Outcry of Demons - Part I
Exposing the opponents of Tennessee's SB1
“What you’re hearing is the outcry from the demons and those that worship evil that are abusing our children, brainwashing our children to believe the lie that comes directly from Satan,” intoned Congressmen Marjorie Taylor Green at a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, referring to the hordes of protestors who had gathered in support of so-called gender affirming care. Regardless of how you feel about the notorious MTG, I think she’s on to something.
In December, the court heard oral arguments to determine whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1 violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. The bill prohibits all medical treatments intended to help “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity”.
A recent guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast made an observation which I feel applies here: while many people today don’t believe in demons, there are human actions so evil that it feels spiritually true to call them demonic. The Holocaust, child trafficking, mass shootings of school-aged children — and now this.
On its face, the situation is so patently, obviously evil, that it’s shocking there’s even debate around it. Children as young as 11 are given drugs to stop their puberty in its tracks. Once this natural and extremely necessary biological process is artificially held at bay, they’re given cross-sex hormones in a maniacal attempt to trick their bodies into evolving into the opposite sex. Finally, surgeries that would frankly make Josef Mengele blush are performed on minors or very young adults. These include breast amputation, castration, the shaving down of bones, inverting the penis inside itself, slicing off chunks of flesh and rolling them up into faux phalluses — all in a vain attempt to form some vague simulacrum of the opposite sex. Consequences of these “treatments” include incontinence, impaired sex drive, sterility, inability to breastfeed, bone marrow density loss, osteoporosis, cognitive impairment, mood disorders, increased suicidality, and increased risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, blood clots, and cancer. All before the child can legally cast his or her vote. If that isn’t demonic, I don’t know what is.
Child transitions came about because men make very ugly, unconvincing women. In their brief amicus curiae in support of neither party, Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (SEGM) argues that “gender transition of children was initiated because of the disappointing outcomes in transitioned adults.” Pretending a 6 '0 tall, big-handed and hipless wonder in a dress and cheap lipstick is actually a dainty woman is not psychologically sustainable. If these men are to be taken seriously in society, they need to be able to pass as women. The only way to achieve this is to begin the transition process before the onset of male puberty. This doesn’t actually make them women of course, but it makes deception much easier. Once again, children have become the unconsenting subjects of adult social experiments, while autogynephilic men get their way and even get to play victim in the process.
A woman trapped inside a man’s body is an absurd thing no doubt, but if they can make you believe that, then they can get you to commit atrocities like child sexual mutilation. As the SEGM’s brief also points out, the youth gender pipeline marks a stunning departure from normal medical orthodoxy, in which the efficacy of experimental treatments are well established in adult patients before being tested on children. In this case, adult gender treatments proved at best inconclusive and at worst actively detrimental to patients’ health — yet this experiment was conducted on children anway.
It’s also worth noting that if you tell children they can change their sex, they tend to believe you. They will pursue every available medical pathway that seems to offer an end to the very real distress they’re experiencing. In this way, doctors, parents, and activists have set these children up for failure, knowingly setting them out on a wild goose chase for opposite sexed bodies that will never come to fruition. In reality, by the time these kids grow up and figure out the truth, it will be too late to reverse most of the medicalization they’ve undergone.
So, who are the demons jeering outside the capital? And more importantly, who are the demons inside the fortress walls? These are creatures of a higher caliber of evil, not merely going along with the crowd or passively supporting something for fear of being labeled a bigot, but those who have made every effort to enshrine evil into law. While the groups and individuals arguing in support of the gender-affirming care ban are no doubt admirable and deserving of all the praise in the world, they won’t be my focus today. Instead, I want to spotlight their opposition. Even though chances of the Supreme Court upholding the ban are good, I still think it’s vitally important that we call out and remember who asked for this. I believe that they will be on the “wrong side of history,” as they like to call it, sooner rather than later.
This article aims to break down the amicus briefs filed on the opposing side of the case and expose their authors. Many of them hide behind compassion and empathy, others behind reputable organizations and credentials. All of them are frauds. Because as we’ll see, there’s a devil hidden behind every smile.
Disclaimer: Since the amicus briefs filed in this case are so numerous, I’ve split them into two parts. Part I contains the first 17 briefs, and Part II will contain the last 17. In each entry, I’ve typed out the full list of amici and their counsel in order to expose and unmask them by name, ensuring that no one involved in this can ever escape responsibility or association. That’s not to say that people cannot change their minds or learn from past mistakes, only that they must acknowledge the error of their ways and the harm they’ve caused first.
The Briefs
The counsel of record on the side of child mutilation is the ACLU’s Chase B. Strangio (nominal determinism strikes again), a trans-identifying woman and lawyer with a questionable past. Thanks to this case, she’s also the first trans-identifying person to make oral arguments before the Supreme Court. She takes so much pride in this you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s her sole motivation.
Strangio grew up in a Jewish family outside of Boston. After college, she worked as a paralegal for GLAAD, who have backed drag queen story hours and trans-identifying men playing in women’s sports. Strangio then attended law school at Northeastern University where she announced her trans identity. Despite not actualizing her cross-sex identity until well into adulthood, Strangio still insists that young children can consent to irreversible hormones and surgeries, and understand the permanence of all transitioning entails.
Confusingly, Strangio has claimed that children as young as two can express a trans identity, yet admits that it’s the children’s parents who ultimately consent to treatment. “It’s not the kids who are consenting to this treatment. It’s the parents who are consenting to the treatment,” she said in an interview.
After law school, Strangio worked as a public defender for Dean Spade, a trans-identifying female lawyer who founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. The SRLP is a law collective offering free legal services for trans-identifying individuals, including helping inmates legally change their sex markers on identification documents. The organization counts among its contributors Layla Le Fey, a trans-identifying man who has threatened to beat, kill, and set fire to the homes of multiple women’s rights activists.
In 2013, Strangio began working for the ACLU, where she served as lead counsel for Chelsea Manning (nominal determinism once again) and worked on G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board to ensure a young trans-identifying girl access to the boys’ restroom. While much has been said about the threat of allowing men and boys into women’s restrooms, I believe the threat runs both ways, and that allowing young girls to use the boys’ bathroom would place them in equally vulnerable, potentially dangerous situations.
In 2019, Strangio helped represent Aimee Stephens, the trans-identifying, likely AGP man fired from his job at a funeral home for dressing like a woman. The court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects trans-identifying people from employment discrimination, a decision which made it impossible to fire obviously AGP or otherwise mentally disturbed and sexually motivated individuals by making gender confusion and sexual fetishism a protected characteristic.
More recently, the ACLU has made headlines by helping violent male offenders win transfers to women’s prisons and receive so-called gender affirming care behind bars, including an inmate responsible for the murder of an 11-month old baby girl.
