Taking Down Transgender Ideology

US Supreme Court may set the latest precedent for this

The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will soon be deciding on a case that could impact whether US states can or cannot provide ‘gender affirming care’ for minors. The Biden Administration is challenging a law passed in the state of Tennessee which has banned ‘gender affirming care’ treatments and procedures for minors. This includes the use of puberty blockers, cross-hormone therapies and sex reassignment surgeries. Whatever the Court decides, it could be a landmark ruling in the ongoing culture wars regarding issues around gender ideology, and it could also affect similar laws in 25 other states.

The Biden administration has argued that the Tennessee law prohibits transgender individuals from accessing drugs and therapies that are available to other adolescents in other US states and that it hinders parents' rights to seek needed ‘medical care’ for their children. During oral arguments five of the SCOTUS’s nine justices expressed doubts on the arguments made by administration lawyers and the basis for the legal challenge itself. Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether judges should even be deciding what he described as a medical issue, as medical matters are traditionally left up to state lawmakers. "The constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The court's three liberal justices appeared to be firmly on the side of the Biden Administration, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – who, during her confirmation hearings, one might remember, could not define what a woman was – made a very thin and incoherent argument comparing the Tennessee law to legislation that once prohibited interracial marriages, which was struck down in the 1960s. "The laws here operate in the same way," she said. "The question of 'can you marry this other person' depended upon what your race was. I take your law to be doing basically the same thing." How it is ‘doing the same thing’ really wasn’t made clear.

Tennessee's Solicitor General, J. Matthew Rice, pushed back to argue that the law does not discriminate in any way, but rather that it is designed to "to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions". And that really is the crux of the matter. From where I sit, this decision, which is expected to come down next year, is a no brainer. Chief Justice Roberts is quite right, this is a health issue, and decisions regarding such matters rests with individual states, which is why SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the power to determine laws regarding abortion back to individual states.

That being said, there is an abundance of evidence to demonstrate that Tennessee, along with 24 other US states, made the right decision in restricting the provision of so-called ‘gender affirming care’ for minors. Evidence that the risks far outweigh the benefits when it comes to providing such treatments to minors continues to mount exponentially.

Those risks include life-long sterility, loss of sexual function and pleasure, atrophy of reproductive organs, reduced bone density, stunted maturation of the brain, and triple the chance of heart disease to name a few. The term ‘gender affirming care’ is really just a euphemism invented by the leftist idealogues to hide the reality of what these treatments involve and the damaging impacts they can have on otherwise healthy young people. Yet, activists who advocate for ‘gender affirming care’ for minors, never want to talk about some of the absolute horrors that occur with such experiments – and experiments are what they are. Take for example the case of Prisha Mosley who was 15 years old when she became captured by the transgender ideology.

This led to her, at age 17, being prescribed high dosages of testosterone and undergoing a double mastectomy a year later — all in the name of ‘gender affirming care’. Her preexisting conditions of anorexia nervosa, anxiety, panic disorder, major depression, and borderline personality disorder were never considered by those who ‘diagnosed’ her ‘gender dysphoria’ to be part of the problem that might require a form of treatment that didn’t involve mutilating her body.

When Prisha came to the realization that she had made a terrible mistake she began de-transition and surprisingly became pregnant. Her pregnancy was fraught with problems due to atrophy in her reproductive organs from taking testosterone, but she did give birth to a son. She, of course, could not breastfeed him, but that didn’t stop scar tissue in her chest from trying to produce milk which was extremely painful and disfiguring. For her it was a nightmare. You can watch her story here on the Megyn Kelly Show.

There is also the story of Chloe Cole who has become very vocal about her experience in transitioning to male at age 12, and receiving ‘gender affirming care’ treatments that included puberty blockers, testosterone followed by a double mastectomy at age 15. She began to detransition at age 17, and has since become an activist and spokesperson for detransitioners, whose whose numbers she says are growing, but whose voices are often silenced, like she once was.

Earlier this year independent journalist and author Michael Schellenberger did a major exposé on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) which is apparently the organization that issues ‘standards of care’ for transgender patients. The WPATH files Schellenberger obtained and released made it clear that WPATH was nothing more than an organization of activist practitioners who knew full well that the procedures and treatments they were advocating and setting medical standards for were experimental and damaging. The information in the files also underscored that these practitioners were fully aware that most of their patients – even adults – in many cases were unable to give informed consent either because of their age or because of the mental health issues that plagued them and often accompanied their feelings of alleged gender dysphoria. Schellengberger’s exposé was essentially ignored by the mainstream media, because it did not fit their narrative on transgender ideology, much in the same way detranisitoner’s stories are ignored for the same reason.

