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The recent announcement from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that gender-affirming health care will be excluded from the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) programs beginning in 2026 represents a profound step backward in civil rights and health equity. Under this directive, chemical and surgical interventions for gender transition will no longer be covered, though counseling for gender dysphoria must remain available. Insurance carriers are required to develop exceptions processes for individuals currently undergoing such care, yet the parameters of those processes remain undefined. Providers of gender-affirming care are also barred from being listed in plan directories, effectively discouraging access (Office of Personnel Management, 2025; Moss, 2025).

To understand the gravity of this reversal, it is necessary to recall how hard-fought the gains for transgender health care under FEHB were. In 2014, OPM lifted the longstanding blanket exclusion of gender-affirming procedures, and by 2016 carriers were instructed not to categorically deny such care. This change aligned federal benefits with emerging medical consensus that gender-affirming treatments are not elective but medically necessary. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society have long affirmed that access to hormone therapy and surgeries significantly reduces psychological distress, improves quality of life, and prevents serious health complications (Hembree et al., 2017; Coleman et al., 2022). For nearly a decade, transgender federal employees and retirees could rely on this coverage as a matter of equity and recognition of their humanity.

As a transgender woman who has been receiving gender-affirming health care for more than eleven years, this policy shift strikes me not just as a bureaucratic adjustment but as a direct threat to my life and well-being. Having undergone an orchiectomy, I rely on estradiol not simply as an affirming treatment, but as essential hormone replacement. Without it, my bones, cardiovascular health, cognition, and emotional stability would be at severe risk. Estradiol for me is no different than thyroid medication for someone with hypothyroidism—it is medically necessary, lifelong care. To see it lumped under a politically charged category of “optional” transition services is both scientifically inaccurate and deeply insulting.

What unsettles me most is the uncertainty this policy creates. OPM’s promise of an “exceptions process” offers little clarity. Will it protect those of us with medical histories spanning over a decade of consistent care? Or will it force us into endless appeals and denials, treating every prescription refill as a battle? This ambiguity is destabilizing, and I cannot help but feel that it is intentional—designed to make care harder to access and to discourage providers from stepping forward.

As a federal retiree, I gave years of service under the assumption that the benefits I earned would protect me equitably. Now, I feel as though my identity has made me a target within the very system I trusted. The estimated 14,000 transgender federal employees and retirees who will be affected are not faceless statistics; we are people who dedicated our careers to serving this country, only to be told that our health care needs are unworthy of recognition (Lambda Legal, 2025; them.us, 2025). The exclusion also signals a dangerous precedent: that essential medical care can be stripped away not because of evidence or cost, but because of politics.

This change must be understood in its broader social context. Over the past decade, transgender Americans have seen both progress and backlash. The Affordable Care Act’s Section 1557 extended nondiscrimination protections in health care, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) affirmed that gender identity is protected under Title VII. Yet, simultaneously, states across the country have passed laws restricting access to gender-affirming care, particularly for youth, framing these measures as cultural wedge issues. The OPM directive extends that wave of exclusion into the federal system, embedding discrimination into the nation’s largest employer-based insurance program.

For me personally, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is about whether I will be able to continue accessing the medication that keeps me healthy and alive. It is about whether the years of progress we celebrated were only temporary reprieves. And it is about what message this sends to younger transgender people entering federal service today: that their health and dignity can be used as bargaining chips in political battles.

I cannot help but feel anxious about what the future holds, but I also feel resolved. This rollback will not go unchallenged. Advocacy groups such as Lambda Legal, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and others have already condemned it as unlawful and are preparing legal strategies (Lambda Legal, 2025). As a transgender woman and a retiree, I plan to add my voice to that chorus, because silence is what allows discrimination to endure. We have fought too hard, and for too long, to let the ground be taken out from under us without resistance.

References

Coleman, E., Radix, A. E., Bouman, W. P., Brown, G. R., de Vries, A. L. C., Deutsch, M. B., … Winter, S. (2022). Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8. International Journal of Transgender Health, 23(sup1), S1–S259. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2022.2100644

Hembree, W. C., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Gooren, L., Hannema, S. E., Meyer, W. J., Murad, M. H., … T’Sjoen, G. G. (2017). Endocrine Treatment of Gender-Dysphoric/Gender-Incongruent Persons: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 102(11), 3869–3903. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2017-01658

Lambda Legal. (2025, August 19). Lambda Legal condemns Trump administration’s illegal exclusion of gender-affirming care from employee health benefits. Retrieved August 22, 2025, from https://lambdalegal.org/newsroom

