After reading through the oral arguments, Barrett's question also stuck out to me. The other was the implicit bias is some questions that transgender people are lesser and care should be banned for all just in case a cis person transitions. The other was that stupid 85% detransition statistic coming up as a rational fact, when it's simply not true.
I did enjoy seeing Rice get ripped apart in the early questioning, which was nice.
I think the underlying context of the case though was the immutability of being transgender. Rice basically was saying it is a mental condition (without saying it), and I think Kavanaugh tried to undermine immutability by saying someone who detransitions proves it's changeable (while not saying the same about someone who never detransitions). I think it is this point which underlies a lot of the attacks on our rights, many people think it is a choice. From my reading that seems to be the area which requires a concerted effort on our part, and could help undermine a lot of the hate campaign and moral panic.
"I think it is this point which underlies a lot of the attacks on our rights, many people think it is a choice."
It is a choice as to what to do about it, and at some point every person chooses to transition who does so -- and some are cisgender people who make mistakes.
To say the 99 (or 95, is 19 to 1 that much worse?) transgender people who never regret their choice aren't worth as much as the 1 cisgender person who does is what it comes down to, and that idea underlying the whole thing is so vile.
I don't disagree, how you deal with it is a choice (I wouldn't want to promote conformity or new Harry Benjamin rules), but I don't think that should be emphasized over that it is real and does not go away.
I know hundreds who transitioned and one person who detransitioned because she could not find a job. I transitioned more than two decades ago to have a life. I found a job after transitioning and retired from it a couple of years ago. 85% detransitioned seems massively inflated, but why should numbers even matter. It’s a personal decision.
That 85% comes from the flawed Steensma and partially also Zucker research.
The first time Steensma looked at children near the beginning of the 80's, or the whole 80's (need to look up the research again to know for sure, I only know the timespan is big) and a second time in the new millenium.
At the time in the 80's, "Gender-incongruence" was still broad and basically lumped together children experiencing gender dysphoria with those who were very effeminate as boys, or very rowdy as girls (tomboys).
This is because of the DSM at the time having a completely different description of what gender dysphoria was, along with it having a lot less diagnostic criteria for it (and also, labelling it much more as a disorder).
In follow-up research, looking at the same people again, any person lost to follow up, was deemed a detransitioner/desister.
This could be because someone refused to participate in the follow-up, when people were lost to follow-up because they moved and an address change was not given or properly taken in by the researchers, or literally: because effeminate boys or tomboy girls were deemed not to have gender dysphoria because they didn't want treatment for it...
It is a piece of research that extreme-right and fascist politicians LOOOVE to abuse to be able to say "SEE!! SEE!! Transchildren grow over it, we shouldn't give them GnRH-analogs/agonists?! We should simply let them hit puberty and for most of them it will be fine!"
Steensma (A researcher at the VU Medical Centre that once pioneered with the care for transchildren, I might add) has complained that his research is abused as much as it is, because looking at the desistance rate never was the intention of the paper. To me that doesn't matter all that much: bad methodology remains bad methodology, and if that makes it capable of playing into the hands of anti-trans figures more easily, it is bad research none the less.
A more recent "study" was made by Sarah Burke and other researchers. Sarah Burke works as a developmental neuropsychologist in the UMC in Groningen (UMCG). This hospital has an actual gender clinic.
The same hospital had researchers perform the TRAILS study: TRacking Adolescents Individual Lives Survey.
Randomly choosen participants were followed to see how their mental health (and partially, physical, as well) developed over time, and if there were conclusions capable of being drawn based on the situation at home being safe or not.
One of the questions in this study (+2700 participants) was: "I desire to be of the other sex".
While this question in and of itself is way to broad to even determine someone to be transgender, and the researchers themselves admit the question might be problematically broad, the researchers ALSO admit that the possible answers are not up to scientific standards: "Absolutely not", "Sometimes", "Always".
