One easy test of whether a media outlet is truly "fact-based" is the claims and lingo of transgender advocates. That goes double for "independent fact-checkers." If you call hormone blockers or amputation surgeries "gender-affirming care," then you are using the fact-mangling rhetoric of activists, not caring for facts. These types of "care" are clearly denying the actual and factual gender. It's like using the term "life-saving abortion."
On June 2, PolitiFact writer Grace Abels -- "a staff writer focused on LGBTQ issues" -- provided one of their explainer articles headlined:
Yes, House budget bill eliminates federal Medicaid dollars for trans adults’ gender-affirming care
Why is a "fact checker" using this Orwellian term? The lefties are upset that the Trump administration is not going to allow taxpayer-funded transgender procedures through Medicaid.
The Trump-backed budget reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House would prohibit federal Medicaid funds from covering gender-affirming medical care for adults and minors. The bill originally only applied to minors.
It’s estimated that around 180,000 transgender adults are enrolled in Medicaid, but it's unclear whether they are all accessing gender-affirming care. Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care varies by state.
The bill would restrict federal funds, not prohibit the care entirely so it could be possible that states continue to provide gender-affirming care coverage using state funds, but experts said that is unlikely.
Not counting the headline, Abels used this "gender-affirming" term 18 times (not including the headline). It might get exhausting to quote them all. Nowhere in this article is a conservative counterpoint. She did allow the parallel that it's morally offensive to some citizens, like the taxpayer funding of abortions.
All of PolitiFact’s sources are activist think tanks on the Left – a group that “monitors conservative media,” the Kaiser Family Foundation, and then the full-time LGBTQ lobbyists: "the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ public policy research institute at UCLA," "the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that tracks LGBTQ+ policies," and "Whitman-Walker’s Institute for Health Research & Policy, which focuses on LGBTQ+ issues. Whitman-Walker sued the first Trump administration over its trans health care policy."
Whitman-Walker's Kellen Baker called the Medicaid provision part of "a pattern of harassment, intimidation and threats of prosecution with the intended goal of making it politically, financially or legally impossible for states to cover this care, for providers to offer it and for transgender people to access it."
Abels reports that taxpayer-funded procedures were funded in the first Trump term: "In a study of 48,000 patients from 2016 to 2019 who underwent gender-affirming surgery, 25% were Medicaid recipients. And 58% of the LGBTQ+ population live in 27 states where transgender-related health care is explicitly covered by their state’s Medicaid program."
In a 2023 interview with the Poynter Institute (which is the parent company of PolitiFact), Abels explained the goal is to assist the LGBTQ activists, and who cares if conservatives are considered?
A fundamental truth I’m operating on is that LGBTQ+ people exist. If we are in disagreement on that, then we’re going to have a hard time.
I think historically the media has told the stories of queer and trans people without listening to their voices. [THAT is not factual!] Our pursuit is always going to be towards the facts but we are thoughtful about including queer and trans sources in our stories. And LGBTQ sources don’t always agree. They’re not necessarily in consensus. This is a beat that wants to work in tandem with and alongside LGBTQ people and experts to help answer some of the questions they might have about their community.
Abels is funded by the Gill Foundation, a radical LGBTQ philanthropy. In October 2023, she worried out loud about "incarcerated trans people" being denied the "gender-affirming" stuff. Last August, her article attacking vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance on the campaign trail used the "gender-affirming" lingo 18 times.