Federal Judges Are Blocking State Anti-Trans Bills

Culture war bills signed into law in Arkansas, West Virginia, and Tennessee run afoul of Constitution, federal law.

Federal judges Wednesday blocked new laws in Arkansas and West Virginia that sought to limit how transgender students' participation in school sports and prohibit parents and professionals from providing transgender minors with medical treatments.

West Virginia lawmakers passed H.B. 3293 in April. The bill requires students who wish to participate in sports events to be classified on the basis of their biological sex, specifically so that trans girls (who were born male but identify as female) cannot compete as females. The law is written so that it doesn't stop trans boys from competing with biological males. That will become relevant later.

Arkansas lawmakers, meanwhile, passed an anti-trans bill in April that forbids health professionals from prescribing any sort of medical treatment (like puberty-blocking hormones) to trans teens, even with the support of the parents. The bill, H.B. 1570, went so far as to forbid doctors from referring minors to other doctors (presumably in other states) who would provide such treatments and threatened to revoke the licenses of any medical professionals who defied the law. Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed the bill, but lawmakers overruled him.

Both laws have been temporarily blocked by different federal judges. In West Virginia, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of an 11-year-old trans girl who wants to participate in her middle school's cross-country racing team. In Arkansas, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of four trans youths and their families and two doctors.

In West Virginia, U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia found that it was likely the plaintiff would win the case under the argument that the state had violated her equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment and had violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Therefore he ordered an injunction stopping H.B. 3293 from being enforced as the case works its way through the court system. He wrote:

[P]ermitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls' teams would not take away athletic opportunities from other girls. Transgender people make up a small percentage of the population: 0.6% of the adult population generally, and 0.7% of thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds. … The number of transgender people who wish to participate in school-sponsored athletics is even smaller. Insofar as I am aware, B.P.J. is the only transgender student at her school interested in school-sponsored athletics. Therefore, I cannot find that permitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls' cross country and track teams would significantly, if at all, prevent other girl athletes from participating.

He adds that the argument that a ban on trans girls competing with biological girls in order to protect girls' safety fails because the plaintiff was not asking to participate in a contact sport. Goodwin concludes that the girl is being discriminated against on the basis of her sex in the same way the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that workplace discrimination against gay and trans workers is discrimination on the basis of sex. And because the law explicitly permits trans boys to continue competing with other boys, Goodwin notes that everybody else gets to compete on sports teams on the basis of their chosen identity except for the plaintiff and other trans girls, making it a discriminatory policy.

In Arkansas, U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, granted a preliminary injunction in a bench decision Wednesday afternoon stopping the enforcement of Arkansas' ban on medical treatment for trans minors. This is not his final decision in the case. Rather, the injunction will allow parents and families to continue seeking medical treatment while he considers his ruling. The law was scheduled to go into effect later this month, and the ACLU and parents argued that it would force them to cut off medical treatment their trans children were already receiving.

These rulings follow on the heels of one of the dumber new anti-trans laws being blocked earlier this month. Tennessee lawmakers in May passed a law ordering private businesses to hang up warning signs if they allowed trans people to use the bathrooms of their chosen sex rather than their biological sex. Businesses who were found violating the sign law faced misdemeanor penalties under the state's building codes.

Two business owners, again represented by the ACLU, filed suit, arguing that this sign demand violates their First Amendment rights by mandating speech. U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, ruled that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the claims and granted a preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of the law.

Comments

[Mother's Lament]

So advocates for child castration and pederasty are judge-shopping. Nothing new there.

[Briggs Cunningham]

For years all I ever heard from Progressives is how they cared about children. We have all heard the "but it is for the children" lament given to justify every leftist policy under the sun. If there was one thing that could be said about leftists in this country it is that they cared so much about children.

Yet, here we are today and every good leftist in America is arguing that parents and doctors should have the right to chemically castrate and mutilate children. Indeed, the very same people who rightly are horrified by the prospect of judges ordering the chemical castration of sex offenders think it is the greatest in the world for doctors and parents to the same thing to kids as young as seven and eight years old.

What that tells you is that they never cared about "children". All they cared about was the dopamine hit they got from feeling smug pretending to care. It was never about the children or blacks or gays or anyone they always claimed to care about. It was and always will be about the ability of them to feel smug and on the right side of things. So, the very same people who are one day waxing poetic about their care and concern for children are the next day cheering on the castration and mutilation of those very same children.

[Gray_Jay]

Division, Briggs. They care about creating and exploiting division.

Anything to tear this society down, and reform it to one where most sit in their pods, consume product, and vote for all of the above.

[Briggs Cunningham]

I am not even sure they are that sophisticated anymore. I think they just are addicted to the feeling they get by destroying things. They really don't seem to even have a Utopia they want to build. They just want to watch the world burn as the movie says.

[Patricia Ellis]

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[perlhaqr]

Hey, foot binding and female circumcision have long standing cultural history...