The paper does not list the frequency for "sometimes", by the way, which is not how you do research.
I participated in similar research, which contained the same question, but then with the options AND a time-base description:
"Absolutely not"
"Very infrequently (1-3 times a month)"
"Infrequently (5-10 times a month)"
"A lot" (10-20 times a month)"
"Always (the thought is with me continuously)".
Not only is this a broader set of options to answer with, it also repeated this question after like hundreds of questions later on:
"The desire to be of the other sex controls my life, and hinders me in my daily activities and spare time, like hobbies, sports."
This is a good control check: should someone not completely understand the first question and answer it wrong, you should see a discrepancy in the second question's answers.
Especially when you would be explicitly looking for transchildren: they will show up in both questions with "Always" or at least "A lot".
To be clear: The TRAILS survey was not about transchildren. They did see them, and they interestingly enough adhered pretty precise to the statistical amount the VU Medical Centre sees as well: about 1 in 1250 children that participated in TRAILS showed up as trans. The VUmC states that 1 in about 1000 children is trans.
Sarah Burke however, also wasn't looking for transchildren: even worse, her paper sought a group to compare the results of TRAILS with by picking children from a pediatric-psychiatry ward.
If she were to have used this group of children to merely lay them next to the TRAILS group, that would not have been much of a problem.
After all, it could be interesting to see if the results match up and you'd witness a group of children that mentally is struggling severely without seeking help, which would give strong pointers to increase mental health awareness programs.
But that's not what Burke did. She used the TRAILS information and her control group to say something about transchildren.
11% of respondents at 11 years of age responded with "Sometimes" to the question mentioned earlier. If you were to display that group as "100% of children identifying as trans at some point in their life", the 4% that only did so at 26 years of age would mean a reduction of 64%.
Again, the TRAILS research, nor Burke's explicitly looked at transchildren. Burke however stated that "many children with psychological problems experience gender distress and it is common, but it disappears later in life."
Further adding to the "It's a phase, it'll pass, we shouldn't treat them!" rhetoric that Dutch politicians have been using for a couple of years now.
Politicians who were quick to heavily abuse the shit out of Burke's paper as a "See!!"-type of evidence.
They are basing legislation against transchildren and trans-adults on research that is not about transchildren.
Even worse, Burke apparently tried to pathologize the trans-identity by explicitly going for children from a pediatric-psychology ward. Not exactly the neutral control group that you should use if you were to compare groups.
It seems to have been meant as a new way to delegitimize the existence of transchildren, and stigmatize them by stating that they obviously have so much else going on mentally that a transition is absolutely not the right thing to do, denying that gender dysphoria can exist next to other forms of mental distress, and that dysphoria can heavily fuel those other problems.
But the absolute worst comes when you find out that Burke works at the University Medical Center Groningen. A hospital with an actual gender clinic.
If you then look at her paper and her remark:
"many children with psychological problems experience gender distress and it is common, but it disappears later in life."
You'll notice something off: TRAILS and her paper used "sex" in the question, NOT gender. For a neuropsychologist, I consider that to be a blunder like nothing else. She should know the difference, instead of feeding into an anti-trans narrative with bad research.
I used it as an example in a presentation I gave at work (newsmedia company) about the transphobia in media and politics. A big news broadcaster uncritically posted about the piece, also mistaking gender with sex.
While I suppose it’s good to inject a bit of optimism in this, as a matter of reality I feel like this case was already decided before the first arguments were even heard. In fact, given the current composition of the court, bringing the case before SCOTUS may end up doing more harm than good. The justices will very likely uphold the Tennessee ban 5-4 or 6-3, thus returning the issue to the states. By itself that wouldn’t be the worst possible outcome, since GAC would still be available in the blue states. The problem is that such a ruling would embolden the Trump administration to try to ban GAC nationwide - adults as well as minors. That would set up a classic feds. vs states rights clash, as GAC access is written into the constitutions of several blue states.
