Jennifer Lopez was the most recent big-name celebrity to join comedian Kareem Rahma for his viral social media video series, “Subway Takes.” Her thesis statement, or take: “You have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker.” Rahma suitably responded with a loud groan. 

“I know everybody wants to claim our city, but you have to be born in New York,” she says. “You have to be born in one of the five boroughs to be a New Yorker.”

On its face, perhaps in a different time and political climate, this could masquerade as a certain well-worn pride New Yorkers love to claim and argue about. But in reality it’s tone-deaf at best and nativist at worst. 

What makes New York such a special, dynamic, vibrant and multicultural place is precisely that it is a city of immigrants.

Using words like “our” reinforces the idea of an in-group and an out-group — the very premise of a political administration that has made no secret about who it says “belongs” in this country and who does not. It is a major building block of the fascistic and autocratic political ideologies increasingly taking hold both here and around the world, and it’s central to the worldview espoused by President Donald Trump and MAGA supporters. 

We’re seeing what happens when someone draws a line determining who belongs and who doesn’t. Trump’s rhetoric often deploys words and phrases such as “invasion” and “occupied country.” At a rally in Colorado in 2024, Trump said: “People come in, they’re very sick. Very sick. They’re coming into our country, they’re very, very sick with highly contagious disease. And they’re let into our country to infect our country.” There is a strong sense in Trump’s America that some people (read: white people) truly belong, that they are real Americans while everyone else is an invader. 

What makes New York such a special, dynamic, vibrant and multicultural place is precisely that it is a city of immigrants. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (notably, not born in New York, like so many immigrants who call the city home) noted this during his fiery acceptance speech in November when he pledged, “New York will remain a city of immigrants, built by immigrants, powered by immigrants.” Throughout his campaign, he both identified and celebrated what is best about the city: It is a melting pot in which anyone and everyone is welcome, a place they can call home. 

The same could be said about this country as a whole, which was founded by immigrants. The political project of America is, of course, a complicated one, and in many ways an inherently violent one — but, again, at its best, it is a melting pot of cultures, languages and traditions, a home for people seeking new opportunities.

While likely unintentional, Lopez is reproducing rhetoric similar to MAGA and other right-wing political movements by espousing an in-group/out-group mentality in which identity (and therefore acceptance) is tied to borders. Immigrants and “outsiders” have been made incredibly vulnerable under the current administration.

While likely unintentional, Lopez is reproducing rhetoric similar to MAGA and other right-wing political movements by espousing an in-group/out-group mentality.

A very intentional version of this argument (that you can only claim an identity if you were born here) was part of what sparked a wave of xenophobia against the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, in 2024. It played a part in justifying the government targeting Somalis in Minnesota. Violent raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement have created fear in immigrant communities across the country. People held in ICE custody, including children and people with special needs, are experiencing horrific conditions and are denied basic rights. These inhumane conditions include, for example, food with worms in it and bright fluorescent lights turned on 24/7. Some people have been deported to countries they have no connection to.

Lopez, who does not reside in New York but in a reported $18 million property in the gated Hidden Hills community in Los Angeles, has been a vocal Democratic supporter, endorsing Kamala Harris in the last general election and publicly deriding Trump for his comments on Puerto Rico. Partaking in and reproducing this fundamentally right-wing narrative (again, even if it’s unintentional) flies in the face of what Democrats ostensibly stand for — that there is a big tent under which everyone is welcome and belongs.

The New York City subway — the site of this interview — is a perfect metaphor for New Yorkers and what New York represents at its best. A subway is a democratic and equalizing space, welcome to all irrespective of where you’re from. There is a transience to it; people stay on for varying lengths of time, but they are equals for the time they ride next to each other. These are all antithetical ideas to Lopez’s apparent logic on “Subway Takes.” Because, sadly, according to JLo, you can only really be from the block if you’re born on it.

