rudy, with a machine in South Carolina thought to be haunted because Rudy says things that aren’t in his original script. 👀
7/7
This article shows some of the many sweeping effects of anti-trans policy and rhetoric and what happens when people feel empowered to police their own communities, including what restrooms people use.
I hope you’ll read it.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
What this article doesn’t capture fully is how uniquely painful this was for trans North Carolinians (which includes myself), where the cloud of HB 2 will always loom.
5/
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Many players aren’t sure how to move forward, but the trans woman who was at the center of it all plans to keep playing.
4/
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