Our class under protection of the 14th amendment is my greatest fear, so awful as everything else is already. They seemed to continually drive home that they were skeptical we should be considered a clas. If they rule we don't have equal protection, it opens the floodgates to everything.
To people saying this case is already decided, I think I would have agreed with you before hearing oral arguments. After listening to it all though, I think it's fair to say that this case is a massive toss-up. Gorsuch said nothing, Kavanaugh played the middle, Barrett "learned something" I guess, and the rest did what we expected them to do. I'm not optimistic in this case, and frankly I don't think it's going to matter to the Trump administration either way it goes, but I do get the feeling we're looking at a 50/50 toss here.
Which... 50/50 on human rights and minors suffering and dying is INDEFENSIBLE, but here we are.
While I’d like to agree with you, I think we should consider the intense right-wing propaganda that all of society - naturally including the justices - have been exposed to since 2020, the year of the Bostock decision. In fact, the influence of right wing media and groups like ADF has been so intense that, sadly, I doubt whether a Bostock-like decision is even possible in 2025. Two decades or so ago, who would’ve ever thought that a medical condition affecting <1% of the population would’ve ever become so intensely politicized?
That's why every single trans person and family member of a trans person needs to be writing letters to the court, telling the justices how HRT saved their lives. We have for far too long left the propaganda unanswered, and now we need to flood them with OUR truth. The truth of our lived experiences. The truth that HRT kept us (or our loved ones) from suicide. I know Thomas and Alito won't listen, but I think Gorsuch, Barrett, and MAYBE even Kavanaugh might at least listen some if we really made ourselves unsilenceable. It may not succeed, but it's worth the paper and postage to try!
Let’s say I’m an extremely happily masculine person assigned female, who only wears clothes found in the “men’s” department-then- you can bet your last silver dollar I’ll be defending every feminine assigned male to wear exclusively clothing found in the “women’s” department.
However, when I think about it, it really makes no difference what clothing you or I like to wear, because you, or I wouldn’t want a government bureaucracy telling you what color clothing or what style of clothing you must wear.
I don’t care how anyone chooses to dress. Seriously, no one has the right to select your clothing other than you. Isn’t that the ultimate freedom of expression. Constitutionally protected under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.
Imagine the government telling you how you should dress yourself in the morning… how sick.
What’s fair is fair. That’s what equality under the laws is supposed to be.
I wish there were any cause for optimism. I just don’t see it with this bench.
At least 4 of the justices - including Coney Barrett - have had paid gigs from Alluance defending Freedom. AdF is the ghost writer of most of these bills.
The depth and breadth of that woman's ignorance never ceases to amaze. To think that someone possessed of so little knowledge, and even less ambition to learn more, holds so many lives in her hands...
I mean, let's be real here- this is shit she should've been reading up on before sitting down to hear the case. Hell, she didn't even have to do the research herself; she has staff for that! And yet, she seems to have spent the entire session just trying to wrap her two and a half functioning brain cells around something that anyone with even a scrap of curiosity could've found out in the time it took to type "legal discrimination against transgender people in the United States" into Google and hit "enter." This isn't rocket science- this isn't even 𝘣𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘢 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰 science. We all knew she was a dunce when she fumbled that softball about the First Amendment during her confirmation hearing, but... 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬, she's stupid. Is it worse to be killed by malice, or ignorance? What a silly thing to ask- with Justices like Coney-Barrett, we can have 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩!
Alito cited Cass, which has been ripped to shreds by esteemed scholars and physicians from Yale and Harvard and by other experts, notwithstanding that cis youth can receive puberty blockers to treat a variety of medical conditions. The country needs to understand through clear stories that giving an approved medication for cis youth and not trans youth is deplorable discrimination.
I’m surprisingly, and maybe naively, thinking it’s possible the ban won’t be upheld. I actually found Kavanaughs realization of the fact that yes being wrong and a person later “detransitioning” is harm but so is not doing anything (ie not undergoing gender affirming care). I know it’s a longshot but I wonder if this will lead to what many of us know is true is that these are medical-ethical decisions that ought to be decided between child, parent, and medical team.
