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Tag: therapy

  • House lawmaker makes fun of Dems, asks for therapy dogs

    House lawmaker makes fun of Dems, asks for therapy dogs

    A House lawmaker Thursday jokingly suggested making therapy dogs a permanent fixture in committee hearings after voicing his concern about the “mental stability” of Democrats a day earlier. 

    On Wednesday, as Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform discussed wasteful government spending, Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., asked about bringing in therapy dogs for his Democratic colleagues amid back-and-forth sparring between both sides. 

    Crane asked committee Chair James Comer, R-Tenn., about bringing in the animals. 

    GOP LAWMAKER SCRAPS WITH DEMOCRAT IN HEARING OVER TRANSGENDER ‘SLUR,’ BATHROOM RIGHTS: ‘NOT GOING TO HAVE IT’

    Rep. Eli Crane at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on Thursday, where he mentioned three beagles in the chamber.  (House Committee on Oversight and Reform)

    “I’m worried about their mental stability,” said Crane. 

    On Thursday, the committee met to discuss taxpayer money funding “gender-affirming care” for animals. The hearing, “Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty,” featured a witness from the White Coat Waste Project. 

    In attendance were three beagles that were allegedly part of experiments conducted on the watch of Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

    WEST POINT DISBANDS GENDER-BASED, RACE CLUBS IN TRUMP’S DEI SWEEP

    a beagles sitting on the floor

    A beagle sitting on the floor during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing Thursday.  (House Committee on Oversight and Reform)

    “It was just yesterday in an Oversight hearing that I asked Chairman Comer if we could get some therapy dogs up here because of some of the meltdowns that were going on,” Crane said. “I had no idea I’d walk into this hearing today and see three beautiful beagle puppies.

    “And I have noticed that my mood has already improved. So, thank you guys for bringing them,” he added. “I think we should make it mandatory.”

    At Thursday’s hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., laid out how public funds were being used for animal experiments. 

    “Last year, the White Coat Waste Project exposed more than $10 million in taxpayer funds that were spent creating transgender mice, rats and monkeys,” Mace said. “These DEI grants funded painful and deadly transgender experiments that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and hormone therapies at universities across the country.”

    Beagles at a committee hearing

    A pair of beagles at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on Thursday. (House Committee on Oversight and Reform)

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    Before yielding to ranking member Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, Mace said wasteful government spending on animal cruelty is a “nonpartisan issue.”

    “The U.S. government spends in excess of $20 billion a year conducting experiments on animals,” Mace said. “We spent over $1 million to find out if female rats receiving testosterone therapy were more likely to overdose on a date rape drug. That’s what your taxpayer dollars were being spent on.”

    Fox News Digital’s Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report. 

  • Trans inmate sues Trump admin over ‘two-sexes’ order halting money for gender therapy

    Trans inmate sues Trump admin over ‘two-sexes’ order halting money for gender therapy

    A transgender inmate receiving taxpayer-funded medical treatments has launched the first lawsuit against the Trump administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that puts an end to medical transgender treatments for federal prisoners.

    Trump’s executive order, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” prohibits federal funds from being “expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” The order also declares there are only “two-sexes.”

    The unnamed inmate, who goes by “Maria Moe” in court documents and is represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lowenstein Sandler LLP, has been on medical hormones since they were a teenager and has not been housed in a men’s facility since their conviction. 

    STATE AGS WARN RETAIL GIANT COSTCO FOR DOUBLING DOWN ON ‘DISCRIMINATORY’ DEI

    President Donald Trump’s executive order puts an end to medical transgender treatments for federal prisoners. (Getty Images)

    Once Trump signed the executive order, Moe was transferred to a men’s prison facility, and BOP records changed the sex from “female” to “male,” the complaint says.

    The lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, claims Trump’s executive order will lead to transgender women “who are incarcerated in federal prisons” being “unlawfully transferred to men’s facilities and denied medically necessary healthcare.”

    “If Maria Moe is transferred to a men’s facility, she will not be safe,” the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Sunday, claims. “She will be at an extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence, and sexual assault. She may be subject to strip searches by male correctional officers.”

    “She may be forced to shower in full view of men who are incarcerated. And she will predictably experience worsening gender dysphoria,” the complaint continued.

    Moe is claiming Trump and the BOP are violating the Fifth and Eighth Amendments and claims they are “at imminent risk of losing access to the medical care she needs to treat her gender dysphoria.”

    TRUMP LOOKS TO ENFORCE TRANS INMATE CRACKDOWN AS NEW ACTING FEDERAL PRISONS CHIEF TAPPED

    Donald Trump at inauguration flanked by military honor guards

    President-elect Donald Trump arrives prior to his inauguration at the United States Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Melina Mara – Pool/Getty Images)

    Prior to Trump’s reversal of BOP gender dysphoria policies, the BOP began funding transgender surgical procedures for transgender inmates in December 2022, with Donna Langan – formerly known as Peter Kevin Langan – becoming the first federal prisoner to undergo transition on the taxpayer dollar. Langan was convicted in 1997 for involvement in a series of armed bank robberies across the Midwest during the 1990s. Langan was a leader of the Aryan Republican Army, a White supremacist group that carried out these robberies to fund their activities, according to court documents.

    Langan’s gender transition followed years of advocacy and legal action, including a landmark settlement in 2021, when the BOP agreed to provide gender transition surgery to Cristina Nichole Iglesias, who was convicted in 1994 for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against British officials.

    TRUMP’S ‘TWO SEXES’ EXECUTIVE ORDER COMES ON HEELS OF SCOTUS ACCEPTING ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO LGBT AGENDA

    Transgender flag with gender symbols

    A New York Times column featured the perspectives of gender destransitioners and gender-affirming care providers who claim that leftwing activists are pushing sex changes on kids too aggressively. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

    In the past year, multiple lawsuits have been filed over the denial of gender transition treatments for incarcerated individuals. Autumn Cordellioné, a transgender woman serving 55 years in Indiana for the murder of their 11-month-old stepdaughter, sued the state for refusing to conduct transgender surgery.

    In April 2024, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice sued Utah’s Department of Corrections, alleging it created unnecessary barriers to gender dysphoria treatment for inmates.

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    In September 2024, Reiyn Keohane, a transgender woman imprisoned in Florida, filed suit against the state’s Department of Corrections. Keohane alleged officials violated the Eighth Amendment for discontinuing hormone therapy and access to female clothing and grooming products, despite Keohane’s prior diagnosis and treatment for gender dysphoria.

    Fox News Digital has reached out to Moe’s attorneys, the White House and BOP.

    Jamie Joseph is a writer who covers politics. She leads Fox News Digital coverage of the Senate.