Strangio also contributed to an infographic by the Women & Justice Project titled “The Incarceration of Trans, Non-binary & Gender Expansive People”, which features trans-identifying child rapist Xena Grandichelli as a “trans activist and community organizer”.
Grandichelli has also contributed to the aforementioned Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and has written on the organization’s active bid to recruit him while he was incarcerated for child sexual abuse. It just goes to show that if someone has any amount of trans activism in their past, a link to violent, sexually depraved men masquerading as women can almost always be found. The rot runs right under the surface.
In 2020, Strangio came under fire for calling for the censorship of Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage, an exposé of the gender industry and the recent explosion in teen girl transition.
Trans activists are infamous for banning ideas they don’t like, and Strangio is no exception.
Additional counsel for this first brief includes Patrick Shah, Martine Cicconi, Dean Chapman, T. James Salwen, Joshua Block, James Essek’s, Rita Tabacco Mar, Louise Melling, Struti Swaminathan, Zach ZhenHe Tan, Sasha Buchert, Jennifer Pfizer, Camilla Taylor, Karen Loewy, Tara Borelli, David Cole, Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, and Stella Yarbrough.
Brief amici curiae of Legal Scholars, et al. filed.
Next up is a brief filed by a group of “legal scholars” alongside the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). The NWLC, while purporting to fight for women’s rights, actively undermines them by advocating for men in women’s sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms. In a blog post, the organization attempts to “debunk” the “lie” that “trans women” (men) have an advantage over women in sports, writing, “The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) unequivocally supports the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports. And if you call yourself a feminist, you should too.” I’m not a feminist, but even I’m offended by that.
Now, the NWLC continues its fight to undermine the rights of women and girls by submitting a brief arguing against a so-called gender affirming care ban and advocating for the systematic mutilation and sterilization of young girls by the gender industry.
I’m sure it’s only a coincidence that the NWLC receives funding from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), among other pharmaceutical organizations. PhRMA lobbies on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, which makes big money off the backs of trans-identifying patients, especially those roped in at an early age. From puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones to costly procedures, trans identification creates lifelong medical patients and cash cows for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s no wonder PhRMA is funneling money into organizations advocating against a gender affirming care ban — that would be terrible for their pocketbooks.
The “legal scholars” who filed the brief in conjunction with the NWLC include Brittany C. Armour, Alexander Tablan, Catherine E. Stetson, Kenneth Y. Choe, Caroline Farrington, Xochitl Halaby, and Jason A. Mills. Each is employed by the law firm Hogan Lovells, the sixth largest in the world. Hogan Lovells is also among the largest lobbying firms in the country.
In 2024, the firm published a 20 page “Pride+ LGBT+ Ally Guide” instructing readers on terminology such as “transgender women” and “deadnaming”, and encouraging “Pro Bono and advocacy support for LGBT+ equality”.
In 2019, Hogan Lovells made the list of America's Top Trusted Corporate Law Firms in Forbes. For a law firm now actively lobbying to enshrine the medical experimentation of young children into law, this is ironic.
Brief amici curiae of American Academy of Pediatrics, et al. filed.
Next up is a brief submitted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, co-signed by around 20 other major medical associations. When activist organizations like GLAAD claim that “every major medical association” supports gender affirming care, this is usually the list of cowards they’re referring to.
These professionals have abandoned all semblance of medical ethics and professional standards to bend the knee to transgender orthodoxy – often against the protestations of colleagues with legitimate concerns and, increasingly, the evidence. As reported in the NY Sun, the AAP has faced internal opposition to its staunch defense of pediatric gender-affirming care since at least 2016. Members of this small but determined faction have criticized the AAP for failing to commission a formal review of the evidence of pediatric transgender treatments, especially as other high-profile investigations like the Cass Report found the evidence lacking, to say the least.
The AAP has also faced its own legal challenges in recent years, as former transitioners slowly begin to wake up to the reality of what was done to them. At just 14 years old, Isabelle Ayala showed up to a Rhode Island gender clinic, claiming to be a boy. Ayala had a history of sexual abuse, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and chronic suicidality – yet none of these issues were considered or even addressed during treatment. Her mother insists that Ayala never showed signs of a cross-sex identity until adolescence and that her daughter learned about transgender identity online – symptoms typical of many young, female transitioners which fit the criteria of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria perfectly.
The doctors named in the suit, Jason Rafferty and Michelle Forcier, are accused of engaging in a civil conspiracy with the AAP to develop, promote, and profit off the pediatric gender affirming care model, which the suit asserts is based on fraudulent evidence. The suit also alleges that Rafferty and Forcier threatened that Ayala would commit suicide if her mother didn’t let her take testosterone, a thoroughly debunked emotional manipulation tactic commonly levied by gender doctors.
Instead of helping a young girl heal from sexual trauma and severe mental health issues, Rafferty, Forcier, and the AAP “prioritized politics and ideology over children’s safety, health, and well-being,” according to the suit. The AAP, while once a bastion of evidence-based care, has become a purely political organization. Their motives are now only profit and politics, rather than providing the most vulnerable among us with the care they need. Trust at your peril.
Joining the AAP as amici is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), whose reputation precedes it. While the AAP was a legitimate, credible medical organization at one time, WPATH never was. Since its inception, WPATH has been driven by politics, ideology, and sexual perversion. Nowhere is this displayed more clearly than in their own internal communications, as exposed in 2024 by Michael Schellenberger in the WPATH files. Some of the worst offenses, which I summarized in an earlier piece, include failing to obtain informed consent from both children and adult patients, conducting experimental procedures like gender nullification, bigenital surgeries, and double mastectomies without nipples, and knowingly prescribing cross-sex hormones despite adverse effects such as sterility, loss of sexual function, genital atrophy, and even some forms of cancer. The organization has also cited pornographic websites in an attempt to legitimize castration as a valid sexual identity. As a dangerous and highly discredited pseudo-medical organization, WPATH’s inclusion in the brief comes at no surprise, but should also serve as the final nail in the coffin to anyone still wondering if pediatric gender affirming care can be trusted.
Counsel includes Cortlin Lannie, Counsel of Record D. Jean Vega, William R. Isais, Michael Rosenthal, and Emily Mondry.
Brief amicus curiae of NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. filed.
What do black people and trans-identifying people have to do with one another? Absolutely nothing. The former is a racial minority that has historically faced prejudice and discrimination and the other is an identity invented out of whole cloth. Yet this doesn’t stop activists from making inane comparisons between the two. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) can now be counted among them.