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A group of three families, on behalf of their transgender children, and two transgender young adults, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in New York seeking to block a subpoena from the Justice Department for NYU Langone to release their medical records and other personal information to the government. The filing is only the most recent in a slate of lawsuits led by trans kids and their families across the country, from Maryland to California. 

The timing of these lawsuits is notable as they come in and around Pride Month, a period intended for the celebration of queerness and to honor hard-won battles for social and legal acceptance. Instead, trans children, and their families, are living in fear and using time, energy and resources to protect themselves from the state for the perceived transgression of merely existing.

The timing of these lawsuits is notable as they come in and around Pride Month, a period intended for the celebration of queerness and to honor hard-won battles for social and legal acceptance.

The government’s objective in its subpoena, which bids hospital representatives to appear in court before a grand jury in June and present documents “sufficient to identify each patient” who as a minor received gender-confirming care of any kind dating back to 2020,  appears to be twofold: to deny healthcare to trans kids, by, among other things, citing billing to insurance companies as “fraudulent”; and to intimidate healthcare providers from providing gender-confirming care to transgender patients at all.

This tactic appears to be working as trans healthcare centers and clinics around the country shutter, making care increasingly hard to access. “In addition to concerns about how the government might use private health information, parents said they fear that their children’s records will be held up as part of an investigation that ultimately aims to deny them medical treatment,” The New York Times reported Tuesday.

While the DOJ told the Times that it does not respond to requests for comment on grand jury subpoenas or activities, the Times also reported that “[t]he government has said it is acting on the behalf of patients and families as it investigates whether health providers and drug companies have illegally promoted off-label use of medications or used fraudulent billing practices to secure insurance coverage for gender-related treatments to minors.”

The DOJ has based its investigations into gender-confirming care for trans youth in the Northern District of Texas, which is home court for a notoriously reactionary and partisan chief district judge, Reed O’Connor, and therefore “a venue favored by conservatives,” Reuters explains. In the past, O’Connor has taken initiatives to quash legal recourse for the subjects of his rulings, such as Rhode Island Hospital, which has been treating trans minors. “He…issued an injunction claiming to prohibit the hospital from seeking relief in the federal courts that oversee Rhode Island under threat of contempt. And he barred the hospital from ‘aiding and abetting’ any other party that might ask for help from these courts, including the children whose rights will be trampled by disclosure of their records,” Slate reported in May. 

In basing its investigation in the Northern District of Texas, the department can file requests for subpoenas — for medical records and private patient information in other states — in O’Connor’s court. This, as Slate reporting describes, is part of the DOJ’s wider attempt at “forum shopping key cases to MAGA judges across the country who are much more likely to reward underhanded tactics.” It’s a breach of the sanctity of state laws, variations of which have been an important part of this country’s legal framework.

The Justice Department has made the case that part of its investigation involves looking at trans healthcare providers’ use of off-label drugs, arguing this could be either fraudulent or illegal. Yet as the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality explains, off-label use is both “legal and common.” (For instance, Trazodone, while originally intended to treat depression, is often prescribed for other conditions, such as insomnia, bulimia, alcohol dependence or diabetic neuropathy.)

This is all to say that this administration is not just failing to take care of our most vulnerable populations, but it is actively targeting them. The fact that vulnerable children and their families are compelled to sue the federal government in an effort to have their constitutional rights honored says everything we need to know about this current political landscape. 

“Every week there’s something new,” one teenager targeted in the Rhode Island Hospital case, who was only identified by their first initial because their family has faced harassment and threats in the past, told WBUR. “One week, they try to ban care. Another week, you find out that they want to know your personal information.”

It is the job of any well-functioning democracy to protect children and other vulnerable groups. As a trans man, navigating the progressively hostile and reactionary medical, political and legal landscapes demands an enormous amount of energy, not to mention it produces a great deal of fear and anxiety — and I am in my 40s. I cannot imagine how much this state targeting of trans youth is derailing the lives of children who want and deserve nothing more than to simply be kids. 

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