Worcester, Massachusetts, voted 9-2 to declare the city will not use its own resources to criminalize gender-affirming care nor surrender information about such care “to any individual or out-of-state agency or department.” Worcester is Massachusetts’ second largest city, with a nonbinary city council member who recently returned from hiatus after allegedly facing anti-trans animus from within the council. The new resolution cites Trump’s recent barrage of anti-trans executive orders and contrasts it with rates of violence and homelessness among trans people. [PinkNews, 2/13/25; Telegram & Gazette, 2/12/25, 2/12/25]

Worcester joins its state of Massachusetts and several other cities and states in implementing shield and refuge laws. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted so-called “shield” laws to protect transgender people, their families, and medical providers. Several other cities, including but not limited to New York City, West Hollywood, and Kansas City, Missouri, have similarly declared themselves sanctuary cities for transgender people. [The Advocate, 2/13/25; Movement Advancement Project, accessed 3/3/25; The Mary Sue, 8/26/23]

Several figures across Fox News claimed that no one “is coming after” transgender people or “trying to do anything to harm” them. Across the network, speakers claimed transgender people were suffering a “paranoid delusion” artificially drummed up by “the DEI activist class,” and subsequently dismissed concerns expressed by citizens who spoke at a Worcester City Council meeting. On America’s Newsroom, National Review writer Noah Rothman called the support for sanctuary cities “goofball stuff” and said “no one is coming after you.” On The Five, co-host Dana Perino said “nobody is coming after them,” before vaguely alluding to several “rules and guidelines” that will be put in place. Fox host Sean Hannity said on his own show, “Nobody in the federal government — frankly nobody really in the country — cares that much about what other people do.” Meanwhile, right-wing media have a history of expressing support for laws targeting transgender adults, and some have called for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated from public life entirely.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 2/13/25; Fox News, The Five, 2/13/25; Fox News, Hannity, 2/12/25; Media Matters, 7/27/23, 3/6/23, 3/8/23]

Former congressman and current One America News host Matt Gaetz echoed Fox’s claim on his own show, saying, “These people act like the Trump administration is going to start loading trans people into paddy wagons to cart them off.” Gaetz, who, along with others in right-wing media, has previously supported efforts to criminalize gender-affirming care, minimized Trump’s executive orders aiming to bar people under 19 from accessing GAC and restricting trans people from military service. A Federalist correspondent also claimed on Gaetz’s show that Democrats are intentionally inciting fear in “mentally ill” trans people to exploit them. [One America News Network, The Matt Gaetz Show, 2/12/25; Media Matters, 11/22/22; Them, 8/22/22]

On The Five, Fox host Jesse Watters insisted “you can be trans in America” and “this is not a civil rights movement.” Watters also claimed restrictions against trans people “only involve the military and involve sports,” ignoring Trump’s executive order restricting health care for people under 19, as well as numerous bills passed across the country over the past several years. But on his own show, Watters touted Trump’s legal restrictions, saying of Hope Walz’s criticism of anti-trans policy, “He’s going to protect you, whether you like it or not.” He later added that the new sanctuary city is “not going to stop Trump from penetrating the city lines.” [Fox News, The Five, 2/13/25; Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/12/25; Anti-Trans Legislation Tracker, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025]

In the same segment, Fox host Greg Gutfeld said trans advocates “get off” on the idea of being marginalized. The Fox host has a history of attacking transgender sanctuary states, downplaying the threats posed to trans youth and saying, “Because you know how unsafe it is for them around the country.” Gutfeld has previously denied the existence of ongoing violence against trans people, claiming attacks were “nowhere to be found.” [Fox News, The Five, 2/13/25; Media Matters, 12/28/23]

Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly said in response to the Worcester decision, “This ideology should be snuffed out,” while guest Adam Carolla said trans people need “containment.” Kelly called the citizen speakers at the Worcester City Council meeting a “parade of horribles,” while Carolla accused trans people of all being victims of sexual assault who “got scrambled” and then “got unleashed on us.” [Rumble, The Megyn Kelly Show, 2/12/25]