I was surprised to learn when researching for this piece that the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are two entirely separate organizations having nothing to do with one another. Apparently, they haven’t since 1957.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing this, however, because the LDF doesn't want you to. Since splitting from the NAACP, the LDF has continually used its trademark and name recognition to boost its own credentials and reputation, even getting sued for trademark infringement in the process.
On their website, the LDF frames LGBT and trans advocacy as a matter of “defending the rights and dignity of Black people and other historically marginalized groups,” asserting that no one deserves to be discriminated against because of their identity. This of course ignores the discrimination that occurs every day that segregates men and women into separate bathrooms, sports, locker rooms, etc., because not all discrimination is inherently evil or due to prejudice. Some things are divided for a reason, and while it never made sense to divide them along racial lines, it has always made sense to segregate according to sex, both for safety and privacy reasons.
Despite this important distinction, the LDF repeatedly lumps race and sex together, proclaiming that “extremists have centered on passing policies that harm Black and LGBTQ+ children and families.” Of course, policies “targeting” trans-identifying men actually help black people, because they protect everyone in society, including the men themselves, from sexual fetishism. Laws around trans “healthcare” for minors protect children from themselves, opportunistic or ideologue doctors, and Maunchausen-afflicted mothers.
I also found this gem on the same page describing their LGBT advocacy:
“And we have seen how hateful speech and laws intended to discriminate against marginalized communities often lead to hateful actions – including violence.”
This statement again makes obvious the link between trans activism and censorship. Saying a man is a man and a woman is a woman is not hate speech; it’s plain truth. Even if it were, “hateful speech” is protected under the first amendment. When the truth is so obvious, the only way to counter it is to label it hate speech and try to censor your opponents or label them bigots.
Previous cases the LDF has involved itself in include Adams v. St. Johns School Board, FL and the aforementioned G.G. Grimm v. Gloucester. Each centers around allowing young girls to use boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms at school. Case like these further the delusion that one can change sex, place young boys in the awkward, untenable position of going along with said delusion, and put young girls in a vulnerable and potentially dangerous situation. While this is bad enough, it pales in comparison to the LDF’s complicity in facilitating the castration, sterilization, and body mutilation of minors.
Counsel on this brief includes Janai S. Nelson, Samuel Spital, Alexsis Johnson, Avatara A. Smith-Carrington, Molly M. Cain, Kacey Mordecai, Robert Niles-Weed, Chloe Fife, Leigh Dannhauser, and Matt Tonglet.
Brief amici curiae of Williams Institute Scholars filed.
The Williams Institute is the research arm of UCLA School of Law. According to its website, it conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity in law and public policy, ensuring that “facts—not stereotypes—inform laws, policies, and judicial decisions that affect the LGBT community.” This is ironic when you consider their virulent defense of castration drugs for minors despite little to no evidence of benefits, compounded with a mountain of evidence of harm.
The Institute’s website touts the “range of disciplines” and “diversity of expertise” among its experts and researchers, failing to mention their complete lack of diversity of thought, opinion, ideology, and political affiliation.
Fascinatingly, the website also features something called the Sex Offender Registry Study, which, rather than studying compliance rates or the effectiveness of registries or perhaps highlighting the impacts registered sex offenders have on their communities, instead provides detailed information and statistics on how difficult life is for LGBT registered sex offenders. Yes, really. One report paints LGBT-identifying sex offenders as victims of discrimination in housing, employment, and in the legal system at higher rates than straight and “cis” offenders. It couldn’t possibly be because they’re sex offenders, or because many of them tend to be 52-year-old crossdressers from Hell. This is intended to invoke sympathy for offenders one-third of whom “had a victim who was under the age of 12.”
Also featured on the Williams Institute website is something called the TransPop project, which aims to “provide a more accurate and detailed look at the issues faced by transgender people” and has published reports including “Nonbinary Adults in the United States,” and “Americans Growing More Comfortable with the Idea of an LGBT President”. In case you’re wondering where all your tax dollars are going, TransPop is funded by the NIH — though, hopefully, not for long.
The “scholars” signed on to this brief include Federal Policy Director Elana Redfield, a trans-identifying man with ties to the Sylvia Rivera Project, Counsel of Record David Flugman, Special Counsel Corey Stoughton, Partner Julie Singer, and Associate Isaac Kirschner.
Brief amici curiae of California, et al. filed.
Although it only mentions California in the title, this next brief was submitted on behalf of 20 different states that permit gender treatments for minors. These states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Three of these states — California, Colorado, and Michigan — have even passed laws protecting pediatric gender treatments.
Leading this brief’s army of signatories is California Attorney General Rob Bonta. This is not Bonta’s first transgender rodeo. In September of 2023, Bonta filed a lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified School District challenging its policy requiring staff to inform parents of their children’s transgender identity. In April of 2024, Bonta fought to change the name of a similar ballot initiative from “Protect Kids of California Act” to “Restrict Rights of Transgender Youth” in an effort to sway the vote.
Bonta, along with supervising Deputy Attorney General Kathleen Boergers, also filed an amicus brief for a Florida case that would bar the use of Medicaid for transgender treatments. In 2022, Bonta and Boergers signed an amicus brief in support of youth transgender treatments for an Alabama case seeking to criminalize them, similar to Tennessee Senate Bill 1. Apparently Bonta, Boergers, and perhaps the entire state of California are obsessed with transing the kids.
Other California signatories include Nimrod (lol) Pitsker Elias, Sean McGuire, Stephanie T. Yu, Michael J. Morgan, Julie Veroff, Samuel T. Harcourt, and Alice X. Wang.
The full list of counsel includes the AGs from each of the aforementioned states: Philip J. Wiser, William Tong, Kathleen Jennings, Anne E. Lopez, Kramer Raoul, Aaron M. Frey, Andrea Joy Campbell, Anthony G. Brown, Dana Nessel, Keith Ellison, Aaron D. Ford, Matthew J. Platkin, Letitia James, Ellen F. Rosenblum, Michelle A. Henry, Peter F. Neronha, Charity R. Clark, Robert W. Ferguson, and Brian L. Schwalb.
Brief amici curiae of Equality Florida, et al. filed.
Next up is activist organization Equality Florida. Founded in 1997, the organization was originally intended to enshrine civil liberties for gay and lesbian Floridians into law, and was instrumental in challenging Florida’s gay marriage ban and overturning the state’s ban on gay adoption. However, since gay and lesbian Americans now enjoy all the same freedoms as straight ones, Equality Florida has dedicated itself to legitimizing and defending transgenderism instead of going the way of the dodo. (Many such cases.)
Equality Florida’s transgender inclusion program, TransAction Florida, has been especially involved in forcing these ideas into public life, hosting workshops with major employers and training (read:reeducating) employees in media, law enforcement, healthcare, and faith organizations on transgender issues such as preferred pronouns and how to ignore your lying eyes, that man is really a woman.
