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Los Angeles Times
18-06-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Supreme Court upholds red-state laws that ban hormones for transgender teens
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that states may ban hormone treatments for transgender teens, rejecting the claim that such gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional. In a 6-3 decision, the justices said states are generally free to decide on proper standards of medical care, particularly when health experts are divided. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, writing for the court, said the state decides on medical regulations. 'We leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process,' he said. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law 'plainly discriminates on the basis of sex... By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.' Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed. The ruling upholds laws in Tennessee and 23 other Republican-led states, all of them adopted in the past four years. Tennessee lawmakers said the number of minors being diagnosed with gender dysphoria had 'exploded' in recent years, leading to a 'surge in unproven and risky medical interventions for these underage patients.' California and other Democratic-led states do not prohibit doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones for those under age 18 who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. While the court's ruling in the Tennessee case should not directly affect California's law, the Trump administration seeks to prevent the use of federal funds to pay for gender affirming care. This could affect patients who rely on Medicaid and also restrict hospitals and other medical clinics from providing hormones and other medical treatments for minors. Wednesday's decision highlights the sharp turn in the past year on trans rights and 'gender affirming' care. Solicitor Gen. Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, had appealed to the Supreme Court in November, 2023, and urged the justices to strike down the red state laws. She spoke of a broad consensus in favor of gender affirming care. It was unconstitutional, she argued, for states to ban 'evidence-based treatments supported by the overwhelming consensus of the medical community.' But Republican lawmakers voiced doubt about the long-term effect of these hormone treatments for adolescents. Their skepticism was reinforced by the Cass Report from Britain, which concluded there were not long-term studies or reliable evidence in support of the treatments. In his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order condemning 'gender ideology extremism.' He said his administration would 'recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.' His administration later said its ban on gender affirming care for minors would extend to medical facilities receiving federal funds.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The real scandal in Alabama's transgender youth care ban
A person holds a flag symbolizing transgender individuals. Attorneys for transgender young people and families and the state of Alabama recently agreed to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on gender-affirming medical care. () This much we know: Alabama's gender-affirming care ban will be law for the foreseeable future. Attorneys for transgender young people and their families sued to overturn it. But after a three-year battle, the plaintiffs and the state moved to dismiss the lawsuit. The attorneys for the families said their clients had 'to make heart-wrenching decisions that no family should ever have to make, and they are each making the decisions that are right for them.' To be sure, the broader legal landscape looks threatening. The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to uphold a similar ban on gender-affirming care in Tennessee. One can hardly blame parents for giving up on an unjust legal system. But Alabama's attorney general wants you to think there's something far worse going on. Shortly after the dismissal, Steve Marshall claimed to have uncovered a 'medical, legal, and political scandal that will be studied for decades.' OK. What it is it? 'Key medical organizations misled parents, promoted unproven treatments as settled science and ignored growing international concern over the use of sex-change procedures to treat gender dysphoria in minors,' the statement said. This is not evidence. It's not even anything new from the attorney general's office. They have been making this argument in federal court for three years. And doing a terrible job with it. During a hearing in 2022, the attorney general's office called witnesses who had never worked with transgender children but harbored strong opinions about how to treat them. When the families called experts and medical professionals who knew something about gender dysphoria, state attorneys struggled to counter their arguments. U.S. District Judge Liles C. Burke, a Trump appointee, soon blocked the law's ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender youth. But the partisan hacks above Burke tilted the table toward the state and away from common decency. U.S. Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa lowered the standard of review in the case to pretend the state's witnesses were as knowledgeable as the plaintiffs', mocking the word 'expertise.' And empowering Marshall to make some questionable assertions. European countries have reconsidered standards of care for transgender youth. But almost none of them have banned gender-affirming care outright like Alabama has. The NHS in England last year ended new prescriptions for puberty blockers following the release of the Cass Report, which has come under sharp attack from experts. But unlike Alabama, the NHS allowed children receiving puberty blockers to stay on them. A law formalizing the ban in the country never passed. Health care organizations condemned the NHS' decision. Because the 'unproven treatments' statement is misleading. Two dozen medical organizations endorse gender-affirming care as safe and effective, and it has a high satisfaction rate among patients. 'Certainly, the science is quickly evolving and will likely continue to do so,' Burke wrote in his May 2022 opinion. 'But this is true of almost every medical treatment regimen. Risk alone does not make a medication experimental.' That leaves us with 'key medical organizations misled patients.' Step back to the 2022 hearing on the law. Medical providers who work with transgender children testified under oath about the many steps in evaluating gender dysphoria. There are several rounds of counseling with parents and children before medication is even considered. Some kids may not need medical intervention. Some do, which triggers further rounds of evaluation. Treatment exists on a spectrum. And doctors discuss risks with families. 'They are not 100% guaranteed to happen,' Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, formerly of UAB, told the court in 2022. 'That has to be weighed with the entire team around the gravity of that person's gender dysphoria.' Doctors testified under oath that they give families the most complete pictures of treatment they can. If Marshall has evidence that they misled these families, he should enter it into the court record as these professionals did. As of this writing, he has not. Which suggests how flimsy the state's case is. The problem here isn't parents protecting their children from assault by the state of Alabama. It's the state terrorizing a small and vulnerable group of young people. They banned them from playing sports. They cut off their health care. Every act aims to drive them out of the public sphere. And our leaders seem fine with the destruction they're leaving behind. So we will have to live with the ban for now. But transgender people will still be here when the authors of these laws are gone. Eventually the ban will fall like any other attempt to restrain reality. Yet how many children will suffer before that day? How many Alabama families will have to uproot and build new lives outside the state to get this critical care to their loved ones? And when families can't, how many tragedies will result? That's the scandal. And it's the politicians, not the doctors, who bear the blame. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Sky News AU
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
The paradox that sunk the radical transgender agenda as its core ideology is 'invalidated' by landmark UK Supreme Court ruling
After the multi-generational narratives of women's liberation and the civil right movement and then homosexual recognitions and law reforms, trans rights is the first such major narrative of social liberation to not just come to an abrupt halt - but to have its ideological aims and core beliefs be invalidated. Trans ideology has been institutionally and culturally discredited in a stunningly brief span of time, and across all relevant spheres - medically and psychologically by last year's momentous Cass Report in the UK, by elite sporting bodies such as FINA, and last week by the UK Supreme Court, which decided unanimously that the definition of a woman is limited to biological sex. Trans activism has lost its footing so badly, because it hasn't been able to fight the battle it wanted. Its ideal and envisaged opponent was reactionary conservatives - ideally meanspirited and coarse online, and ideally framed as struggling to cope with wider anxieties about societal change. That was the ideal opponent - one that could be written off as being on the wrong side of history, as one whose ignorance could be abided through. But that hasn't been the main opponent. Trans activism's biggest foe has been institutional - and for the most part, the kind of institutions progressives usually extol - the highly educated, informed and experienced academic and pedagogical veterans, professionals with gravitas, consciously above politics and with impeccable credentials, lauded by their peers at the highest levels of law, medicine and academia. Core elements of progressivism, in spirit at least - rationalism, empiricism, methodologies and applied reason - these were supposed to be the underpinning of trans-activism. Instead, the movement has been blindsided by these institutions pronouncing against trans activism, leaving the activists looking guilty of the things they tend to rail against - demagoguery and inflexible radicalism. It's difficult to fend off reactionary trolls and empiricist peers with OBE and FRCN after their surname at the same time. After the US Supreme Court's Obergefell decision making gay marriage legal at the federal level, it seemed like the trans communities' empowered