[Tony]

Let me get this straight. In order to properly care about children, we must pass laws that give government agents the power to check children's genitals to make sure they're up to code?

[Briggs Cunningham]

So parents can give puberty blocking drugs to their kids because the kid says he is "trans", why can't they give them to their sons so their voices won't change and they can have a singing career? Why can't the US women's gymnastics team to delay puberty and allow them to be better gymnasts, which it would? Indeed, if it were revealed that parents were giving young girls puberty blockers so they could have better gymnastics careers, it would be a national scandal and my guess is that some people would be going to jail over it.

If parents can consent to giving a child puberty blockers, what can't the parents do? What about facial tattoos? Or making them into a prostitute?

Unless you are going to go back to old Roman law and say that children have no rights visa vie their parents such that their parents can do anything to them up to and including murder them, and I have yet to hear anyone advocate for that, then you have to explain what the line is between that which is allowed and that which is not and why it is that transgender therapy and hormone blockers are okay but pretty much everything else short of murder is not okay.

Scott and reason are advocating for parents to have the right to chemically castrate their children, delay their puberty, pump them full of hormones where the long term physical and psychological effects of doing so are completely unknown. There is no way to morally defend that. And there is certainly no way to claim it is proper but parents allowing children to have sex with adults, and mutilate themselves in other ways is not also proper.

[Cronut]

And why is there no ethical reaponsibility on the part of physicians and shrinks when it comes to this sort of thing? Any decent shrink should know that children- including teenagers- aren't fully capable of understanding the comsequences of their actions, and can't give informed consent. Any decent shrik should also know that what a 15 year old feels today is most likely going to change before she becomes an adult, and then probably change a few more times after that. I don't understand how docs and shrinks can even consider this kind of treatment for a minor, when there are other, less invasive, less permanent treatment options available.

[Briggs Cunningham]

The don't because the world has gone mad. Ten years ago everyone would have agreed that allowing a child to castrate themselves and start to transition to another sex was insane and evil. Yet, today millions of people including doctors think it is not just okay but a right and good thing. Why? Because the left and the media told them that thinking that way was necessary to be "tolerant".

If they will believe that because they are told doing so is necessary to be "tolerant" won't won't they believe and support if they are told to do so? It is a really scary thought.

[Zeb]

It really is absolutely disgusting breach of ethics. Doctors and psychologists providing "affirmative therapy" should be driven from their professions. They probably will be in 5-10 years when all these kids realize how badly they fucked up their lives and start suing.

[Briggs Cunningham]

I would like to believe there is a massive backlash about this coming and the people responsible for it will be held accountable. I can't help but think that won't happen but it certainly should.

[Zeb]

I'm slightly optimistic about that. A lot of the kids getting treatments are going to realize later that they have fucked up their ability to reproduce and possibility of a normal sex life.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Such people already exist. Indeed, many adults who had gender reassignment therapy later regret it and end up very unhappy. Those people are more or less unpersoned by the media. The long term effects of these treatments and the horrible effects on the person where they fail, and they often do, are something that supporters and their accessories in the media will not allow to be said. The question is when do the children you are talking about become so numerous that the media and trans activists can no longer keep them silent.

[Zeb]

That's what I'm saying. My guess is 5-10 years, like I said.

[Briggs Cunningham]

When that happens, and I hope you are right that it will, I wonder what reason is going to have to say about it publishing so many articles in support of transgenderism and especially gender transition for children.

[Roberta]

The same as all the other mistakes of the past that they reverse: nothing. But they always have the excuse that their writers are expressing their own individual opinions only.

[Roberta]

Example: prison privatization.

[Cronut]

I hope there is some significant backlash for this. Right now, we can't even talk about people who try to transition back to their birth sex.

This will be an absolute tragedy in 5 to 10 years as these kids become adults and begin to realize what's been done to them. I can only hope that there are legal consequences for medical professionals who perform this kind of treatment on children. This is as grotesque as frontal labotomies for mentally ill people.

[Briggs Cunningham]

That is exactly what it is like. It is pure evil.

[Zeb]

Lobotomy seems like a very apt comparison in many ways.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Really a tragedy? I'm going to laugh

[Mickey Rat]

If anyone buys into the idea this is about parental rights over their children's medical treatments will have a big surprise when a parent objects to these destructive treatments happening.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Yes. But even assuming that this isn't being forced on parents, it is still wrong. The problem is that you never going to get the advocates of this madness to admit that it is being done over parents' objections in some cases.

The end game of this entire thing is to normalize the sexualization and sex with children. If children can meaningfully consent to changing their gender, then it is impossible to say they cannot meaningfully consent to sex even with adults. How can "gender" ever be totally divorced from sex. It can't.

[Mickey Rat]

I don't disagree. The "parental rights" thing is a red herring to having no restrictions on a physically damaging treatment for a mental issue.