TransAction has also involved itself in public policy issues, including supporting human rights ordinances across the state of Florida. Traditionally, these ordinances protect people from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations based on characteristics like race, sex, religion, and disability. Up until very recently, “gender identity” didn’t make the list, on account of it not existing. TransAction Florida has made it their business to shoehorn it in, ensuring no employer, landlord, or any other public entity can ever kick out a creepy AGP ever again.
The organization has also pushed back on “anti-trans” legislation like the Trans Youth Sports Ban, which doesn’t actually ban trans-identified students from playing sports, but mandates that they play on the team that matches their sex, and the Trans Youth Medical Care Ban, which doesn’t actually ban healthcare for trans-identified patients, but bans risky, experimental, and irreversible procedures for minors. Now, Equality Florida has taken the fight for child castration rights even further by filing this amicus brief.
Counsel on this brief includes Jennifer L. Bryant, Wendy Q. Xiao, Jeremy P. Lewin, J. Max Rosen, and Counsel of Record Rachel G. Miller-Ziegler.
Brief amici curiae of Dr. Erica E. Anderson, PhD, et al. filed.
Next up is a brief filed by two psychologists working in the farce of “transgender healthcare”, Dr. Erica Anderson and Dr. Laura Edwards-Leeper. This one is interesting because although the amici in this case have previously expressed concerns about the affirmative care model, they object to these statements being taken out of context in support of SB1, insisting that “[t]heir experience and expertise in the field lead them to support access to appropriate gender-affirming medical care for youth with gender dysphoria and to oppose legislation, such as SB1, banning care.” The only problem with this is that there is no such thing as “appropriate” gender-affirming medical care, especially for youth. It is never appropriate to amputate a woman’s breasts because she insists she’s a man, or to castrate a man because he insists he’s a woman — doubly so for children.
If we look into each doctor’s background, we can see why they might have a vested interest in defending pediatric gender care. Each has been immersed in it from almost the very beginning, so to back out now would mean admitting the very real, irreparable harm they’ve done to their patients and the families who love them. It’s the same reason so many staunch defenders of transgender treatments, but especially the parents of “trans kids”, cling to the ideology more desperately than almost anyone. Admitting they were wrong would mean acknowledging the horrors of what they’ve done.
Erica Anderson is a trans-identified man and clinical psychologist whose private practice focuses on “children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria and gender-identity-related issues.” Although Anderson touts his experience serving on the board of WPATH and as president of USPATH (the United States affiliate of WPATH) in the brief, he fails to mention his resignation from USPATH in 2022 over the organization’s controversial Standards of Care 8.
“I got to a point in my concern that I felt I could no longer continue in good conscience to support the direction of USPATH, which I had led for the last two years,” he said in an interview with Quillette. These concerns apparently did not get in the way of citing his work at USPATH to further his credibility as an expert on pediatric gender care. However, as far as I'm concerned, Anderson can’t have it both ways. Either USPATH and WPATH are legitimate, credible bodies Anderson can point toward to assert his authority on the subject or they are not. He can’t denounce them in one breath and then use them to further his own credibility in the next. Based on his own comments, WPATH is not to be trusted.
Anderson’s concerns over USPATH’s “muzzling leaders” are far from his only public comments out of step with gender orthodoxy. In a 2023 interview, Anderson warned that using gender treatments as a bandaid for issues like depression, anxiety, or autism isn't productive, and that many kids are being blindly rushed toward medicalization. He also speculated that some kids transition due to peer influence. This is notable because Anderson also points out the same findings that Dr. Lisa Littman was so maligned for, namely that the cohort of gender distressed patients has completely flipped from pre-pubertal, feminine boys to adolescent girls with no previous signs of gender-related issues.
Despite taking note of the same troubling trends and warning signs other practitioners have blown the whistle about for years now, Anderson still chooses to defend so-called gender affirming care on an “individualized” basis. Again, my problem with this is that gender-affirming care is good for exactly no one, no matter how individualized the process, and especially not children who have no concept of the permanency of their choices.
Dr. Edwards-Leeper has a similar background. As a founding psychologist for the Gender Management Service (GeMS) at Boston Children’s Hospital, Edwards-Leeper was among the first doctors to begin feeding children into the gender meat grinder. As the brief refers to it, GeMS was the first hospital-based pediatric gender program in the US to offer puberty blockers to “appropriately screened” adolescents. But what constitutes appropriate screening for lobotomies, or voluntary amputation?
Edwards-Leeper also has ties to the WPATH, serving as chair of the Child and Adolescent Committee and revising the child and adolescent chapters of the WPATH’s controversial Standards of Care 8 (SOC8). It’s worth nothing that this particular version of the SOC eliminated all recommended age minimums for gender-related treatments.
In addition, Edwards-Leeper served as the only youth-focused member of the task force that developed the APA’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People, which admits that an “intense focus on immediate needs may create challenges in assuring that adolescents are cognitively and emotionally able to make life-altering decisions to change their name or gender marker, begin hormone therapy (which may affect fertility), or pursue surgery,” but recommends all of these interventions anyway. The Guidelines also cast any attempts to reconcile a patient with their birth sex as “unethical”, while insisting that playing into their delusions is the kinder, more “appropriate” solution. Imagine a world where schizophrenic patients are given the same treatment. (Arguably, you don’t have to.)
Like her colleague, Edwards-Leeper has also voiced her reservations over the frenetic pace of pediatric gender treatments. Both Edwards-Leeper and Anderson were interviewed by Jesse Singal for a 2018 Atlantic article in which they warned that patients were being rushed through the transition pipeline, leading to a higher percentage of detransitioners than ever before. In 2021 Edwards-Leeper appeared in a 60 Minutes segment expressing the same concerns, and later that same year, both she and Anderson co-authored a piece for the Washington Post denouncing insufficient screening for young patients receiving gender-related treatments.
[Side note but I found it funny that the source I used to find some of this information lists under its own sources an article titled Planned Parenthood is Helping Teenagers Transition After a 30 Minute Consult, yet still insists there’s nothing fishy going on here.]
Even against both doctors' own reservations about this kind of treatment, each “enthusiastically support[s] the appropriate gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.”
It almost seems as if this brief was filed in part to save face on the part of amici, as Anderson and Edwards-Leeper have both received significant pushback from the trans-identified community over their past comments, though this is pure speculation on my part.
Counsel for amici include Marie Bussey-Garza, Jason Kort, and Counsel of Record Samantha Chaifetz.
Brief amicus curiae of Constitutional Accountability Center filed.
The Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) describes itself as a “think tank and public interest law firm dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.” Where they’re getting the idea that the constitution is somehow “progressive” is beyond me. The non-profit’s misconceptions about the Constitution don’t end there, however. A brief look into their case history reveals their previous defense of affirmative action, a clear case of racial discrimination that has since been struck down by the Supreme Court, and a rejection of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act compelling Hobby Lobby to provide contraception coverage to employees despite religious convictions.
Now, the CAC is attempting to frame Tennessee SB1 as a breach of the 14th Amendment and insisting that because SB1 “classifies based on sex”, it should be subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. However, children are thrown into the gender meat grinder indiscriminately with no regard for sex whatsoever. Sex is actually entirely insignificant to treatment, as both male and female children are put on identical medical pathways of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Surgeries differ (castration for boys, breast mutilation for girls) not because of sexism — but because the patients (or more accurately, the doctors) want them that way. A so-called trans girl wants breasts added, while a so-called trans boy wants them removed, etc.
None of the characteristics outlined in the 14th amendment — race, religion, national origin, alienage, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or wedlock status at birth — make the faintest bit of difference to the child’s treatment. To the gender affirming care practitioner, the only color that matters is green. The only characteristic they care about is distress, and how to exploit it.
The counsel for the CAC includes Elizabeth Wydra, Counsel of Record Brianne Gordon, David H. Hans, and Pravin Fernandez.
Brief amici curiae of American Historical Association, et al. filed.
This next brief was filed by the American Historical Association in conjunction with the Organization of American Historians, LGBTQ+ History Association, and “Historian Scholars in support of petitioner”. What the American Historical Association has to do with transgenderism is anyone’s guess. Yet here they are anyway.
But you know who does have quite a lot to do with transgenderism? JB Pritzker. Under Counsel of Record, this brief lists Kara Ingelhart at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, which was named in Pritzker’s honor following his generous donation of $100 million. One can reasonably assume that, based on Pritzker’s transvestite brother and executive order mandating LGBT material in schools, this donation was likely an encouragement to continue pushing transgender and other progressive causes in law.
The LGBTQ+ History Association is a subsidiary of the American Historical Association and offers a wide range of LGBT-centered courses including “Black Sexualities”, “Queering Europe:Sexualities and Politics Since 1850, and “Sexual Politics: Sluts, Spinsters, and Drag Queens: Sexual Norms and Deviations”. To the untrained eye, this may appear no more than leftist academic gibberish, but to those who know better, the LGBTQ+ History Association is doing Queer Theory.
As I described in an earlier essay, Queer Theory is the unholy union between LGBT studies and cultural Marxism, an ideology which takes Marx’s formula of “oppressor ruling class” and “oppressed working class” and supplants them with “sexually normal” and “sexually abnormal”. In this framework, “cis-heteropatriarchal” society holds this oppression in place and so must be demolished by “queering” all things, or as Marx would have it, “the ruthless criticism of all that exists.” To “queer” something means to “challenge and eliminate normalcy” altogether, to erode the bounds between what is appropriate and inappropriate into oblivion. This involves collapsing categories like “man/woman”, “gender/sex”, and even “student/teacher”, or “adult/child”. It is an evil, ruthless ideology that seeks to rip away all meaningful distinctions between children and adults, which is, not by coincidence, a necessary step for selling them sex change operations and ensuring society’s compliance.
This brief was submitted by a cabal of international transvestite organizations including Stonewall Equality Limited, the Swedish Federation for LGBTI Rights, Transammans, the Norwegian Organization for Sexual and Gender Diversity, the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health(AusPATH), LGBT+ Denmark, Bundesverband Trans, the Fundación Colectivo Hombres XX, AC, and the Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa New Zealand. Since there are so many organizations listed as amici here, here’s a rapid fire round of just a few of their respective crimes:
Stonewall Equality Limited:
Lobbied to lower the age of consent for male homosexual sex and heterosexual anal sex to 16.
Shifted focus from LGB to trans issues post 2015, harming and erasing the former to benefit the latter.
Released t-shirts reading “Trans women are women, get over it!”
Former CEO Nancy Kelley backtracked on a piece titled “We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women” by claiming that those who exclude trans people from their dating pool do so because of societal prejudices.
Issued school guidance which compelled students to use “preferred pronouns”, teaches that sex is “assigned at birth”, and heavily encourages teachers to convince autistic students that they are trans.
Claimed that children can realize a trans identity at the age of two.
The Swedish Federation for LGBTI Rights:
Advocates for unfettered access to youth “gender-affirming care” without “legislation standing in the way.”
Has pushed the myth of trans suicidality when not given access to gender treatments.
Has acknowledged the suffering and prevalence of detransitioners yet pushes for gender treatments and less legal gatekeeping anyway.
AusPATH:
Is a subsidiary of WPATH, which is bad enough.
Does all of the following in its Standards of Care for “trans and gender diverse children and adolescents”:
Recommends fertility counseling and preservation for minors undergoing potentially sterilizing gender treatments “especially for those who are in the early stages of puberty who have limited understanding of reproductive biology,” thereby acknowledging inability to properly consent.
Recommends sacrificing sperm development (and therefore the child’s future ability to reproduce) in order to achieve a more feminine voice.
Acknowledges that the effect of testosterone on female fertility is unknown but recommends the treatment anyway.
Acknowledges the adverse effects of cross-sex hormones including decreased libido, decreased sperm production, and decreased muscle mass in males, and scalp hair loss, cessation of menstrual cycle, and vaginal atrophy in females yet recommends them for minors anyway.
Asserts that elective double mastectomies for 16-year-old girls “may be appropriate” in some cases.
The counsel signing off on this brief includes Eric Hawkins, Counsel of Record Andrew Davies, Charles Bridge, Anna Mizzi, and Emily Brody-Bizar.
Brief amici curiae of Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, et al. filed.
This next brief appears at first to be an admission. Why would the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF) file a brief if transgenderism weren’t a mental illness? The amici quickly clear this up in the introduction to the argument, writing that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, not trans identification. This is ironic, as many trans activists claim you don’t actually need gender dysphoria at all to be transgender. Even the amici seem to be aware of this fact, stipulating that “many” trans-identified people experience dysphoria. But if you don’t need dysphoria to be trans, and not all trans people even experience it, then how does it qualify as a disability requiring serious, irreversible medical intervention? It doesn’t add up.
Many trans activists have attempted in recent years to move away from framing trans as a medical or psychological diagnosis, claiming this results in “medical gatekeeping”. What this means in practice is that anyone gets to be trans, there is no “gatekeeping” at all, and hormones and surgeries are handed out to children like candy. DREDF seems to be playing both sides.