In Canada, Radio Canada, the Quebec arm of Canada's national broadcaster the CBC, also did its own exposé of the ‘gender affirming care’ industry in Quebec, which could be described as a wild west when it comes to prescribing gender transition procedures and treatments. The documentary, titled TransExpress, provides an extremely disturbing overview of some of the ‘gender affirming care’ cases that have occurred in that province, as well as demonstrating, at the outset, just how easy it is for a youth to get testosterone. It also featured the story of a young woman who began transitioning at around 18, and went so far as to have a double mastectomy – paid for by the state. but when she began detransitioning she had to work to save money for breast reconstructive surgery, which the state would not pay for!

I provided an overview of Schellengberger’s WPATH exposé and the TransExpress documentary in the following substack articles.

Then there was the independent review titled The Cass Review that as released in the United Kingdom (UK) earlier this year. The extensive report, prepared by Dr. Hillary Cass, an esteemed UK pediatrician, who conducted a in-depth review of ‘gender affirming care’ services and treatments available to minors in the UK. Her final conclusion was that gender ‘medicine’ for children and young people is built on shaky grounds, and thus, maintained the following:

“The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.”

She made it clear that the risks far outweigh the benefits when it comes to the use of puberty blockers, cross-hormone therapy and surgeries on children and youths. She also warned that children who change gender may regret it as they grow older, noting that many such children have experienced trauma, neglect and abuse which led them to wrongly believe they were suffering from gender dysphoria. She actually advised, in the review that extreme care should be taken before transitioning anyone under the age of 25. She called for an end to prescribing powerful hormone drugs to anyone under the age of 18. She went so far as to state that even allowing cross-dressing or the changing of pronouns or names in children and tweens can set them onto a dangerous path of seeking gender affirming treatments thereafter, something schools in many countries allow, and even encourage without consulting or even informing the child's parents. It should be noted that Dr. Cass requires body guards since the release of her report.

France has also recently announced plans to put the brakes on gender affirming care for minors through legislation. This move also comes from another detailed report on the subject which was initiated by ‘les Républicains’ senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio. It describes the excesses in child gender transitions as one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine.

In Canada, Quebec, as indicated by the documentary TransExpress is the most ‘liberal’ province when it comes to transgenderism and gender affirming care. However, most provinces have very lax rules when it comes to age limits for prescribing puberty blockers and cross sex hormone therapy to minors. Some require parental consent, others require recommendations from physicians or psychologists and age limits vary.

Only the Province of Alberta has enacted actual legislation to restrict providing ‘gender affirming care’ to minors. This include prohibiting use of puberty blockers and cross-hormones on children under the age of 16. The law also prohibits performing top (double mastectomies) and bottom (sex reassignment) surgeries on minors. Also included in the legislation are requirements for children under 16 to have parental consent if they want to change their names or pronouns at school; students over 16 will not need permission, but schools must notify parents. Parents can also opt out of having their children take part in ‘sex’ education related to gender identity and sexual orientation. The legislation also restricts males who transition to female from taking part in competitive and amateur sports. Of course, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is getting considerable blow back on these changes from all the usual suspects. You can read the whole story here in my substack.

And while sanity may be prevailing in Alberta when it comes to gender ideology, in other parts of the country, it gets a little crazier. Just by way of example, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (that government health insurance) was recently ordered by a superior court to approve expenditures for a transgender ‘patient’ to receive ‘specialized’ surgery in the US, that will allow him/her, to retain ‘their’ penis, while having a faux vagina installed in their nether regions. The patient suffers from a host of other serious mental problems and issues, but ‘their’ doctor seems to think getting a vagina, while also keep ‘their penis is the best ‘treatment’ plan.

That last piece is just an example of how far down the rabbit hole our own institutions have gone with gender ideology.

Meanwhile, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands have put the breaks on providing the ‘gender affirming care ‘ for minors, in particular, and as I have indicated in this article so have the UK and France. North American still seems to be lagging behind. However there are signs of more push back on gender ideology in general. Polling from the recent US election, which Donald Trump won with a landslide, indicates that the focus transgender ideology by Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Party in general, may have been a critical factor in why they lost so badly. Let’s hope the US Supreme Court does the right thing in its current proceedings on the issue and let the law in Tennessee stand.