[Roberta]

For decades now society has been simultaneously sexualizing children and denying their sexuality. Mostly this is one specific case of how society makes sex good-bad. I heard that from Alan Watts who said he was quoting I forgot whom. We make it so you're bad or at least suspect if you avoid sex activity, but also bad if you engage in it. And we project like anything.

[Cronut]

When a parent objects to these treatments, they'll get their kids taken away for medical neglect.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

then you have to explain what the line is between that which is allowed and that which is not and why it is that transgender therapy and hormone blockers are okay but pretty much everything else short of murder is not okay.

I agree with you that to have a line between permissible vs. impermissible parenting decisions would be handy to have. And that line of course will vary from person to person. From a libertarian perspective however, I would argue that the natural impulse would be to put the burden of proof *on the state* to have to show whether a particular parenting decision should be banned, rather than put the burden of proof on the parents to have to justify to the state whether a particular parenting decision should be permitted.

That is, I would argue that our natural libertarian impulse ought to be to leave parents alone to do what they think is in the best interest of their children, and injecting the state in between the parents and the children should only be reserved for very clear and very obvious cases of child abuse.

Now I absolutely do NOT support the idea that kids are capable enough of deciding things like gender reassignment surgery without the consent of their parents. That is injecting the state into the parent-child relationship in a different and also unacceptable way, to undermine parental authority.

But, when you have a situation where the child, the parents, and medical professionals ALL consent, then it is more difficult IMO to argue that gender reassignment surgery constitutes "child abuse" at least to the extent to necessitate state action to coercively prohibit the procedure from taking place. I suppose there could be individual extenuating circumstances which might tip the scales one way or another. But again IMO the libertarian impulse ought to be to have the state stay out of it unless the claimed abuse is very clear and very obvious. If we as outside observers are unsure, the state ought to stay out of it.

[Briggs Cunningham]

But, when you have a situation where the child, the parents, and medical professionals ALL consent, then it is more difficult IMO to argue that gender reassignment surgery constitutes “child abuse” at least to the extent to necessitate state action to coercively prohibit the procedure from taking place.

So if doctors agreed it was okay for kids to be prostitutes, we should allow that? Moreover, if you believe that parents should get the final say, then why should doctors be involved at all? And who are "doctors"? There is no medical consensus on this. A lot of doctors are rightly appalled.

The bigger issue is why other than an appeal to authority is this okay because doctor's say it is? A doctor could just as easily say that a girl is less likely to be injured if she delays puberty to pursue gymnastics. Certainly, you can get an athletic trainer to support virtually anything.

Doctors thought mandatory lobotomies and electroshock therapy were necessary and good. That fact doesn't excuse the governments and people who supported those things. And it doesn't excuse people supporting this. The bottom line here is you are allowing parents to castrate and mutilate their children. Putting a veneer of medical respectability on that doesn't make it okay.

The only individual here that matters is the child. And even you admit that that child cannot meaningfully consent to these procedures. And these procedures cause irreversible effects. Allowing parents and doctors to consent for children necessarily means having children be subject to these things without meaningful consent and who in many cases will later regret it.

And in contrast to that what is the need? We are not talking about life saving surgery or treatment. We are talking about elective treatment that can be had any time after the child has become an adult and can meaningfully consent. So where is the justification to disregard the child's inability to meaningfully consent to these procedures? There isn't any.

My God, parents and doctors agreed that disabled children were better off being lobotomized. That went on for decades. By your logic, it was totally okay. It wasn't. And neither is this.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

So if doctors agreed it was okay for kids to be prostitutes, we should allow that?

Well, I reject the framing of the question. The question shouldn't be, "should this or that parenting decision be allowed?" The question should be, "does this or that parenting decision meet a high enough threshold to justify state intervention in the parent-child relationship?" That is, the burden of proof should NOT be on parents to justify their parenting decisions, the burden of proof should be on the STATE to justify their *intervention* in parenting decisions.

And, from a libertarian perspective, that threshold that would justify state intervention should be very high, and limited only to very obvious and very clear cases of abuse. Would you agree?

Doctors thought mandatory lobotomies and electroshock therapy were necessary and good.

This is just a smear against doctors of the present based on decisions made in the past. At one time, physicists thought the sun revolved around the earth, biologists thought that God created all life, and chemists thought that water was an element. Are all physicists, chemists, and biologists now existing all hopeless frauds because of what scientists of the past believed? Of course not.

The only individual here that matters is the child.

I agree. And who is in the best position to decide what is in the child's best interests? The government? State legislators in Arkansas? You?

[Briggs Cunningham]

And you completely avoid the issue. What justification is there to disregard the child's inability consent? The child has their entire life to do this once they are adults and able to consent. All you have to counter that is "well doctors say it is okay". Sorry that doesn't answer it. Come back when you understand what is going on. The question is not when can the state intervene. The question is when can parents and doctors step in and act for the child.

