@kitoconnell.com
🏳️🌈⭐👏Newsletter Writer & Contributor @The Barbed Wire, formerly Digital Editor @Texas Observer, bylines in Teen Vogue, etc. Austin, Texas. They/Them. Home: https://kitoconnell.com/ Get Big & Bright: https://thebarbedwire.com/subscribe/
NEW: In the first appeals court hearing over one of the subpoenas it sent to gender-affirming care providers, Trump's DOJ advanced legal arguments that cast an ominous shadow over the future of access to medications the administration doesn't approve of, including abortion pills.
The DOJ is suggesting that gender-affirming care providers may be engaging in "conspiracy" because they're prescribing medications off-label. That poses danger for an important backstop in the event old restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone are restored:
If you took your kid to the doctor recently for any reason, there's a one in five chance you walked away with an off-label prescription. Nearly half of all pediatric prescriptions are off-label.
"Anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant groups, and I would add white nationalist groups too, view LGBTQ+ people and immigrants as threats to what they believe should be the dominant white Christian culture in the United States."
"[W]e must all speak out."
#Texas #USA #Deportation #EthnicCleansing
True. Gavin is surrendering before the battle has begun.
If you can't understand why I won't vote for a Democratic candidate who uses the same talking points as the genociders, I don't know what to tell you.
Republicans are talking about how people like me are dangerously violent and need to be institutionalized and imprisoned where we are forced into conversion therapy. They're talking openly about eradicating transgender people, our participation in public life, and our culture.
Republicans are organizing a genocide against people like me and it's not too much to ask for Democrats to be openly and unflinchingly against that.
If a candidate can't enthusiastically support my existence and considers my gender to be abnormal, I will not vote for them.
Ever. I need the Newsom boosters to understand that no matter how much they protest, they are throwing marginalized people under the bus with their candidate.
Gavin Newsom is special guest governor at #sxsw. Rich white, bigoted wonks are doing everything they can to force this hateful asshole down our throats as the only viable candidate for 2028. We must keep saying "fuck no."
“Trans voters are left vulnerable to being outed, questioned, or turned away, which creates very real barriers to casting a ballot,” said Caleb Armstrong a transmasculine Texan who cofounded Local Queer Foundation.
@kitoconnell.com
thebarbedwire.com/2026/03/03/t...
“I think when people are confronted with the realities — in their face — of what our immigrant neighbors are facing, there’s no choice but to respond,”
LGBTQ+ Texans are part of the fight, organizing with their neighbors to protect immigrants against ICE. My latest for @thebarbedwire.com:
Know your rights: you should still be able to vote even if your gender presentation doesn't match your gender marker on your ID. But this article also tells you what to do if you encounter problems on election day. @thebarbedwire.com
New today @thebarbedwire.com: “Trans voters are left vulnerable to being outed, questioned, or turned away, which creates very real barriers to casting a ballot ... This fear & confusion has a purpose in trying to silence our voices & keep trans people from participating fully in our democracy.”
Yea if a site I used had a feature being routinely used to generate CSA material, I'd stop using that website?
One of the biggest factors discouraging me from using social media these days is seeing how many regular people, journalists, organizations, nonprofits and politicians kept right on using X like it's not a nazi shithole. It really makes me think there's something fundamentally unhealthy about this.
“When people are confronted with the realities — in their face — of what our immigrant neighbors are facing, there's no choice but to respond,” said Reilly, a 42-year-old trans Texan, in an interview with @kitoconnell.com
thebarbedwire.com/2026/03/02/l...
Text: “According to a new survey by the Movement Advancement Project, approximately 401,000 transgender people have relocated from one U.S. state to another since the 2024 presidential election. The mass relocations in 2025 are due to the safety concerns, political conditions, and anti-trans laws and policies that have largely impacted conservative states across the country.” | Graphic: messy room with moving boxes and clothes, conveying relocation
NEW: 400,000+ transgender people have relocated from one US state to another since Trump’s second term
Mass relocations in 2025 have been caused by the spread of anti-trans laws and policies impacting conservative — and so-called blue — states across the country
www.mapresearch.org/policy-and-i...
"“I see a lot of collaboration happening between queer activist groups and immigrant activist groups,” Reilly said, adding they hope that cooperation is sustainable, but suspects it’s largely up to the queer groups to keep showing up for immigrants."
I also gave a shout to this incredible episode of @mskellymhayes.bsky.social Movement Memos in the article:
“It seemed like after Keith Porter and Renee Good and then Alex Pretti were murdered by ICE, that folks really felt like it was time to do something.”
Inspired by a zine created by MPLS anti-ICE activists, Austin residents are getting to know their neighbors and forming rapid response networks.
However, R.G. Cravens, a senior manager of research and analysis at @splcenter.org, these connections go beyond direct violence, but to the extremists groups who increasingly hold sway in the halls of power: “They’ve been in the same room, both literally and figuratively, for decades now.”
Violence against LGBTQ+ and immigrant populations is closely linked, according to extremism researchers. In 2024 & 2025, @glaad.bsky.social's ALERT desk tracked over 50 hate incidents targeting both. For ex, a San Antonio man allegedly made threats against both Pride parades & pro-immigrant groups.
“I think when people are confronted with the realities — in their face — of what our immigrant neighbors are facing, there’s no choice but to respond,”
LGBTQ+ Texans are part of the fight, organizing with their neighbors to protect immigrants against ICE. My latest for @thebarbedwire.com:
Here's a feel-good story we could all use today.
The estrogen is definitely helping with my good looks. Cheers to us both being cute in old age <3
Reading Heated Rivalry in line to vote and suddenly I'm like oh no I can't get to the phone call from Russia scene in public. 😭
A zine called Dispatch Please Advise Tactics For Fighting The Federal Occupation of Minnesota by ICE, along with a bowl of whistles and instructional zines for using then against ICE.
Kit is a nonbinary trans femme wearing cats eye prescription sunglasses and a black and white dress with rainbow accents and white lace ties in the front. Behind them is Austin's town lake and skyline on a sunny day.
Hey everyone, life has been pretty stressful and so I've been bad at updating this. But I'm still here, still rolling around Austin and writing. I've got a couple of new pieces coming out next week for @thebarbedwire.com too!
Here's a little peek at what I've been up to today...
I've got a short article out in the new issue of Texas Observer magazine, about Juan Miguel Arredondo, the first openly gay member of the San Marcos, Texas school board. I'll share here when it's available online.
@queenkoddi.bsky.social hi, I dM'd you about a story and didn't want it to get lost in your spam box