It's a good sign about Barrett becoming educated and at least considering de jure discrimination against trans people as a protected class. She's a wild card. Very interesting that Gorsuch said nothing. I guess he didn't want to put his unconscious on display. Anyway ... Serious question, aren't bathroom bans and sports bans also de jure discrimination against trans people.
At least a trans person was speaking in the room for this seminal hearing. Unlike in the UK where our Supreme Court flatly refused to permit amply qualified trans people leave to intervene. I still expect a 5:4 or 6:3 supporting the Tennessee ban but at least in the USA, the trans side hasn't been made to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
SCOTUS is also charged with being the court of last review in matters of equity. Whichever Justice is a "wild card", they can as matter of equity only rule in favor of transgender people including youth being able to receive the care which is empirically best for them -- gender affirming medical care including medial transition of apparent sex and gender.
Simply thanks Erin, giving a positive spin on this is important going into the new year, it would be all too easy to look at the negatives from yesterday and be pessimistic for six months- there’s enough of that around. Being wary is sensible but let’s try and be even headed.
Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up! Don't. Don't give up! Write the justices! Share your experiences in a professional letter. Tell them, en masse, how HRT saved your life. DON'T give up!!!
After reading through the oral arguments, Barrett's question also stuck out to me. The other was the implicit bias is some questions that transgender people are lesser and care should be banned for all just in case a cis person transitions. The other was that stupid 85% detransition statistic coming up as a rational fact, when it's simply not true.
I did enjoy seeing Rice get ripped apart in the early questioning, which was nice.
I think the underlying context of the case though was the immutability of being transgender. Rice basically was saying it is a mental condition (without saying it), and I think Kavanaugh tried to undermine immutability by saying someone who detransitions proves it's changeable (while not saying the same about someone who never detransitions). I think it is this point which underlies a lot of the attacks on our rights, many people think it is a choice. From my reading that seems to be the area which requires a concerted effort on our part, and could help undermine a lot of the hate campaign and moral panic.
"I think it is this point which underlies a lot of the attacks on our rights, many people think it is a choice."
It is a choice as to what to do about it, and at some point every person chooses to transition who does so -- and some are cisgender people who make mistakes.
To say the 99 (or 95, is 19 to 1 that much worse?) transgender people who never regret their choice aren't worth as much as the 1 cisgender person who does is what it comes down to, and that idea underlying the whole thing is so vile.
I don't disagree, how you deal with it is a choice (I wouldn't want to promote conformity or new Harry Benjamin rules), but I don't think that should be emphasized over that it is real and does not go away.
I hope you don't think I disagree there, "I don't think that should be emphasized over that it is real and does not go away. ", I def do not.
What I mean is the false positive rate for endorsed (per WPATH SoC) medical transition is hella low, including for youth.
To go by lawsuits by the likes of Chloe Cole, its like no higher than 1 in 4,500,000 people.
I know hundreds who transitioned and one person who detransitioned because she could not find a job. I transitioned more than two decades ago to have a life. I found a job after transitioning and retired from it a couple of years ago. 85% detransitioned seems massively inflated, but why should numbers even matter. It’s a personal decision.
That 85% comes from the flawed Steensma and partially also Zucker research.
The first time Steensma looked at children near the beginning of the 80's, or the whole 80's (need to look up the research again to know for sure, I only know the timespan is big) and a second time in the new millenium.
At the time in the 80's, "Gender-incongruence" was still broad and basically lumped together children experiencing gender dysphoria with those who were very effeminate as boys, or very rowdy as girls (tomboys).
This is because of the DSM at the time having a completely different description of what gender dysphoria was, along with it having a lot less diagnostic criteria for it (and also, labelling it much more as a disorder).
