The US attorney general is fretting about a ‘pandemic’ of gender transitions in schools

Being a public school teacher in the US these days is tough. You’ve got to pay for a lot of your own supplies, deal with smartphone-addicted children, and perform gender reassignment surgeries in your lunch break.

Luckily our intrepid attorney general, Todd Blanche, is on the case. Blanche appeared on Fox News this week to decry a “pandemic” of gender transitions in schools across the US. “There’s not a parent in America, no matter where you live, that would want their school to change and call their child by a different name and not expect to be told about that. We partnered with the Department of Education recently to combat this very trend and, really, pandemic that’s happening in some school districts around the country,” Blanche said. He seemed more concerned with name changes than with surgery, but the president himself has suggested on several occasions that schools are furtively doing surgery on children. During a campaign speech in 2024, for example, Donald Trump said: “Can you imagine … your son leaves the house and you say: ‘Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation? Can you even imagine this?”

No, I can’t even imagine this. The public schools near me can’t afford air conditioning, so I’m not sure where they are getting all these operating theaters and surgeons from.

Still, don’t let my lack of imagination stop you from getting outraged over this totally-not-invented moral panic, which is consuming valuable government resources. Blanche’s Fox News interview came shortly after the justice department filed what it described as a “first-of-its-kind lawsuit” against a Kansas school district, aimed at stopping it from “facilitating secret ‘gender transitions’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent”. The district, which denies wrongdoing, risks losing almost $70m in federal funds if it is found to have violated federal law.

While this all sounds terribly dramatic, the substance of the Kansas public school lawsuit is actually rather mundane. It seems what is riling the Trump administration up are some extremely reasonable internal school guidelines, never adopted as formal policy, which state, according to the justice department complaint, that if a transgender student doesn’t want their parents notified about their preferred names and pronouns “that request will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis”.

There’s certainly a sensible conversation to be had about whether teachers should inform parents if their child wishes to be known by a different name. And Blanche might actually want to ask the vice-president to weigh in on that matter, considering JD Vance has changed his own name multiple times. But let’s not pretend that Blanche and Fox News are interested in sensible conversations. One suspects they just want to whip viewers up into a frenzy about trans people, a favourite boogeyman, in order to distract from the fact that the Trump administration is pillaging the country for personal gain.

Let’s also not pretend that the attorney general, who was confirmed last month, is in his job because he is deeply invested in the wellbeing of America’s young people. Blanche was Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer before he was brought into the White House; he eventually became attorney general following the ousting of Pam Bondi. He is a Trump loyalist who once said he’d tell the president “Thank you very much. I love you, sir” if Trump nominated someone else for the job. He’s got his job, I’d wager, because he’s made it clear he’ll protect the president and advance Trump’s agenda. Indeed, one of the very first things that Blanche’s justice department did after he was confirmed as attorney general was to issue an opinion stating that the president’s “executive privilege” can extend to advisers who don’t work for his administration. Which makes it harder for Democrats to investigate Trump in the future.

But maybe I’m being uncharitable here. Maybe the attorney general isn’t just interested in advancing his own career by finding ways to give Trump carte blanche to do whatever he likes. Maybe he really does care about vulnerable young people. In which case, may I suggest he focus some of his attention on revisiting the Jeffrey Epstein files? I’m sure that I don’t need to remind you that the only person in jail right now because of their connection to the late sex offender is Ghislaine Maxwell. An awful lot of powerful people seem to have successfully dodged any accountability.

One would think an unpunished international pedophilia ring might worry Blanche more than schoolkids experimenting with their names in Kansas. However, Blanche seems a little resistant to taking the investigation much further; possibly because Trump is named in the Epstein files thousands of times. The attorney general also made sure to stress on Fox News earlier this year that “it isn’t a crime to party with Mr. Epstein”.

Still, it doesn’t matter how much Blanche tries to distract us with culture wars, he can’t escape the ghost of Epstein. This week, the outgoing congressman Thomas Massie, a staunch Trump critic, noted that millions of Epstein files have yet to be publicly disclosed and urged the Department of Justice to launch an immediate investigation into 14 named Epstein associates, including the billionaire Leon Black. “Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice,” he said. One would hope so. But it’s hard to shame the shameless.

Trailblazing feminist Gloria Steinem dies age 92

“Steinem, unlike some of her contemporaries, never recanted or modified her many causes, which included civil rights, violence against women, and the struggle for equality,” Yvonne Roberts writes in the Guardian obituary. “She continued to argue that every economics course ought to start not with production but with reproduction, and an understanding of the patriarchal instinct to restrict a woman’s right to contraception and abortion.”

Eighty-nine percent of Americans believe there’s ‘widespread corruption’ within US government

That’s according to a new Gallup poll, which found perceptions of corruption are at their highest level in 20 years. Gosh, I wonder why.

Tennessee is about to execute its first woman since 1819

Christa Pike is due to be executed at the end of the month for a murder she committed with two others when she was 18. Pike suffered child sexual abuse, neglect, and violent rape growing up; according to one psychologist she “experienced more severe adverse events than 99% of the US population”. Her case raises troubling questions, Austin Sarat writes in the Guardian: “For women as well as men, capital punishment offers no solution to the problems that give rise to the most serious crimes.”

Israel ‘seeking Trump’s support for plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza’

Anyone paying attention could see this was always the plan.

Health department accused of using fake AI studies to justify teen pregnancy cuts

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) canceled 53 teen pregnancy prevention grants earlier this year and wants to direct millions in funding to organizations that emphasize “body literacy” and abstinence instead. This is despite (or perhaps because of) studies that have shown abstinence-only approaches increase rates of teen pregnancy. There’s now a lawsuit over this, and the HHS has defended its decision with references to dubious studies. In an opinion granting a preliminary injunction the judge said: “On the topic of body literacy, the notices (remarkably) reference public health studies that appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited – a hallmark of AI-generated citations.” This is on-brand for the HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, whose team released a report on children’s health last year full of fake citations. It’s almost as if the man is dangerously unqualified for his job.

JD Vance is OK with his work leading to the ‘end times’

“While I wouldn’t be shocked if we are living in the end times, what I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now,” the vice-president said during a podcast interview with Bryce Crawford, a young Christian evangelist. Vance added: “And if that leads to the end times, OK.”