I see what you’re saying, but I think we were able to do a lot of things that other mainstream sites couldn’t because of the expertise of the vertical editors/reporters.

Thank you for reading and sharing the article.

NBC Out was shuttered in October along with the other diversity verticals. Some of the reporters and editors who staffed them were hired back in new roles (I was lucky to be one of them). The existence of the verticals built deep trust with those communities, so I respectfully disagree.

Thank you so much! That means a lot coming from you.

The federal govt's threats "jeopardize the stability of Minnesota’s only comprehensive pediatric health care system," the hospital said in a statement today.

"This is not the decision we wanted to make. This is the decision we had to make to protect our hospital and our providers."

Children's Minnesota was one of few remaining health systems still providing this care to new patients.

One of the Gender Health programs doctors told me they had many patients who came there after their home state banned care.

ASPS' position statement recommends that surgeons wait until patients are at least 19 years old — over the age of legal consent — to provide transition-related surgery. It is the first U.S. medical organization to take such a stance.

www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/he...

One more thing: I learned so much pinball trivia while immersed in this. For example: There’s a 90s game called FunHouse with a creepy talking ventriloquist doll named Rudy, with a machine in South Carolina thought to be haunted because Rudy says things that aren’t in his original script. 👀

7/7

This article shows some of the many sweeping effects of anti-trans policy and rhetoric and what happens when people feel empowered to police their own communities, including what restrooms people use.

I hope you’ll read it.

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

What this article doesn’t capture fully is how uniquely painful this was for trans North Carolinians (which includes myself), where the cloud of HB 2 will always loom.

5/

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Many players aren’t sure how to move forward, but the trans woman who was at the center of it all plans to keep playing.

4/

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

But, due to the news cycle, I wasn’t able to start researching this until December, a month after the incident. By that point the entire IFPA Women’s Advisory Board had resigned and tournament directors across Oregon were pulling their tournaments from the IFPA.

3/

I found this story because last year a reader who’s a trans woman emailed me and said she liked my work but found it very depressing. She suggested I cover the inclusive world of competitive pinball, where there are no scandals when trans women do well at women’s tournaments.

2/

I'm not going to cover this in-depth today but will share analysis and coverage from reporters who are on the ground. 7/7