Jesus Christ, you think it is okay for doctors and parents to castrate children. Let that sink in for a while.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Fine, so you just want to demagogue the issue, screeching BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN like a leftist does. I thought you said you wanted to discuss what is the dividing line between what is or is not child abuse? Guess not.

The question is not when can the state intervene.

Yes, that very much is part of the discussion here.

The question is when can parents and doctors step in and act for the child.

Well, we normally have this thing called "parental authority". And the customary way to look at these things was to assume that parents know best how to raise their kids, and that the state should only intervene if there was very clear evidence that parents were violating that trust. Do you disagree? What is the alternative?

you think it is okay for doctors and parents to castrate children.

I never said it was "okay". There are lots of parenting decisions that I think are "not okay". But just because I don't think it is "okay" doesn't necessarily follow that I want it banned by the state.

Maybe after you have calmed down and thought about this rationally, instead of getting all hysterical, we can have a productive conversation.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Well, we normally have this thing called “parental authority”. And the customary way to look at these things was to assume that parents know best how to raise their kids, and that the state should only intervene if there was very clear evidence that parents were violating that trust. Do you disagree? What is the alternative?

Parental authority doesn't generally include the ability to murder them or mutilate them. It doesn't include the ability to consent to their having sex or getting a tattoo or elective plastic surgery generally. Parental authority is limited. And if it castrating a child isn't beyond that limitation it is very hard to see how anything would be. Again,. you totally miss the point and just beg the question.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Parental authority is limited.

Yes, it is limited. So how limited should it be? So let me state a general principle which I think represents the proper libertarian approach to this issue, and see if you agree with it or not:

Parental authority should be limited by the state only in very clear and very obvious cases of child abuse. If as outside observers we are not sure, or the situation is vague, then the state ought to give the benefit of the doubt to the parents trusting that they have the children's best interests in mind.

or getting a tattoo or elective plastic surgery

Actually, in many places, these things are perfectly legal with parental consent.

And if it castrating a child isn’t beyond that limitation it is very hard to see how anything would be.

In the cases that we are discussing, no one is "castrating a child" for shits and giggles. They are all predicated on a medical diagnosis by a medical professional that it is in the best interest of the child. Go ahead and disagree with that all you want. But neither you nor I are there in the room and can speak with authority about any particular situation. So, based on the above principle, because it is not clear and not obvious that this is a type of child abuse, I don't want to get the state involved. BUT, if you have evidence in a specific case that would tip the scales - for example, that the doctor is a quack, or the parents are coercing the child against his/her will - then by all means present it. But in the absence of CLEAR and OBVIOUS evidence of abuse, I can't say that I want the state involved. This doesn't mean that I approve of every parental decision. Only that I don't think the parents should go to jail over it or the family should be torn apart by the state over it.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Right so you cannot discuss this in a way that isn't full of hysteria about THE CHILDREN. You want demagoguery not rational discussion.

[damikesc]

Seems like you dislike when somebody makes points you cannot refute.

Odd...thought you'd be used to that by now.

[Azathoth!!]

Right so you cannot discuss this in a way that isn’t full of hysteria about THE CHILDREN.

You keep saying this.

Do you not understand that this issue IS ABOUT children?

[Azathoth!!]

I thought you said you wanted to discuss what is the dividing line between what is or is not child abuse?

Then let us.

Is it or is it not abuse to remove healthy, functioning tissue and organs of a child to create a surgical simulacrum of a sex other than the one a person was born with?

Is it or is it not abuse to suggest that a person who is considered too young to get a tattoo, a piercing, drink alcohol, travel by thrmselves, consent to sex, own a weapon, smoke, and any of dozens of similar things can, in this instance, make a decision that will completely alter their lives?

What do you see as the danger in allowing a person to grow to the age of majority before deciding whether or not to engage in radical plastic surgery?

[perlhaqr]

"that child cannot meaningfully consent to these procedures."

An interesting point.

The child can't consent to having sex, but can (notionally) consent to changing their sex?

[Roberta]

It'd never go over if it weren't for pseudo-science that says these children are abnormal and need this to make them normal.

[criticaljeff racial theorist]

I missed what article or amendment Judge Shacklford cited

[Patrick Henry, the 2nd]

Amendment 100: progressives feelings are hurt

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

West Virginia lawmakers passed H.B. 3293 in April. The bill requires students who wish to participate in sports events to be classified on the basis of their biological sex, specifically so that trans girls (who were born male but identify as female) cannot compete as females.

There's nothing "anti-trans" about that. Nothing whatsoever. Why does the headline suggest so?

[Briggs Cunningham]

If you allow biological men to compete in women's sports, there will be no more women's sports. A good high school male athlete is better than even world class female athletes in most sports.

Transgenderism means effectively canceling women from society. If any man can claim to be a woman and be treated as one because of that, then there is nothing special or different about being a woman. The same is true of being a man but because of the biological differences doing that will harm women much more than men. Women are not going to come and take over men's sports for example. Men for whatever reason just don't have or need to sort of separate spaces in society that women do. Transgenderism is profoundly misogynistic as well being completely irrational.

