California senator slams AMC for showing ‘anti-trans propaganda film’ during Pride Month

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

STATE SENATOR CHASTISES AMC CHAIN FOR SHOWING ANTI-TRANS FILM DURING PRIDE MONTH

This Wednesday, movie theater chain AMC will host a one-day-only screening of “an anti-trans propaganda film,” according to Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.

“@AMCTheatres is feeding into the lie that kids are being tricked into being trans, when the data actually shows that only 1% of trans people de-transition. This is truly shameful,” Wiener wrote on Twitter.

The documentary, “No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care,” features the story of six “de-transitioners,” people who stopped transitioning their gender.

“These young people were harmed — injected with powerful compounds and surgically altered; irrevocably changed and turned into lifelong pharmaceutical customers by the doctors they trusted,” according to the film’s website.

AMC will be showing the film in theaters in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, according to the Twitter account promoting the film.

In a Twitter thread Friday, Wiener shared a Stanford Medicine article highlighting that transgender people reported better mental health outcomes when they had the chance to start hormone replacement therapy as teens, as well as a two-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found gender-affirming hormones in transgender and nonbinary youths led to “improved appearance congruence and psychosocial functioning.”

“There’s a massive, well-funded propaganda campaign to erase trans youth, pretend they don’t exist, & justify laws banning them from receiving health care or participating in society. AMC should be ashamed of itself for being part of this despicable effort,” Wiener wrote.

According to LGBTQ news outlet Them, the director of the film declined to identify herself except by a pseudonym — L.E. Dawes — and the two production houses behind the film — Panacol Productions and Deplorable Films — appear to have been created for the purpose of the movie.

AMC did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment by deadline.

BONTA JOINS OTHER ATTORNEYS GENERAL IN SUPPORTING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH PRIVACY PROTECTIONS

California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined with 25 other attorneys general in a letter to the Biden administration, urging the president to back stronger privacy protections for people’s reproductive health information.

The Biden administration is weighing changes to the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, that would make it illegal to share patients’ protected health information if that information is being sought in relation to a criminal or civil case connected to a legal abortion or other reproductive care.

“In this new post-Roe world, those seeking reproductive care need better protections against wrongful prosecution,” Bonta said in a statement.

The letter comes one year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that protected the right to get an abortion; many states have since passed laws heavily restricting or outright banning the procedure. At least one state, Idaho, has made it a crime to assist a minor to travel out of the state for an abortion without parental consent.

“The court thereby erased almost 50 years of precedent and created significant uncertainty in the state of the law surrounding the provision of reproductive health care. The ruling has placed everyone involved in assisting, providing, and obtaining such care at risk of investigation, civil liability, and criminal prosecution,” according to the letter.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Growing up as a lesbian in rural VA was isolating. I want to reach out to #LGBTQ+ youth who feel like I did, and show them they’re not alone. That’s why I’m authoring #SB447 to create the BRIDGE Project, which would promote inclusivity & acceptance.”

- Senate President pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, via Twitter.

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