integration would be a kind of minor addendum, that trans people would benefit from many of the national recognitions and protections, we would be largely done of the culture wars over sexual identity and rights, and that would more or less be that. Many will argue that those trans people entering into women's private spaces, or competing in women's sports, represent such a miniscule proportion of the population, that it is practically negligible and doesn't impact on the overwhelming majority of people's lives. But the issue became one of absolutism - a strident approach of not ceding any ground ideologically, with this extending to scenarios that just didn't seem to hold up - the housing of biological men in women's wings of prisons, the notion that someone only needed to perceive themselves as the opposite gender, without any impetus or interest in any form of tangible transition, and being granted, or expecting a whole range of rights of access. The trans movement devised for the vast generality terms like 'cisgender' or 'male presenting', and someone, rather than simply being of the generality, might now be referred to as 'cis', or 'cis-het'. Health services had to alter their language invoking specious constructions such as 'chest feeding' or 'people who menstruate'. Activists abstracted gender from sex, leading to a cultural mess of relativism and inevitable antagonisms. But just as swiftly, things changed. In 2022, Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job at a think tank after tweeting that a transgender woman could not change their biological sex, successfully brought a test case to establish that gender critical views are a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act. She won a landmark decision on appeal. Ms Forstater also successfully won a claim that she was discriminated against because of her gender critical beliefs. In mid-2022, world swimming governing body FINA effectively banned transgender women from competing in woman's events. Then, The Atlantic ran a comprehensive piece entitled: 'Take detransitioners seriously'. Then came the BBC Tavistock inquiry: the Tavistock clinic's gender identity development service for children kids shut its doors in 2023, having been the subject of increasing scrutiny, with a BBC inquiry prompting an investigation into the Tavistock by the NHS regulator. Then there was the attempted boycott of the Hogwarts Legacy video game, set in the world of Harry Potter. Activists would not abide an outspoken critic of trans ideology like JK Rowling benefiting financially and coordinated to criticise Twitch streamers and reviewers who affirmed the game. But Hogwarts Legacy was a smash commercial success, and the activists turned out to lack much clout. And then, overnight, the discourse emphatically changed. The long-awaited Cass review into NHS gender services for children warned that teenagers are falling off a cliff edge when it comes to care. The review's final report said children have been let down by a lack of research and evidence on medical interventions and gender care. The report said that for most young people a medical pathway is not the best way to manage their gender related distress. The Cass Report, a sweeping professional investigation headed by Hillary Cass, a retired paediatrician and former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and child health, found considerable uncertainty around gender ideology. The report looked at gender identity services for under-18s and NHS England but found gender medicine to be operating on 'shaky foundations' when it came to the evidence for medical treatment, like prescribing hormones to pause puberty, or to transition to the opposite sex, and the ability of young people to comprehend the scale and implications of their decisions. The findings appeared to refute the model known as gender affirming care, where a presenting child's gender identity is accepted by clinicians without question. In the aftermath of the UK Supreme Court's decision, J. K Rowling is looking, to plenty of ordinary people, like she might have been right about the gist of the issue. It has become somewhat socially permissible to contest elements of trans ideology. People are generally accepting of trans individuals who, past the age of 18, have transitioned and are living a fulfilling life. They might even count one or two such people as friends or co-workers. However, the broad generality will still take their cues from institutional bodies headed by professionals with a wealth of experience in their fields. Most of these venerable institutions still acknowledge the evidence, both scientific and historical, that the spectrum of human gender diversity has long existed in many parts of the world. And it is of course common decency to live-and-let-live when it comes to people reaching the age when they can define their own destiny. The issue isn't personal freedom and choices, it has been the strident ideology that has impinged too much upon other people's freedoms and choices. The pushback - the corrective - has been institutional. And it has left trans ideology with little to say, and little sense of what to do. Nicholas Sheppard is an accomplished journalist whose work has been featured in The Spectator, The NZ Herald and Politico. He is also a published literary author and public relations consultant