[Roberta]

When I first read the headline, I thought it was going to be about trans fat. Then I remembered it's 2021, not 2005.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Arkansas lawmakers, meanwhile, passed an anti-trans bill in April that forbids health professionals from prescribing any sort of medical treatment (like puberty-blocking hormones) to trans teens, even with the support of the parents.

This is not an anti-trans bill. There's nothing "anti-trans" about this whatsoever. It may not be an appropriate subject to intervene legislatively, but that's a different subject. Why does the headline say "anti-trans"?

[Cronut]

Because anything other than full-throated approval and validation of the trans agenda is anti-trans and LITERAL violence against trans people.

[Mickey Rat]

Shackford was an LGTB activist and remains such.

[Briggs Cunningham]

Which is ironic since transgenderism has nothing to do with sexual preference or orientation.

[mad.casual]

How dare you! He's not an LGBT activist! He's a libertarian who uses LGBT arguments as an apology when he's not being in any way a libertarian.

[Chumby]

In related news, Buttplug is now identifying as a 12-year old and attempts to enroll in middle school.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Both laws have been temporarily blocked by different federal judges. In West Virginia, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of an 11-year-old trans girl who wants to participate in her middle school's cross-country racing team.

Will the ACLU represent the girls being blown out of the competition under Title IX?

[Cronut]

Nope.

[Cronut]

"Therefore, I cannot find that permitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls' cross country and track teams would significantly, if at all, prevent other girl athletes from participating."

Not the actual argument. The argument is that it will prevent biological girl athletes from MEANINGFULLY participating, by making the competition inherently unfair, due to biological differences between girls and boys.

[Zeb]

Yeah, that really stood out. That's not the complaint. Girls could participate in boys sports now. If it's about participation, then no need for separate competitions. But the girls will always lose.

[Cronut]

Exactly. We're not talking about the opportunity to just be on the team. We're talking about the opportunity to compete on a fair playing field. And this has the potential to affect more than just the ability to suit up, especially in HS, where excelling at athletics can be someone's ticket to college.

[Briggs Cunningham]

It is like forcing the Special Olympics to let normal kids compete and telling the disabled kids that they are not harmed since they still have the ability to compete just not win.

[mad.casual]

The number of normies who want to compete in the Special Olympics is just a small fraction of the overall population so, no harm, no foul.

[ErictheRed]

Pretty sure Eric Cartman played that plot, and still couldn't win anything.

[D-Pizzle]

The point there was that morbid obesity is a massive physical handicap. more so than most others.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Yeah, the legal reasoning by the federal court is bizarre to the point of laughable.

[ThomasD]

If there is one thing Reason writers recognize it's quality kowtowing to the cultural left.

[Roberta]

I think the judge would rule that as long as there are no cash prizes, competition is worthless, hence not an issue.

[Mickey Rat]

So the judge in the West Virginia case is usurping the legislative function to set policy by deciding it is constitutional to have segregation by gender identity, but not to have segregation by sex. Ignoring the fact that the only reason segregation is allowable is because of physical differences between the sexes, except implying that it would be acceptable in the case of contact sports.

This is a judge being too clever by half. It is nonsense on stilts.

[D-Pizzle]

So was Gorsuch's analogizing in Bostock, but here we are.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

[P]ermitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls' teams would not take away athletic opportunities from other girls. Transgender people make up a small percentage of the population: 0.6% of the adult population generally, and 0.7% of thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds. … The number of transgender people who wish to participate in school-sponsored athletics is even smaller.

What the actual fuck? This was the legal reasoning? That athletic opportunities aren't being "broadly" taken away from girls, [even if they're being taken away from the girls in this particular case] so therefore we don't need a law?

Ok, let's apply that to pretty much everything and see who blinks first.

[Briggs Cunningham]

You can participate and that is enough. Having no hope of winning is just one of those things.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Sorry about your scholarship that you worked for years to get, that just went to Ellen Elliot.

[Roberta]

But they can give scholarships however they want. They could give scholarships only to those who came in last place if they wanted to.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Just like voting

[Roberta]

There's a point to that, since winning is just a mental thing, intangible. You can keep score any way you want; everyone can keep score for themselves, so everyone can win by any criteria they set. It'd be different if there were a purse.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Unfortunately this country continues to be shockingly transphobic. I still cannot believe that recent video in which a hateful woman objected to seeing a penis in a female-only area of a spa. Um, hellooooooooo? If you don't want to see penises and testicles, then stay out of the ladies' room.

#TransWomenAreWomen

[Chumby]

There is nothing wrong with a koch in the ladies room.

[Libertymike]

Winner, winner, chick(en) dinner!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Judge blocks Tennessee's transgender bathroom sign law
The signage required by the new law "would disrupt the welcoming environments" businesses wish to provide, the judge wrote.