In follow-up research, looking at the same people again, any person lost to follow up, was deemed a detransitioner/desister.
This could be because someone refused to participate in the follow-up, when people were lost to follow-up because they moved and an address change was not given or properly taken in by the researchers, or literally: because effeminate boys or tomboy girls were deemed not to have gender dysphoria because they didn't want treatment for it...
It is a piece of research that extreme-right and fascist politicians LOOOVE to abuse to be able to say "SEE!! SEE!! Transchildren grow over it, we shouldn't give them GnRH-analogs/agonists?! We should simply let them hit puberty and for most of them it will be fine!"
Steensma (A researcher at the VU Medical Centre that once pioneered with the care for transchildren, I might add) has complained that his research is abused as much as it is, because looking at the desistance rate never was the intention of the paper. To me that doesn't matter all that much: bad methodology remains bad methodology, and if that makes it capable of playing into the hands of anti-trans figures more easily, it is bad research none the less.
A more recent "study" was made by Sarah Burke and other researchers. Sarah Burke works as a developmental neuropsychologist in the UMC in Groningen (UMCG). This hospital has an actual gender clinic.
The same hospital had researchers perform the TRAILS study: TRacking Adolescents Individual Lives Survey.
Randomly choosen participants were followed to see how their mental health (and partially, physical, as well) developed over time, and if there were conclusions capable of being drawn based on the situation at home being safe or not.
One of the questions in this study (+2700 participants) was: "I desire to be of the other sex".
While this question in and of itself is way to broad to even determine someone to be transgender, and the researchers themselves admit the question might be problematically broad, the researchers ALSO admit that the possible answers are not up to scientific standards: "Absolutely not", "Sometimes", "Always".
The paper does not list the frequency for "sometimes", by the way, which is not how you do research.
I participated in similar research, which contained the same question, but then with the options AND a time-base description:
"Absolutely not"
"Very infrequently (1-3 times a month)"
"Infrequently (5-10 times a month)"
"A lot" (10-20 times a month)"
"Always (the thought is with me continuously)".
Not only is this a broader set of options to answer with, it also repeated this question after like hundreds of questions later on:
"The desire to be of the other sex controls my life, and hinders me in my daily activities and spare time, like hobbies, sports."
This is a good control check: should someone not completely understand the first question and answer it wrong, you should see a discrepancy in the second question's answers.
Especially when you would be explicitly looking for transchildren: they will show up in both questions with "Always" or at least "A lot".
To be clear: The TRAILS survey was not about transchildren. They did see them, and they interestingly enough adhered pretty precise to the statistical amount the VU Medical Centre sees as well: about 1 in 1250 children that participated in TRAILS showed up as trans. The VUmC states that 1 in about 1000 children is trans.
Sarah Burke however, also wasn't looking for transchildren: even worse, her paper sought a group to compare the results of TRAILS with by picking children from a pediatric-psychiatry ward.
If she were to have used this group of children to merely lay them next to the TRAILS group, that would not have been much of a problem.
After all, it could be interesting to see if the results match up and you'd witness a group of children that mentally is struggling severely without seeking help, which would give strong pointers to increase mental health awareness programs.
But that's not what Burke did. She used the TRAILS information and her control group to say something about transchildren.
11% of respondents at 11 years of age responded with "Sometimes" to the question mentioned earlier. If you were to display that group as "100% of children identifying as trans at some point in their life", the 4% that only did so at 26 years of age would mean a reduction of 64%.
Again, the TRAILS research, nor Burke's explicitly looked at transchildren. Burke however stated that "many children with psychological problems experience gender distress and it is common, but it disappears later in life."
Further adding to the "It's a phase, it'll pass, we shouldn't treat them!" rhetoric that Dutch politicians have been using for a couple of years now.
Politicians who were quick to heavily abuse the shit out of Burke's paper as a "See!!"-type of evidence.
They are basing legislation against transchildren and trans-adults on research that is not about transchildren.