Moss, K. (2025, August 20). Coverage for gender-affirming care will be eliminated from FEHB plans in 2026. Government Executive. Retrieved August 22, 2025, from https://www.govexec.com

Office of Personnel Management. (2025). Carrier Letter 2025-01b: Chemical and surgical sex-trait modification exclusion. Retrieved August 22, 2025, from https://opm.gov

them.us. (2025, August 20). Trump Admin to end coverage of gender-affirming care for federal workers. them. Retrieved August 22, 2025, from https://www.them

The Legacy I Hope to Leave Behind

By Katherine Walter

On July 1, 2025

In reflection

Image: ChatGPT

Legacy is not built all at once. It takes shape over time—quietly, unevenly—through the choices we make, the truths we speak, and the lives we touch. I don’t imagine mine will be written in bold headlines or etched into stone. But I hope it will be felt in subtler, more enduring ways. In the freedom someone claims because I once stood up. In the insight sparked by something I taught or wrote. In the love that lingers in the spaces I leave behind.

I’ve lived many chapters in this life—some of them linear, others far more tangled. I began as a student of anthropology, drawn to the study of culture, meaning, and human complexity. It taught me to listen deeply, to question what seems natural, and to honor what is often ignored or devalued. Anthropology gave me not just tools for understanding others—it gave me a way to understand myself. As a transgender woman, as a spiritual seeker, as someone shaped by forces both seen and hidden, I learned to situate my life within broader currents of history and identity. That perspective never left me.

Eventually, I put my education into service in a different way—as a SNAP program specialist with the USDA. There, I saw how policy lives not in abstract theories but in the faces of people trying to feed their families. I worked at the intersection of administration and survival. It gave me a profound respect for the dignity of everyday life, and a deepened sense of duty to advocate for those so often silenced by red tape and economic cruelty. That role grounded me in the real: in food, in need, in systems and the people caught within them.

But even before all of that, I served my country in uniform. I am a U.S. Navy veteran. I served as a submariner and fought in Desert Storm. It was a life of discipline, of structure, of submerged tension—both literal and emotional. That chapter gave me a close relationship with mortality, with silence, with sacrifice. And later, it gave me the courage to live my truth. Because once you’ve survived war, you learn how little time there really is for pretending.

Though my time teaching in a classroom was brief, it was profoundly meaningful. Education, I believe, is one of the most radical forms of love and hope. I did not stay long enough to become a fixture, but I hope I was a spark. I hope that somewhere, a student remembers me not as perfect, but as present. As someone who saw them clearly, challenged them to think differently, and held space for who they were becoming.

Throughout it all, I’ve remained a writer, a creator, a witness. I write not just to tell stories, but to make space—for desire, for defiance, for complex and beautiful lives that rarely make it into the mainstream. I write for those on the margins, for the ones building new worlds from the ruins of the old, and for the future selves who need proof that we were here.

If I am remembered, I hope it is as someone who lived with fierce honesty. Who loved without shame. Who fought for justice, even when she was exhausted. Who stood in her womanhood and her queerness not as burdens, but as blessings.

I hope my legacy is not one of perfection, but of permission. Permission to live. To change. To desire. To dream beyond the roles assigned at birth or by circumstance. I hope I leave behind courage in those who need it. Gentleness in those taught to harden. Fire in those told to shrink.

And if some future soul—browsing an archive, reading a quote, hearing a story—finds a piece of me and thinks, “Because she lived, I feel less alone,” then that is all the immortality I will ever need.

What I Believe About Relationships

By Katherine Walter

On June 28, 2025

In relationships

Image: ChatGPT

Relationships are among the most intimate and transformative parts of life—but for me, they don’t follow the traditional script. I’ve spent a long time unlearning what the world tells us relationships are “supposed” to be and discovering what they can be instead. I want to share what I believe about love, connection, sex, and partnership—not because I have all the answers, but because my truth might help others feel less alone in their own journey.

I am aromantic. I don’t experience romantic attraction the way most people do. I don’t crave romantic courtship, fairy-tale declarations, or being someone’s “everything.” That’s never been how my heart moves. For a long time, I felt out of sync with a world that insists on romance as the highest form of human connection. But in time, I came to understand that my way of relating isn’t less—it’s just different. I still love. I still build deep, meaningful connections. I still crave touch, intimacy, laughter, and mutual growth. But I don’t desire romance, and I don’t build my life around it.

I also identify as polyamorous. I believe that love, affection, and connection are abundant and not meant to be confined to one person at a time. I reject the idea that exclusivity is the only—or the highest—form of commitment. I find beauty in the ways people can show up for each other in different capacities. Each relationship is its own living thing, with its own needs, rhythms, and dynamics. I don’t want to own or be owned. I want connection that is chosen, not claimed.

