News Items - May 30, 2026
Editor's Note: The disability community is increasingly preferring to use identity-first language (disabled person) in place of person-first language (person with a disability). This is because many in the community view disability as being a core component of identity, much like race and gender. Some members of the community, such as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, still prefer person-first language. Both should be considered valid. Articles shared in this newsletter may contain one or the other (or both) depending on the author's preference, and if they themselves have a disability.
Disability and the Far Right: Joan Braune interviews Esther Warwick Posted by D.Z. Shaw on May 29, 2026 at Three Way Fight
Joan Braune Interviews Esther Warwick, Executive Director of Disability Communities Defending Democracy. The interview includes discussion around how the far right infiltrates disability spaces and about far-right ableism; and the relationship between disability movements and the far right evolve over the past decade. Also includes discussion of how eugenics has influenced laws, past and present, that lead to institutionalization or forced labor for people with disabilities and people experiencing homelessness.
It's not just kids: Trump's crackdown on trans healthcare extends into adulthood by Jo Yurcaba on May 27, 2026 at NBC News
"What trans people are asking for isn’t extraordinary, advocates say. Nearly everyone, at some point in their lives, receives medical care related to their gender expression: taking estrogen or testosterone during menopause or treating erectile dysfunction. Many private insurance plans also cover gender-affirming care."
"Advocates say the federal restrictions stem from a yearslong effort backed by the country’s largest conservative groups, including the American Principles Project and the Alliance Defending Freedom, to paint being trans as an emerging political ideology rather than an inherent human trait. The push has resulted in policies at the federal level and in 17 states that reject trans people’s gender identities by making sex assigned at birth legally unchangeable."
The Trump Administration’s Assault on Immigrants Degrades the Rule of Law by Tom Jawetz on May 28, 2026 at The Center for American Progress
"But so far during President Trump’s second term in office, the administration’s actions on immigration, as in so many other areas, have instead demonstrated an antipathy toward the rule of law.3 By repeatedly breaking the law and resisting accountability—violating constitutional rights, disregarding statutory limits imposed by Congress, and defying binding court orders—the Trump administration is degrading the rule of law."
The GOP Is Targeting Black Voters in the Former Confederacy With Surgical Precision by Ari Berman on May 29, 2026 at Mother Jones
"Republicans are already moving to eliminate at least half a dozen majority Black districts in the Deep South between now and 2028. That would trigger the largest drop in Black representation since the end of Reconstruction. On Thursday, the Louisiana legislature was set to pass a new gerrymandered map eliminating the district of Black Democrat Cleo Fields."
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