Even worse, Burke apparently tried to pathologize the trans-identity by explicitly going for children from a pediatric-psychology ward. Not exactly the neutral control group that you should use if you were to compare groups.
It seems to have been meant as a new way to delegitimize the existence of transchildren, and stigmatize them by stating that they obviously have so much else going on mentally that a transition is absolutely not the right thing to do, denying that gender dysphoria can exist next to other forms of mental distress, and that dysphoria can heavily fuel those other problems.
But the absolute worst comes when you find out that Burke works at the University Medical Center Groningen. A hospital with an actual gender clinic.
If you then look at her paper and her remark:
"many children with psychological problems experience gender distress and it is common, but it disappears later in life."
You'll notice something off: TRAILS and her paper used "sex" in the question, NOT gender. For a neuropsychologist, I consider that to be a blunder like nothing else. She should know the difference, instead of feeding into an anti-trans narrative with bad research.
Erin posted about this research by the way:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/fact-check-no-a-new-study-does-not
I used it as an example in a presentation I gave at work (newsmedia company) about the transphobia in media and politics. A big news broadcaster uncritically posted about the piece, also mistaking gender with sex.
"Rice basically was saying it is a mental condition (without saying it)"
I'm pretty sure they said it once or twice.
I think I spotted it now, Rice talks about a "girl who has psychological distress with her body."
You comment is accurate in my interpretation as well.
While I suppose it’s good to inject a bit of optimism in this, as a matter of reality I feel like this case was already decided before the first arguments were even heard. In fact, given the current composition of the court, bringing the case before SCOTUS may end up doing more harm than good. The justices will very likely uphold the Tennessee ban 5-4 or 6-3, thus returning the issue to the states. By itself that wouldn’t be the worst possible outcome, since GAC would still be available in the blue states. The problem is that such a ruling would embolden the Trump administration to try to ban GAC nationwide - adults as well as minors. That would set up a classic feds. vs states rights clash, as GAC access is written into the constitutions of several blue states.
Our class under protection of the 14th amendment is my greatest fear, so awful as everything else is already. They seemed to continually drive home that they were skeptical we should be considered a clas. If they rule we don't have equal protection, it opens the floodgates to everything.
To people saying this case is already decided, I think I would have agreed with you before hearing oral arguments. After listening to it all though, I think it's fair to say that this case is a massive toss-up. Gorsuch said nothing, Kavanaugh played the middle, Barrett "learned something" I guess, and the rest did what we expected them to do. I'm not optimistic in this case, and frankly I don't think it's going to matter to the Trump administration either way it goes, but I do get the feeling we're looking at a 50/50 toss here.
Which... 50/50 on human rights and minors suffering and dying is INDEFENSIBLE, but here we are.
While I’d like to agree with you, I think we should consider the intense right-wing propaganda that all of society - naturally including the justices - have been exposed to since 2020, the year of the Bostock decision. In fact, the influence of right wing media and groups like ADF has been so intense that, sadly, I doubt whether a Bostock-like decision is even possible in 2025. Two decades or so ago, who would’ve ever thought that a medical condition affecting <1% of the population would’ve ever become so intensely politicized?
That's why every single trans person and family member of a trans person needs to be writing letters to the court, telling the justices how HRT saved their lives. We have for far too long left the propaganda unanswered, and now we need to flood them with OUR truth. The truth of our lived experiences. The truth that HRT kept us (or our loved ones) from suicide. I know Thomas and Alito won't listen, but I think Gorsuch, Barrett, and MAYBE even Kavanaugh might at least listen some if we really made ourselves unsilenceable. It may not succeed, but it's worth the paper and postage to try!
I agree with your thoughts about Gorsuch and Barrett.
Ugh. Just reading about this case stresses me out so badly I want to puke. I wish I had real hope.