My sexual orientation is best described as heteroflexible. I tend to be drawn to masculine energy, but attraction is fluid and often defies tidy labels. What matters most to me is authenticity—how someone exists in their body and their spirit, how they treat others, how they engage with joy, and how they handle complexity. Gender and sexuality, for me, are far more expansive than the categories we’re taught to stay within.

As a transgender woman, I bring my full self into every relationship. My womanhood is not conditional, and I refuse to enter into any dynamic where I am expected to explain or defend my identity. My transness has shaped me. It has taught me resilience, self-determination, and the sacred power of transformation. I offer all of that—openly and vulnerably—to the people I care about.

I also embrace a fully sex-positive philosophy. I believe sex is sacred, playful, healing, and liberating. I do not see sexuality as something to be ashamed of or hidden away. Whether I’m expressing desire through kink, physical intimacy, fantasy, or open conversation, I treat it as something that should be approached with joy, creativity, and care. Being aromantic doesn’t mean being asexual—though both identities are valid. For me, it means I can enjoy sexual and emotional intimacy without it needing to be filtered through a romantic lens.

What I want from relationships is truth. I want honesty without cruelty, intimacy without entitlement, and care without pretense. I don’t need people to fit into categories like “partner,” “lover,” or “friend.” I need them to show up as their full selves, and to let me do the same. I want to build chosen family. I want conversations that last for hours, shared silence that feels like home, mutual support in the chaos, and connection that expands rather than restricts.

I believe that love is not a single, fixed thing. It’s a spectrum, a mosaic, a process. It doesn’t always follow a script. It doesn’t have to end in a wedding or a shared mortgage to be real. It doesn’t have to be romantic to be profound. And it certainly doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s version of love.

Being aromantic means that I love differently. Not less. Not worse. Just differently. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we need more room in this world for different ways of loving. I want people to know that there are many valid ways to connect—and that living outside the traditional narrative can be not just fulfilling, but joyful, liberating, and deeply human.

So this is me, being honest about what I believe: in love without possession, sex without shame, intimacy without obligation, and relationships that are defined not by convention, but by care. If you’ve ever felt like the world’s idea of love doesn’t fit you—know that you are not broken. You are simply someone who deserves to love, and be loved, on your own terms.

Unapologetically Sexual

By Katherine Walter

On May 30, 2025

In LGBTQ+ rights, sexuality

I was let go from my student teaching position because of some tweets. In these posts, I said, among other things, “I like to suck dick.” It wasn’t part of a curriculum. It wasn’t aimed at students. It was a personal expression—raw, queer, unapologetic. And for that, I was deemed “unfit.”

But I am not ashamed. Because when I say something as simple and carnal as “I like to suck dick,” I’m not being obscene—I’m declaring war on the suffocating norms that define who gets to express desire and how.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about sex. It’s about power.

The phrase “I like sex” is broadly acceptable when said by a cis, straight man. Even when women say it, it must be delivered with just the right balance of flirtation and modesty, wrapped in acceptable femininity. But when a transgender woman like me speaks directly and honestly about her sexuality—without euphemism, without apology—it’s treated as taboo. It becomes scandalous, political, dangerous.

And that’s exactly why I say it.

Heteronormativity doesn’t just regulate bodies—it polices desire. It dictates what kind of sex is real, what kind of sex is dirty, and which voices are allowed to claim desire at all. Trans women are often reduced to caricatures: hypersexual porn tropes or sexless tokens of pity. To say, plainly and proudly, that I love sucking dick is to reject all of that. It’s to assert my autonomy, my pleasure, and my humanity.

Yes, I am a transgender woman. Yes, I am sexual. And yes, I will speak about it.

My words weren’t unprofessional. They were inconvenient—to a system that still finds trans joy threatening and trans pleasure unspeakable. I lost a role in education for telling the truth about myself. But I gained something else: clarity. I know now that empowerment doesn’t come from fitting in. It comes from taking up space. From naming what you’re told to hide. From loving your body and your voice enough to say what they told you you shouldn’t even feel.

So I will continue to speak freely. Not because I want to provoke—but because I refuse to be erased. I want other trans women to know that they can be intelligent, nurturing, sexual, kinky, loud, soft, and bold—all at once. I want us all to know that our worth doesn’t shrink because someone else is uncomfortable with our truths.

When I say “I like to suck dick,” I’m not just being honest.

I’m being powerful.

And in a world built to silence women like me, that is revolutionary.