The "dumber" laws? Hey, let me dig into some legal precedents:

Transgender people make up a small percentage of the population: 0.6% of the adult population generally, and 0.7% of thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds. … The number of transgender people who wish to participate in school-sponsored athletics is even smaller.

So from my read, this law doesn't really hurt anyone because hey, Transgender people are .6% of the population so... who does this policy really hurt?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

"The plaintiffs have presented evidence that they have strived to be welcoming spaces for communities that include transgender individuals and that the signage required by the Act would disrupt the welcoming environments that they wish to provide," Trauger continued. "That harm would be real, and it is not a harm that could simply be remedied by some award at the end of litigation."

Bake that fucking cake.

[Briggs Cunningham]

If I can't force my delusions on everyone around me and insist on their acceptance of them, I am harmed. Didn't you know that?

[Ersatz]

I think maybe social media companies should be obligated to create an accepting environment for conspiracy theorists. The belief of the person in his theory is the ultimate right. Every sector of society from the macro [companies and governments] to the micro [the individual] has the obligation to accommodate a person's beliefs in the way that person specifies wont cause them harm.

[Briggs Cunningham]

No one would evert abuse these things to victimize women. That is just impossible, right?

https://www.womenarehuman.com/male-transgender-who-targets-girls-under-8-years-old-is-released-into-community-madilyn-harks-nee-matthew-harks/

[Zeb]

The compelled speech argument I like. But let's apply it to everything. There is already all kinds of compelled speech that applies to businesses.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Something something calorie counts.

[mad.casual]

Hey, let me dig into some legal precedents:

Arguably *the* legal precedent is when Charlotte forced its businesses to accept trans people in the wrong bathroom. Scott supported the precedent. If he didn't want this sort of thing happening, he should've supported NC's HB2 that allowed businesses statewide to do as they please. He didn't because he's bully, just like any other, who needs to have his attitude adjusted with a pool cue.

[Nardz]

A misogynistic anti-science article from Scott Shackford and Reason?
Must be a day ending in "y"

[Briggs Cunningham]

The abruptness of people who spent years, decades even, claiming to be true believer feminists could turn around and not only disregard but deem bigoted the interests and concerns of women is really striking. One day it is "girls can" and the next it is "how dare you not want to shower with a man or compete against one in sports you transphobe!!"

[mad.casual]

Part of the problem is non-contact sports. Nobody cheerleads a heroic trans person crushing teen girls except for the slightly less heroic trans goons chomping at the bit to crush them. Let men on the Girls' Lacrosse or Hockey team and this problem will solve itself. I might even pay to watch that.

[Cronut]

My daughter plays hockey, so this is a particular worry to me. Not just because she'll potentially be shut out of opportunities because she can't hang with the biological boys, but also because she could be very seriously injured.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

There's only a .6 chance of that injury happening, so quit being a phobe.

[mad.casual]

Not just because she’ll potentially be shut out of opportunities because she can’t hang with the biological boys, but also because she could be very seriously injured.

I'm not sure how your daughter plays or the coach conducts his team but, generally, the people who wind up in the goons' crosshairs are frequently there for a good reason. Which was my point, your trans-male athletes are going to play like girls or they're going to pay for it. Probably worse than any girl would.

I'm having trouble seeing how Scott's "intelligence" on the subject doesn't extend beyond the courts. The first case of a Dad wading into the girls' lockerroom/bench and pounding the everloving shit out of a trans athlete based on 'credible allegations' should be interesting.

[Social Justice is neither]

Because that's how it's working out now in Women's rugby? They don't have to play like a thug to do serious damage, just play competitively by Male standards and physics will do the rest.

[Apollonius]

I dunno, I am amused by the idea that a guy on the girls' hockey team is outnumbered 19:1 by people with sticks, who know that he's cheating, looking at them in the shower room (talk about opportunity for a high-stick violation!) and stealing scholarship opportunities that should go to girls -- and that's just on HIS team.

[perlhaqr]

+1 Fallon Fox MMA Match

[Roberta]

Really it's about time competitive sports are reorganized by competition class instead of by sex.

[damikesc]

Yeah. Who needs women's sports?

Remember, our elite Women's soccer team, best in the world, was humbled by a 15 year old boys team in Dallas.

The best women's tennis player on Earth couldn't hope to COMPETE with a man ranked #200.

The WNBA? Well, who'd honestly miss that?

[TJJ2000]

How Commie-Education brings Fascism to the USA.
As well as thousands of other Gov-Commie outfits.

Isn't it about time the 'right' USA was restored and Commie 'left'? 🙂

[raspberrydinners]

Just that pesky constitution stopping these people from being bigots. What a shame.

[Briggs Cunningham]

That is right. Just call someone who holds an opinion you don't like a "bigot". That is all that is needed.

[buckleup]

You seem to like the constitution as long as you get what you want, you dismiss it when you don't. Typical leftie shit.

[TJJ2000]

Where was the constitution to stop mandatory Commie-Education? You're blaming the solution on the problem.

