Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) voted against a $1.2 trillion 5-bill minibus to reopen the government after a nearly four-day partial shutdown. Boebert said the minibus included $1.3 billion for “child transgender surgeries.”

The minibus package, which also included a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until February 13, narrowly passed the U.S. House in a 217-214 vote. Trump signed it into law on February 3.

Related

Meet the mastermind behind Trump’s definition of “woman”

However, in an X social media post posted that same day, Boebert wrote that the package included “$1.3 BILLION in earmarks funding woke facilities that provide late-term abortions & child transgender surgeries.”

I voted NO on the 5-bill minibus. Republicans have the trifecta and we should fund DHS at Trump levels for strong border security—not continue the Biden-Schumer budget.

The bill also includes $1.3 BILLION in earmarks funding woke facilities that provide late-term abortions &…

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) February 3, 2026

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

It’s not entirely clear which earmarks Boebert is referring to. However, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-NC) claimed that the package included “$3 million to Denver Health & Hospital Authority to provide transgender surgeries… and more than $3 million to Hennepin Healthcare to operate a kids’ gender clinic.”

In a January 22 House floor speech, Rep. Norman told his congressional colleagues, “I don’t know whether you realize it or not, but we’re $39 trillion in debt and counting,” and then claimed that the minibus package provides $1.5 million for an eastern Maine healthcare system that operates a pediatric gender clinic, funding for the The Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation’s children’s hospital of Chicago which provides transgender health care, and funding for the Temple University Hospital of Pennsylvania which provides gender-affirming care for trans adults.

Norman sought to introduce an amendment to remove all earmarks from the bills funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, but his amendment was reportedly voted down.

Despite Boebert and Norman’s claims, it’s possible that the minibus merely contains federal funding for these hospitals in general rather than for their trans programs specifically. While many hospitals nationwide, including Denver Health, have stopped providing gender-affirming care to youth (amid the federal government’s pledge to prosecute and end funding for organizations that provide such care), other hospitals, like Hennepin Healthcare, have continued to offer it.

Heritage Action for America — the sister organization of the massively influential right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation — criticized Republicans who voted for the package, accusing them of “direct[ing] taxpayer funds to entities engaged in practices that most GOP voters find abhorrent.”

The partial government shutdown occurred over Democrats’ opposition to funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid the numerous illegal and lethal actions taken by federal immigration agents. The congressional funding feud is likely to resume as the DHS’ funding nears its end on February 13.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.

Claiming a violation of their free speech rights, a group of Democrats is suing the state of Illinois for the right to call themselves Democrats while being transphobic.

Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG) is a nonprofit group of current and former Democrats who think that the party is wrong to support transgender rights. The group coalesced online during the COVID pandemic as a social network of liberal parents whose children had come out as trans.

Related

Swedish skier Elis Lundholm will make history as the first out trans athlete in a Winter Olympics

DIAG promotes its members as “Liberals guiding our party back to reason and reality” under the banner, “Biology, not ideology,” a mantra similarly embraced by the Trump administration in its crusade against trans people.

DIAG’s staff includes a “GenZ detransitioner” and “a lifelong progressive Democrat/agnostic feminist,” among others listed on its website, and says it supports the LGB community only. The group opposes “efforts to ‘fix’ gay and gender nonconforming youth through gender-medicine interventions” and rejects “clinicians who profit by pathologizing typical adolescent discomfort.”

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Over two years, the group became a nationally registered nonprofit and has solicited donations in 37 states.

Now, an obscure law in Illinois is being used to challenge DIAG’s ability to fundraise and promote their views in the state by denying them use of the word “Democrat” in their name.

In December, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (D) rejected DIAG’s application to incorporate as a nonprofit in Illinois, citing an Illinois law known as the Party Name Provision, which prohibits nonprofits from using names that include words associated with established political parties unless the party consents. 

DIAG is suing the state over the denial, claiming that enforcing the law prevents the group from exercising its First Amendment rights. 

FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan civil liberties group, is representing DIAG in the case, Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender v. Alexi Giannoulias.

“The all-volunteer organization believes it offers a unique voice by explaining that the current Democratic consensus contradicts ‘core liberal values‘ that the party espouses, like protecting women and supporting the scientific process. To advance its mission and political goals, DIAG wants to solicit charitable contributions in Illinois. The Supreme Court has placed charitable solicitation ‘in a category of speech close to the heart of the First Amendment,'” FIRE said in a statement detailing the suit.

DIAG board secretary Jenny Poyer Ackerman asserted the group’s work is rooted in fundamental Democratic values.  

“The surprising thing is that the Democratic Party has come to such different conclusions because we feel that our work reflects the core liberal values,” Ackerman told the National Review. “Critical thinking, freedom from religion, women’s rights, and a hesitancy to lavish the pharmaceutical industry with our money and our trust. So it really feels like we’re not doing anything inconsistent with the principles of our party.”

DIAG applied to incorporate three times in 2025, but the secretary of state’s office rejected all of the applications, according to the suit. In all three, DIAG chose not to seek the Democratic State Central Committee’s permission, claiming the requirement amounts to an unlawful prior restraint on speech.

“The Democratic and Republican parties don’t have a monopoly on the concepts of what is democratic or republican,” FIRE attorney Daniel Zahn told the Chicago Tribune. “When the government tries to give them that monopoly, it’s absurd and unconstitutional.”

“Illinois can’t get around the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to party bosses,” he added. “No American — Republican, Democrat, or independent — should have to bend the knee before a political party to participate in the political system.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.