The brief then tries to claim that because a disproportionate amount of trans-identified people are disabled, SB1 somehow discriminates against disabled people. In reality, it doesn’t matter how many disabilities a young person has or does not have; this treatment is not appropriate for children. It’s experimental, irreversible, and has long-term consequences no child can provide proper informed consent to.
The main argument of the brief essentially boils down to: people with disabilities can and should make decisions about their own healthcare, including trans-identified people. While this is true, this principle normally applies to adult patients with disabilities, not minors. This also ignores that it’s generally the doctors and parents of these children who are making these decisions, not the child themselves.
Even when disabled minors are involved with their own healthcare decisions, none of them are as permanent or life-altering as sterilization. This is ironically underscored in the brief when amici points out that “People with disabilities have endured a long history of marginalization, stigmatization, and denial of autonomy in medical care, from the violence of state-mandated sterilization to the indifference of unnoticed barriers.” Opposing SB1 and allowing the state to inflict these treatments on children would be to co-sign the same “state-mandated sterilization” this organization is so outraged by, and rightly so. Why can’t DREDF see that they are so clearly on the wrong side of the equation this time?
The other amici on this brief include the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), and the Autistic Women & Non-binary Network (AWN). But there’s definitely no correlation between trans identification and autism.
Counsel includes Noah Brumfield, Megan Ines, Allen Overy Shearman, Justin Ormand, and Counsel of Record Claudia Center.
Brief amici curiae of Conservative Officials, Advisors, and Activists filed.
As a conservative, this next one is just embarrassing. The amici of this brief describe themselves as “Republicans and political conservatives from diverse backgrounds who have served as federal, state, and local officeholders or as senior advisors to such officials.” That anyone who calls themselves a conservative could stand for child mutilation and sterilization is beyond me. What are you even conserving if you can’t stand up for something as simple and foundational as the family?
The brief argues that if passed, SB1 would erode parental rights and interfere with the ability of fit parents to make “important childrearing decisions”. This is ironic as, in cases in which families of gender-distressed patients are not on board with medicalization, doctors and activists push to separate that child from his or her family in order to continue treatment. Additionally, no mentally “fit” or sound parent would ever agree to treatment that involves chemical castration and sterilization of their child, unless under extreme psychological manipulation and distress.
Amici argues that “[r]easonable people can disagree about what is best for kids, but the question presented here is who makes that decision: their parents or government bureaucrats?” While this is certainly true, it ignores the fact that our government has always put some limits on what is best for children, most of which amici are surely happy to comply with. Governments mandate that children receive an education and get certain vaccines, while child welfare laws require parents to provide for children’s basic needs such as food, shelter, and medical care. The government also prohibits parents and doctors alike from abusing children, which so-called gender affirming care no doubt qualifies as. It’s worth asking in what other context are children allowed to be made lab rats under the mantle of parental rights?
Finally, the brief argues that “the authority claimed by the State would provide a blueprint for States to override parents’ decisions wholesale.” Even if this were true, is it worth sacrificing vulnerable, psychologically distressed children on that altar? Secondly, SB1 seeks to prohibit a very specific and experimental set of treatment protocols. Its scope is narrow and well-defined. It does not rest on whether parents have a right to make this decision for their children or not, but on the efficacy of the treatment itself — which is sorely lacking.
And if anyone is worried about states taking away parents’ rights wholesale, then that is exactly what cases like this are for: to adjudicate where parental rights end and government intervention begins. So far, few similar challenges to parental rights have been made because they haven’t needed to be. If and when another comes up, the courts will decide them on their merits, not based on the protections SB1 is attempting to enact.
The attorneys signing off on this brief include Jesse Lempel and Counsel of Record Brian T. Burgess.
The appendix listing the full amici is as long as it is disappointing. It includes: Kim Banta, Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, 2019-Present. Nancy G. Brinker, Ambassador to Hungary, 2001- 2003, and Chief of Protocol for the United States, 2007-2008. Claudine Cmarada Schneider, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1981-1991. Rick Colby, Republican lobbyist, advocate, and father of a “transgender son”. Maria Comella, Campaign Manager, Christie for President, 2024; Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Christie, 2009-2016; National Spokesperson, McCain for President, 2008. Barbara Comstock, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2015-2019. Sarah Davis, Member of the Texas House of Representatives, 2011-2021. Michael DuHaime, Former Political Director, Republican National Committee; Senior Campaign Staffer for President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Governor Chris Christie and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Robert Epplin, Legislative Director, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, 2008-2012, and U.S. Senator Gordon Smith, 1997-2008. Jordan Willow Evans, Town Constable of Charlton, Mass., 2016-2020; Member of the Dudley-Charlton Regional School Committee, 2020-2022; and the Nation’s first openly trans-identified elected Republican.
Page two includes: Chad Ingels, Member of the Iowa House of Representatives, 2021-Present. Coddy Johnson, National Field Director, Bush-Cheney 2004, White House Office of Political Affairs, and Regional Director Bush-Cheney 2000. Brian Jones, Senior Advisor, Romney for President, 2012, and Communications Director, McCain for President, 2008. Fred Karger, Candidate for Republican Nomination for President, 2012. Kirsten Kukowski, Republican National Committee National Press Secretary, 2012. Alex Lundry, Director of Data Science, Romney for President, 2012. Susan Molinari, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1990-1997. Connie Morella, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2003- 2007; Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1987-2003. Michael Napolitano, White House Office of Political Affairs, 2001-2003. Logan Phillips, Member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, 2018-2022. Sarah Pompei, Communications Director, House of Representatives Majority Whip’s Office, 2011- 2012; Deputy Communications Director, Romney for President, 2012. Deborah Pryce, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1993-2009.
Finally, page three includes: Colin Reed, Former Executive Director of America Rising PAC, 2016; Scott Brown for Senate Campaign Manager, 2014; Christie for Governor, 2013; Romney for President, 2008; McCain for President, 2008. Denver Riggleman, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2019-2021. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1989-2019. Mark Salter, Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff, Sen. John McCain. Chris Sander, Member of the Missouri House of Representatives, 2021-Present. Christopher Shays, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1987-2009. Betsy Wright Hawkings, Congressional Chief of Staff, 1988-2008; 2010-2015. Jennifer Williams, Chair of the Trenton Republican Committee, 2017-2023. Dan Zwonitzer, Member of the Wyoming House of Representatives, 2005-Present.
All of these conservative-identifying people should be ashamed of themselves, as far as I’m concerned.
Brief amici curiae of the Trevor Project, et al. filed.