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The U.K. Supreme Court dealt a blow to trans rights — but we're here to stay
On Wednesday morning, my social feeds showed me two stark reactions to a historic rolling back of trans rights in the United Kingdom. J.K. Rowling, author of the 'Harry Potter' series and notorious anti-trans advocate, posted a photo of herself smoking a cigar and holding a glass of wine on her yacht. 'I love it when a plan comes together,' the caption reads. The photo struck a sharp contrast to what I saw from my trans friends in the U.K., many of whom posted about being terrified of their own government and wishing to flee the country. That's because the 'plan' Rowling was referencing was a U.K. Supreme Court judgment that ruled trans women should not be considered women, essentially wiping out decades of civil rights advances for British transgender people. The judges heard from representatives of numerous anti-trans special interest groups, but no trans people or trans rights groups provided testimony, in part because individuals and organizations that fund and support trans rights thought they would not be believed and feared negative repercussions. The exclusion of trans voices in the case matches what happened with the Cass Report, a document commissioned by the U.K. National Health Service purporting to investigate youth gender medicine, from last April, in which experts in trans health care were similarly disregarded. There's also a significant financial component, with Rowling reportedly donating £70,000 to For Scotland Women, the organization that brought the original suit. The ruling comes in the same week HBO announced the initial casting for its upcoming 'Harry Potter' series, featuring John Lithgow as Dumbledore. Lithgow's career got a serious boost in the early 1980s after he was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for playing the trans woman character Roberta Muldoon in 'The World According to Garp.' Now, he's working on a project that could indirectly financially contribute to the marginalization of trans people in the U.K., should Rowling, who is an executive producer on the project and will earn royalties from the show, choose to contribute more of her earnings to anti-trans projects. The ruling was another setback for trans rights in a year of particularly notable backtracking around the world. In the U.S., the federal government has been largely successful in purging trans people from the military, trans-related ideas and even words ascribed to trans people from government usage. Trans people in America are now unable to get accurate passports, and the Trump administration recently announced it would be cutting federal education funding from the state of Maine because the state refuses to ban two trans girls from playing girls high school sports in the state. There is thankfully still some protection for those who live in more trans-friendly blue states, so the rights you have as a trans person depend largely on where, geographically, you live within the country. For trans folks in the U.K., Wednesday's ruling will no doubt signal that the anti-trans lobby groups that currently have the ear of the Labour government in power can push even further. Though the court ruling didn't expressly extend into specific policies, we will likely see a push to formalize policies like bathroom bans. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has taken the lead on rolling back access to transition care in the National Health Service. He responded to the now widely denounced Cass Report by instituting a ban on puberty blockers for all trans youth in the country and has directed general providers to withhold transition care like hormones for adults in order to push them into the country's gender clinic system, which comes with a sometimes decadelong waiting time. Sitting here as a trans person in the U.S. and watching what's happening both here and across the pond, it's difficult for me to say which country has it worse right now. Both countries have billionaire patron saints of the anti-trans movement, with Elon Musk in the U.S. and Rowling in the U.K., with no real financial counterweight on the trans rights side. But both countries are also full of talented, funny, wonderful trans people who simply want to live their lives without the government fumbling around in our underpants all the time. Here in the U.S. we get millions of dollars in political attack ads and conservative anti-trans activist like Riley Gaines launching a lucrative activist career after finishing tied for fifth with controversial trans swimmer Lia Thomas in a collegiate swim meet. But the U.S. also has folks like Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who rather famously told Trump 'see you in court' to his face when he asked her if her state would comply with his executive order banning trans girls from girls' school sports. In the U.S., we at least have some Democratic leaders willing to stand up for us, like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. This ruling may have been a significant setback, but there is still nothing that can stop us from simply existing as trans people. The world has always had trans people, and always will. The J.K. Rowlings of the world come and go, but trans people are eternal, and that feels like a very comforting thought here in the eye of the storm in 2025. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