Fox’s Laura Ingraham suggested trans Worcester community members were “threatening” people, comparing them to January 6 rioters and Charlottesville, Virginia, protesters. Guest Jim Polito accused council meeting attendees of threatening violence and of targeted harassment of a council member. Ingraham added, “The Democrats, for years, claimed that Republicans were pushing the envelope on protests — after January 6, Charlottesville, that’s all they ever said, ‘Oh, they’re the violent ones, they’re the threatening people.’ Well, who’s threatening now?” Both right-wing riots resulted in fatalities. Right-wing media have a history of falsely conflating pro-trans protests with violent right-wing unrest, having similarly done so when discussing a 2023 protest at the Oklahoma state Capitol building. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/12/25; The New York Times, 1/11/21; WBUR, 8/12/22; Media Matters, 2/10/23]

The Daily Wire put the identity of a nonbinary council member present for the vote in scare quotes. Nonbinary Councilor-at-Large Thu Nguyen returned from a hiatus after alleging they were misgendered and faced anti-trans rhetoric within the council. The Daily Wire put Nguyen’s identity in scare quotes. The outlet also pushed a dissenting council member’s claim that the speakers were fascists for supposedly “trying to bully and intimidate people to think the way you think.” [The Daily Wire, 2/12/25]

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh suggested the meeting would make someone reconsider the Salem witch trials. “Whatever trials took place were completely null and void, they were a travesty of justice — anyway, that’s how we were taught to think about this whole shameful episode in United States history,” Walsh said. “And it’s an appealing line of reasoning — at least, it’s appealing right up until the moment that you see footage from this week’s city council meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts.” Walsh went on to falsely accuse speakers of making violent threats due to the presence of a “silence = death” sign in the back. The sign, however, appears to be a reference to a poster created in 1986 to foster awareness of the AIDS crisis. [The Daily Wire, The Matt Walsh Show, 2/13/25; W Magazine, 6/27/22]

The Daily Caller described those speaking in favor of the resolution as “drag queens and activists in provocative makeup and outfits.” It described attendees as a “drag queen with blue hair and heavy makeup,” a “masked individual covered in tattoos,” an “individual appearing to be a woman … with a painted beard,” a “male wearing a skirt,” and “a bearded man in pigtails.” [The Daily Caller, 2/12/25]

Trump’s first-term battle with sanctuary cities for immigrants continues in his new administration. In 2017, Trump stated his intent to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities through an executive order. While courts upheld protections for sanctuary cities then, Trump brought forth a new order in his second term espousing the same threat. [NPR, 1/26/17; Time, 2/13/25]

Right-wing media are also attacking sanctuary cities for immigrants, which could embolden Trump’s actions. For weeks, right-wing media have attacked sanctuary cities. Matt Gaetz invoked the great replacement theory while deriding sanctuary cities, while Libs of TikTok suggested Denver’s status as a sanctuary city fostered migrant crime. After similar campaigns over the last several years, Trump adopted harder right stances on trans issues. [One America News Network, The Matt Gaetz Show, 2/13/25; Twitter/X, 2/2/25; Media Matters, 2/6/25]

Trump’s attacks on sanctuary cities for immigration and on transgender rights echo Project 2025’s demands. Project 2025’s policy book Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise calls on Congress to “set financial disincentives for jurisdictions that implement either official or unofficial sanctuary policies.” Some of the language in Trump’s slate of anti-trans executive orders mirrored the language found in Mandate. [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; Media Matters, 2/11/25]

One of Trump’s anti-trans executive orders — restricting gender-affirming care for people under 19 — calls for “investigations” and “appropriate action” against “sanctuary States that facilitate stripping custody from parents who support the healthy development of their own children.” [The White House, 1/28/25]