Remember that Amendment that gave the federal government the authority to setup mandatory Commie-Indoctrination camps by the "U.S. Board of Education"????

Yeah; Me neither.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Here's a libertarian podcast discussing the inherent misogyny of trans-activism.

[BYODB]

0.6% of the adult population generally, and 0.7% of thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds

That seems like a lot of transgender kids deciding that they aren't transgender upon reaching adulthood.

Just saying.

[Briggs Cunningham]

In ten or twenty years when this madness blows over and people look back on it the same way we look back at things like lobotomies and shock therapy, will reason publish a mea culpa to its readers for publishing Shackford for so long? Imagine if in the 1970s Reason published defenses of the Tuskegee experiments. The reckoning for all of this is going to be very interesting indeed.

[ThomasD]

"the same way we look back at things like lobotomies and shock therapy"

ECT is still very much a treatment for severe recalcitrant depression. Lobotomies not so much.

[Larvell Blanks]

Like much of statistics and economics, the decimal points are there to show that they have a sense of humor.

[buckleup]

Future generations will see this culture war as ludicrous I'm sure. But reality always smacks liberals in the face.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

But reality always smacks liberals in the face.

Well, it'll certainly be smacking a lot of young female athletes in the face, that's for sure.

[Minadin]

For what it's worth, women are not prevented from playing men's sports, generally speaking. We've had women play in some fairly high level men's leagues before, too - college football, college baseball, the NHL, etc.

It's rare, and it's usually perceived as some sort of a publicity stunt, but it's not against the rules.

Up until this recent trans-activism push, it's only been that biological males are prevented from sports competition reserved for women.

[Angry Porcupine]

In my 50 years of live in CA. I have met one of "these people" that I know of. I'm sure there is more. But the media make it out like they are everywhere? Yet the conversation is dominated by them. If equal representation is the deal then "they" should only get 1% of the conversation right?

[Clay]

I agree, but these journalists are always looking to make money. The whole deal is to scare the bejesus out of everyone so that they'll read the articles written by the journalists.

The creepy part is that elitists and judicial systems want to dominate us. They do this by embracing the old priestly class idea, where they are the humans of light who are divine and always right, but we are the evil demons who need their help, as in 'you hate gays and transgenders, so therefore it is better that we dominate you to keep you in line and help you cleanse yourself'. Of course we don't hate gays or transgenders, but that's not the point, at least to them its not.
A whole library of books could be written about our biological urge to embrace religion, or religious ideas. It's in every human to do this. The elites know this as they have always known it, going back thousands of years.

[Larvell Blanks]

And because the law explicitly permits trans boys to continue competing with other boys, Goodwin notes that everybody else gets to compete on sports teams on the basis of their chosen identity except for the plaintiff and other trans girls, making it a discriminatory policy.

That's absurd. A "trans boy" (i.e., a girl) isn't allowed to compete against boys because of her "chosen identity" -- ALL girls are allowed to compete against boys if they can make the team. The reason for having separate girls' teams is because not many girls could make a boys (or a unisex) team, and that consideration doesn't apply in reverse. What these laws do is say that "chosen identity" isn't the relevant distinction -- biological sex is, because that is that is relevant to athletic ability.

Even taking the judge's logic at face value, consider two identical biological males, one of whom identifies as a boy and one of whom identifies as a girl. If the second one is allowed to compete on a girls' team but the first one isn't, then the first one is being discriminated against on the basis of his "chosen identity." At some point, one hopes that Gorsuch, like Alec Guinness, will say, "What have I done?"

[Briggs Cunningham]

I would like to think Gorsuch will have such a moment, but I am skeptical he will. The amount of ego and how far Gorsuch had to have his head stuck up his ass to write the opinion he did makes it unlikely he is capable of much self reflection. Gorsuch may be right about a lot of things, but his transgender decision shows that he is right by accident and not because of any thoughtful reflection on his part.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Nothing in these laws prevent delusional psychotics from competing in sports. It requires them to compete as their actual gender.

[Political McGuffin]

But you still need to be 21 to drink right?

[Curly4]

He adds that the argument that a ban on trans girls competing with biological girls in order to protect girls' safety fails because the plaintiff was not asking to participate in a contact sport. Goodwin concludes that the girl is being discriminated against on the basis of her sex in the same way the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that workplace discrimination against gay and trans workers is discrimination on the basis of sex. And because the law explicitly permits trans boys to continue competing with other boys, Goodwin notes that everybody else gets to compete on sports teams on the basis of their chosen identity except for the plaintiff and other trans girls, making it a discriminatory policy.

According to the above paragraph it seems to me that it would be illegal to prevent a male student from participating in girls sports even it that male did not claim to be trans. The other way around would also be true but less likely to happen. It would also be illegal to prevent a female student from participating male sports trans or not. This will have the likelihood of destroying the girls sports in school and collaged and maybe even in professional sports.

Times are about to get interesting!