Next up is the infamous Trevor Project. Based on the substantial body of work they’ve done in pushing transgenderism on the masses, it’s hardly surprising to see them included here. The Trevor Project is a nonprofit organization founded in 1998 with the laudable goal of suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBT young people. Today, when you click on the Trevor Project’s website, you’re greeted with a pop-up screen instructing you on how to make a quick exit from the webpage if needed. While this is presumably to prevent gay or questioning kids from getting caught browsing the site by an unaccepting or even violent adult, it’s worrying given the context of what else the Trevor Project has pushed regarding children.
In recent years, the organization has ramped up its involvement in public education, rolling out three comprehensive training courses for teachers, training 200,000+ educators per their website, and even launching a partnership with the New York Department of Education in 2023. It's this partnership that I believe poses the most cause for concern.
If we look at the program guidelines,”Creating a Safe, Supportive, and Affirming School Environment for Transgender and Gender Expansive Students”, we can see that the Trevor Project advises that the student is in charge of their own “gender transition” and the school’s role is to simply provide support. “If a student has formally requested to transition at school, the school administrator or another trusted adult…can meet with the student and determine the steps the student is comfortable making,” the report advises, suggesting that school staff with no medical or psychological training meet with gender-distressed minors and discuss concrete steps toward a life-altering and irreversible path. At no point are these staff members advised to push back against or question the student’s supposed cross-gender identity or any mitigating factors which may have influenced it — blind affirmation is the only option.
Staff are also advised not to disclose this information to the student’s parents and must instead assure that “the student’s gender identity is affirmed and that their privacy and confidentiality are safely maintained.” The guidelines then assert that “prematurely disclosing a student’s gender identity can have severe consequences for the student,” and so encourages staff to withhold this vital information from parents about their own children. This is absurd even by their own logic. If trans-identified people are at a substantially greater risk of suicide and other mental health complications, shouldn’t their parents be notified immediately?
Leaving parents in the dark puts gender-distressed children in a vulnerable position, rendering them unable to receive the mental health and holistic care they so desperately need. Even setting that aside, The Trevor Project is engaging in a serious breach of trust and parental rights by inserting themselves as the student’s confidant and transition facilitator, insinuating that they know more about the child and what’s best for them than their own parents. School administrators are even encouraged to compile a “Gender Support Plan,” essentially providing the child with a complete roadmap to medical transition behind parents’ backs. Surely, this is something even many proponents of SB1 would object to, as so many of their arguments hinge on the ability of parents to make appropriate health care decisions for their own children.
It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine that school administrators are given instruction on how to help students fulfill their dream of becoming a stripper. How would parents and the public broadly react if teachers were helping students realize this “true identity”, including buying them pole dancing lessons, finding them jobs at strip clubs, and helping them pick out skimpy tear-away clothing, all behind their parents’ backs? It could even go so far as to involve teachers facilitating and funding breast augmentations and other irreversible bodily changes. The parallels are clear, and the distinction between them blurry. If gender activists like The Trevor Project have a problem with this, then why don’t they have a problem with school-facilitated gender transitions?
Unsurprisingly, the Trevor Project also insists on allowing boys who identify as girls into the girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams and vice versa, and instructs school administrators on how to change students’ names and gender markers in official school records. On the lighter but no less absurd side, the document also advises the use of neopronouns such as ze/zir, recommends replacing “boys and girls” with “pals, folks, or humans”, and encourages children to share their pronouns with their class.
The organizations listed on this brief as amici include the Trevor Project, Juvenile Law Center, and National Center for Youth Law. Counsel for amici includes Jyotin Hamid, Counsel of Record Justin R. Rassi, Amy Zimmerman, Isabell Canaan, and Kimberly Mejia-Cuellar.
Brief amici curiae of The American Psychological Association, et al. filed.
Founded in 1892, the American Psychological Association is the largest psychological association in the world, with over 157,000 members and an annual budget of $125 million. As an accredited body, the APA conducts frequent research and publishes recommendations used by other professional bodies, including the American Psychiatric Association. As fellow Substack writer Kat Highsmith points out, the American Psychiatric Association coincidentally counts Pfizer, Allergan, AbbVie, and Acadia among its corporate sponsors. I’m sure there’s no conflict of interest when it comes to medicalizing gender-distressed patients for life, of course.
Perhaps no organization is more prolific or relentless in its push of gender ideology than the APA. While claiming to operate and recommend treatment based on evidence, the APA has routinely ignored any evidence that does not support the use of gender-affirming care models for minors. After the publication of the Cass Review in 2024, which found that gender treatments for minors did not meet the necessary evidentiary threshold, the APA failed to acknowledge the findings or make updated recommendations based on them. When asked why, a representative responded that the organization sees youth gender medicine not as a scientific issue, but one of human rights. The organization has also continually rejected and sought to discredit Lisa Littman’s theory of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, or ROGD, despite a growing body of evidence to support it. The organization has even gone so far as to reject presentations that question the affirmative care model at all or seek any alternative explanations for trans identity other than an innate inner sense of transness.
In an appeal to ethos, the amici of this brief state that “medical interventions for gender dysphoria, like those at issue in Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 (“S.B. 1”), are overwhelmingly accepted by the medical community.” This may have some truth to it, but only because most major medical associations have become ideologically captured, or have been kowtowed into submission by trans activists. This is certainly true of the APA, where gender ideology has permeated at every level, not just when treating those who profess to be gender-distressed. The organization has gone to great lengths to purge any gendered language from usage, as can be seen in presentation titles such as “Postpartum Psychosis: Are Birthing People of Color Falling Through the Treatment Gap?” This clear pattern of ideological capture crops up again and in again within the APA, like in a special report on racism that states that “pursuing anti-racism in psychology requires a critical examination of how the discipline structures opportunity in ways that uphold White supremacy.”
In conforming to such ideological language, the APA has effectively lost credibility with the public and with the clinical psychology community, and many are taking steps to distance themselves from it and the affirmative care model they promote. They are often afraid of speaking out, or do so anonymously for fear of retaliation — but their numbers are growing.
“My inbox is filled with notes from doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, all saying they agree with me, but can’t say it publicly, says Miriam Grossman, board certified psychiatrist and author of Lost in Translation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide out of the Madness. I believe the time to speak out is now.
The amici of this brief are listed as The American Psychological Association and “other leading mental health organizations”. Counsel of amici include Counsel of Record Jessica Ring Amunson, Illyana Green, and Jessica Sawadogo.
Brief amici curiae of TransParent and Minority Veterans of America filed.
Next up is a brief filed jointly by TransParent and Minority Veterans of America. TransParent describes itself as a not-for-profit organization “with a mission to bring compassionate support to parents and caregivers navigating complex issues that arise in raising transgender children.” Of course, there is no such thing as a “transgender child”, and any parent claiming to raise one is either ideologically captured or has been manipulated by activists and the medical establishment to believe that their child will kill themselves if they do not blindly affirm their chosen identity.