This is the year of JK Rowling's triumph and it is such a joy to watch
By 2018, when the trans movement hotted up, J K Rowling was already used to unbelievable levels of abuse and threat for the crime of believing in the primacy of biological sex over social declarations of gender – and for liking the tweets of others who shared this view. She later gave her support to Maya Forstater, a researcher who had been sacked for posting her belief that someone cannot change biological sex. Writing on her website, Rowling wrote: 'I knew perfectly well what was going to happen when I supported Maya. I must have been on my fourth or fifth cancellation by then. I expected the threats of violence, to be told I was literally killing trans people with my hate, to be called c--- and b---- and, of course, for my books to be burned, although one particularly abusive man told me he'd composted them.' Since then, Rowling has endured many more threats and insults. She is the queen 'Terf' (trans exclusionary radical feminist) – the insult the trans lobby coined for people who don't accept that men can be women just by saying so. (Terf has become a badge of pride among those with the label; and Britain, for a time, was known among fans as Terf Island). As the mass drubbing in public really took off after 2020, she found that even the young actors whose careers she made – the stars of the Harry Potter franchise – had turned against her,coming out with sanctimonious statements about how 'trans women are women' and how 'Jo' had got it wrong. Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the films, sniped that trans people 'are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned'. Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter himself, said that he was 'really sad' at the rupture caused by Rowling's stance. Eddie Redmayne – who starred in Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts – was the most sanctimonious. 'I disagree with Jo's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid.' But the great Rowling has won: she bravely hoisted the mad world on her shoulders and shifted it to saner ground. The Cass Report drew a line in the sand about puberty-blockers and the clinics that prescribe them: they are no longer routinely offered in Britain. And as the hailstorm of adolescent girls transitioning to boys and seeking body-altering surgery to that effect has slowed, some of them are 'detransitioning', realising that their apparent gender dysphoria was more to do with other issues from undiagnosed autism to lesbianism. In the US, the new administration has declared war on the trans lobby. Without her bravery in speaking the truth bluntly, to politicians, Twitter terrorists and journalists – as well as that of her coterie of close friends, including the Telegraph writers Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore – the right of biological women to spaces reserved for them would never have been recaptured. Biological men can no longer compete in most women's sport. Most people would have surrendered to the sustained assault on their mental health and basic safety. But she endured. In refusing to kowtow to the trans lobby, she has made it OK, and less dangerous, to say true things of vital importance. And now, despite the original cast's intolerable ingratitude, despite a whole generation of trans activists pretending she is the devil incarnate, there is now a new Harry Potter series – made for HBO this time – scheduled to hit screens in 2027 and set to air over the course of a decade. More than 31,000 children sent in audition tapes. It wasn't quite the case that she was ostracised. Rowling has written about the outpouring of letters from people who were grateful to her for speaking up about what they also recognised was a terrifying and pervasive trend: the denial of women's sex-based rights, and all that that entailed. It meant allowing self-identifying 'women' into women's changing rooms, prisons, and hospital wards. Rosie Duffield, the Canterbury MP who quit Labour in part over its stance on trans rights, was and is one of Rowling's most steadfast supporters. And there's her tight knit buddies – Bindel, Moore, also ex-Sussex philosophy professor Kathleen Stock and Maya Forstater – known to the world after they posted pictures of themselves having a Terf-themed lunch at the River Cafe in 2022. Their loyalty to Rowling is legendary: all are tight-lipped about the friendship. But it's obvious from her sauciness that 'Jo' is good fun. I enjoyed her response to the prospect of a two-year jail term for misgendering a trans person, imagined under the (then) forthcoming Labour government. 'Bring on the court case, I say. It'll be more fun than I've ever had on a red carpet.' As for her preferred prison job: 'Hoping for the library, obviously, but I think I could do OK in the kitchens. Laundry might be a problem. I have a tendency to shrink stuff/turn it pink accidentally. Guessing that won't be a major issue if it's mostly scrubs and sheets, though.' The Harry Potter books came out while I was an undergraduate, and a recent attempt to read one backfired: I hated it. No matter: Rowling is one of the greats, whether you think it's for her world of wizards, or the way she forced a bit of sanity back on a culture that is distinctly short on it. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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