Let’s say I’m an extremely happily masculine person assigned female, who only wears clothes found in the “men’s” department-then- you can bet your last silver dollar I’ll be defending every feminine assigned male to wear exclusively clothing found in the “women’s” department.
However, when I think about it, it really makes no difference what clothing you or I like to wear, because you, or I wouldn’t want a government bureaucracy telling you what color clothing or what style of clothing you must wear.
I don’t care how anyone chooses to dress. Seriously, no one has the right to select your clothing other than you. Isn’t that the ultimate freedom of expression. Constitutionally protected under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.
Imagine the government telling you how you should dress yourself in the morning… how sick.
What’s fair is fair. That’s what equality under the laws is supposed to be.
I wish there were any cause for optimism. I just don’t see it with this bench.
At least 4 of the justices - including Coney Barrett - have had paid gigs from Alluance defending Freedom. AdF is the ghost writer of most of these bills.
The depth and breadth of that woman's ignorance never ceases to amaze. To think that someone possessed of so little knowledge, and even less ambition to learn more, holds so many lives in her hands...
I mean, let's be real here- this is shit she should've been reading up on before sitting down to hear the case. Hell, she didn't even have to do the research herself; she has staff for that! And yet, she seems to have spent the entire session just trying to wrap her two and a half functioning brain cells around something that anyone with even a scrap of curiosity could've found out in the time it took to type "legal discrimination against transgender people in the United States" into Google and hit "enter." This isn't rocket science- this isn't even 𝘣𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘢 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰 science. We all knew she was a dunce when she fumbled that softball about the First Amendment during her confirmation hearing, but... 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬, she's stupid. Is it worse to be killed by malice, or ignorance? What a silly thing to ask- with Justices like Coney-Barrett, we can have 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩!
*𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥-𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘬*
Are we to understand that there were no amicus briefs, or that she didn't bother to reads the amicus briefs?
Why would she bother to read the briefs before a case, when she didn't bother to read the 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 before she was appointed in the first place?
Alito cited Cass, which has been ripped to shreds by esteemed scholars and physicians from Yale and Harvard and by other experts, notwithstanding that cis youth can receive puberty blockers to treat a variety of medical conditions. The country needs to understand through clear stories that giving an approved medication for cis youth and not trans youth is deplorable discrimination.
I’m surprisingly, and maybe naively, thinking it’s possible the ban won’t be upheld. I actually found Kavanaughs realization of the fact that yes being wrong and a person later “detransitioning” is harm but so is not doing anything (ie not undergoing gender affirming care). I know it’s a longshot but I wonder if this will lead to what many of us know is true is that these are medical-ethical decisions that ought to be decided between child, parent, and medical team.
Thanks, Erin. This was a great update for me.
If Gorsuch sides with liberals then Barrett should be the swing vote.
It's a good sign about Barrett becoming educated and at least considering de jure discrimination against trans people as a protected class. She's a wild card. Very interesting that Gorsuch said nothing. I guess he didn't want to put his unconscious on display. Anyway ... Serious question, aren't bathroom bans and sports bans also de jure discrimination against trans people.
At least a trans person was speaking in the room for this seminal hearing. Unlike in the UK where our Supreme Court flatly refused to permit amply qualified trans people leave to intervene. I still expect a 5:4 or 6:3 supporting the Tennessee ban but at least in the USA, the trans side hasn't been made to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
SCOTUS is also charged with being the court of last review in matters of equity. Whichever Justice is a "wild card", they can as matter of equity only rule in favor of transgender people including youth being able to receive the care which is empirically best for them -- gender affirming medical care including medial transition of apparent sex and gender.
Thank you for this, Erin.
Simply thanks Erin, giving a positive spin on this is important going into the new year, it would be all too easy to look at the negatives from yesterday and be pessimistic for six months- there’s enough of that around. Being wary is sensible but let’s try and be even headed.
Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up! Don't. Don't give up! Write the justices! Share your experiences in a professional letter. Tell them, en masse, how HRT saved your life. DON'T give up!!!