Like many of the organizations on this list, TransParent is purely politically and ideologically driven. When organizations like the American College of Pediatricians spoke out against the lack of evidence and clear harms of gender-affirming care, TransParent labeled them a hate group, linking to the also ideologically captured Southern Poverty Law Center’s profile on them.
Also on their website, TransParent details their mission to envision “a world that honors and affirms the naturally occurring transgender experience.” This statement lays bear the organization’s modus operandi of affirmation only, while framing “the transgender experience” as “naturally occurring” — thus omitting all possibility of trans identification as social contagion, confusion compounded by other mental health issues, or paraphilia — all of which research has borne out.
Beyond merely providing support for parents with gender-distressed children, TransParent compels members to get involved in legislation and political advocacy, with resources on how to contact representatives and testify in court over so-called “anti-trans” proposed legislation.
Disturbingly, TransParent’s website includes an entire tab dedicated to providing parents with “gender-affirming” clothing for their minor children. These include an array of chest binders, which crush an adolescent girl’s breasts against her chest in a restrictive and often painful manner, “packing” underwear to create the illusion of a penis, “Stand to Pee” undergarments, which do exactly what they say, and “tuck-friendly” underwear and padded shapewear for boys wishing to appear as girls. Some of the websites under this tab would not even open on the public library computer I wrote this on due to age-restricted content.
Unsurprisingly, TransParent links to a book list with titles such as “Bye, Bye Binary”, “I’m Not a Girl”, “I am Jazz”, and “Queerfully and Wonderfully Made”. The site also promotes the podcast and memoir of the same name, “How to Be a Girl” by Marlo Mack, a mother who transitioned her son at the age of three. The mother of the above-mentioned “I am Jazz” author Jazz Jennings transitioned her son at the age of two.
Minority Veterans of America (MVA) is a non-profit organization with a mission to “create belonging” and “advance equity” for veterans and service members it perceives to be marginalized, “including those who are transgender or are parents of transgender children”. From what I can tell, MVA at least began with the intention of helping veterans who are disadvantaged in some way, and has done a lot of work to help its members find community, achieve financial stability, and access crucial services. While I am not against organizations like the MVA helping adult veterans who identify as trans with any of these things, I draw the line where children become involved.
Since all veterans are over the age of 18 and therefore not affected by SB1, the MVA aims to advocate for the veteran parents of so-called transgender children. Once again, this goes to show how the decision to transition when it comes to children is made entirely on the part of parents and doctors, as children themselves have no concept of the reality of transitioning nor the permanence of their actions. Their parents have to sign off on this kind of “care” for them. But would the MVA advocate for veteran parents to be able to buy their minor children tattoos or vodka shots, or allow them to become child brides, or enlist in the military themselves? I suspect not.
Counsel for this brief includes Paul Sieben, Stephen Mcintyre, Counsel of Record Benjamin Bradshaw, Deanna Rice, Meredith Garagiola, Rachel Chung, Carly Gibbs, Danielle Siegl, Patric Reinbold, Joshua Jordan, Elizabeth Littrell, Maya Rajaratnam, and Scott McCoy of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cynthia Cheng-Wun Weaver and Ami Rakesh Patel of the Human Rights Campaign, Peter Perkowski, Brandon Waddel, and Sarah Brewerton-Palmer.
Brief amici curiae of The Kentucky Plaintiffs, et al. filed.
This next amici was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs in a similar pending lawsuit that seeks to ban gender treatments for minors in Kentucky, as well as several LGBT advocacy organizations. These include GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (“GLAD”), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (“BALIF”), The LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York (“LGBT Bar of New York”), the Mazzoni Center, The National Trans Bar Association (“NTBA”), and Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders, Inc. (“SAGE”).
Of these, the inclusion of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State is the most ridiculous, as the case against SB1 does not invoke God, the church, or a higher power even once. If anything, belief in a gendered soul or essence should be categorized as a religious belief and therefore not legally binding or enforceable by the state, especially not when it comes to treating children with irreversible drugs and procedures.
The brief describes the Kentucky plaintiffs as “six transgender minors and their parents who are challenging Kentucky’s complete ban on medical treatments for transgender adolescents.” These six children are operating under the influence of parents who have either been ideologically indoctrinated or psychologically manipulated by activist doctors, propped up and enabled by the legitimacy of now captured medical institutions like the aforementioned APA. The parents of these children should be providing them with care and support through whatever psychological distress they’re experiencing, not medicalizing that distress and fixing it into a permanent and irreversible state.
The brief argues that the Kentucky and Tennessee bans on “gender-affirming” treatments for minors discriminate on the basis of transgender identity, and that neither state bans the provision of these same medications to “minors who are not transgender.” This goes back to two things: one, whether “gender identity” is or should be a protected characteristic. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has argued that it should not be, based on the fact that it is not immutable and is subject to change. Second, it makes the erroneous comparison between puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in “trans kids” and puberty blockers to treat a very real condition known as precocious puberty in non trans-identified kids.
Precocious puberty is often cited as a sort of gotcha argument from trans activists. Proponents of this argument insist that while “cis” (non trans) kids can receive puberty blockers, “trans” children are denied them due to discrimination. This ignores that children suffering from precocious puberty constitute an entirely different use case. For these children, puberty blockers halt the effects of puberty if it occurs before the age of 8 for girls or before the age of 9 for boys, but precocious puberty can set in as early as four or five years old. Health risks of untreated precocious puberty include short stature, metabolic disorders like insulin resistance and high blood pressure, and increased risk of breast cancer for girls and testicular cancer for boys.
In the case of so-called trans kids, on the other hand, 11, 12, or 13-year-old children are prescribed off-label drugs to stop puberty from naturally occurring at a perfectly normal age due to psychological distress rather than physical symptoms. In these cases, underlying mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, and autism are often present and rarely addressed. The treatment protocol for precocious puberty is established, safe, and peer-reviewed medical orthodoxy, while the “gender affirming care” model is a wild, uncontrolled experiment with disastrous, often tragic consequences. In short, the bill does not seek to ban a specific treatment or drug, it seeks to ban a specific use case of that drug. It does not constitute discrimination, as one is evidence-based and the other is an experimental, barbaric, and completely unnecessary medical intervention.
That’s all for Part I. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!
Wow, excellent comprehensive presentation.
I especially enjoyed your sporadic quips: “It doesn’t add up.”
Yep. We have a lot more work to do.
This is an incredible record of some of the evil of gender ideology. At some stage there needs to be a reckoning and at least some of these people made to pay for the harm they have caused or enabled. Well done.