[Social Justice is neither]

Ultimately the problem is the "chosen identity" requirement is backed up by nothing more than an assertion. Since you can always choose a new identity, why wouldn't a second string male player identify as a female for a full ride scholarship or slot on a pro or national team. That is some real money and real stakes there and by the time it gets there the basis to correct will have been completely eroded away.

Bye girls, will be fun watching you loose Title IX cases and made bit players in your own leagues.

[Echospinner]

I don’t see why it is such a big deal in what is a personal and medical issue. Of course with minors informed consent is an issue but that is true for any medical treatment.

I would hate to see the general public or politicians pass judgement on what is a very complicated medical issue. There is considerable literature on gender dysphoria and how to handle that.

For example.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5841333/

[Briggs Cunningham]

I don’t see why it is such a big deal in what is a personal and medical issue. Of course with minors informed consent is an issue but that is true for any medical treatment.

Yeah, and the rule is kids don't get things like boob jobs and facial tattoos because they can't meaningfully consent to such things and the medical necessity does not justify allowing parents to consent for them. So, this is just like any other medical treatment. It is a entirely elective treatment that has long term effects on the person subjected to them. So, no, parents do not and should not have the right to step in and act for the child where the child cannot consent.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

So, no, parents do not and should not have the right to step in and act for the child where the child cannot consent.

But children can never legally consent to anything. So parents should be powerless to raise their children?

[Briggs Cunningham]

You took the sentence out of context you half wit. They can't step in and consent for the child to some things. And castration isn't one of those things, it is hard to see what would be.

Yes parents have authority. That authority is limited to some degree as I explain in the comment. So read the comment and understand it next time. You will look less foolish.

[Echospinner]

Which is why there is a big difference between medical and surgical intervention. Very few surgeons in a few centers do this and my understanding is that they will not even look at a case until there have been years of other options. Very few people go that far and I have never heard of a minor getting gender reassignment surgery.

The major issues are psychological and social. Those need to be dealt with first.

[damikesc]

Calling an anorexic "fatty" isn't a good idea either.

[Briggs Cunningham]

I don’t see why it is such a big deal in what is a personal and medical issue.

So just exactly what would a parent have to do to their child in the name of "medicine" would you see as a big deal? If castrating them isn't a big deal, why can't deaf parents have their children's hearing destroyed so that they can be full members of the deaf community? Why not allow parents to give their children tattoos or breast and butt implants? What about giving them steroids so they can do better in sports?

Jesus fucking Christ how can you see castrating people who by definition can't legally consent to it as no big deal?

[Clemdane]

And double mastectomies for teen girls...and rendering them irreversibly sterile with male hormones

[Echospinner]

It is a problem which does not exist. There are criteria for this. Here is a sample of the standard of care as it applies to surgery.

“Genital surgery should not be carried out until (i) patients reach the legal age of majority in a given country, and (ii) patients have lived continuously for at least 12 months in the gender role that is congruent with their gender identity. The age threshold should be seen as a minimum criterion and not an indication in and of itself for active intervention.”

https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/SOC%20v7/SOC%20V7_English.pdf

There are standards of care. If you understand what that means in a medical legal sense. A lawyer can tear you to shreds with this stuff.

Surgery is a last ditch approach and only when others have failed. The vast majority of this small population can live with lifestyle and medical therapy.

[damikesc]

You ignore what the HORMONES are doing.

These kids are sterilized before they hit their teens.

That is a huge problem and it is not fixable.

[Tony]

How does it affect you if other people's children take hormones?

[Mickey Rat]

The same way it affects if other people children are molested. How it affects me is irrelevant to the harm done to the child.

[damikesc]

Gays being killed for being gay didn't affect me either it should be noted.

[Cyto]

Which is why the problem that does not exists suddenly exists.

Activists on the left are pushing for young children to undergo hormone therapy to block puberty, even over the parents objections.

There is a lot of back and forth on this.. But the nut of the objection is that most young people who say they are trans do so only briefly, changing their tune as hormones take over. Blocking natural biological processes would be extremely harmful in these cases.

But if you are a 37 year old trans woman who transitioned only a few years ago, you probably lament the fact that you did not transition much earlier and wish you could go back and avoid the changes that puberty wrought upon your body.

Your "these are the standards" argument really doesn't enter into this part of the discussion. In reality, activist social workers and government officials are moving to block puberty in these kids, even over their parents objections. And there really is no objective way to say who is right... If you really were going to end up an unhappy 37 year old trans woman, blocking liberty would probably be a great thing. But if you were going to discover that you no longer felt that way once puberty kicked in, blocking puberty would be a horrifying prospect.

Being that we are talking about the government intervention aspect of the issue, I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide where the libertarian position in that dogfight should be.

[Tony]

I think we need data. This issue is too ripe for exploitation from culture warriors. I want to know how many tweens are getting hormone therapy against their doctor's judgment.

[Mickey Rat]

The doctors supporting this kind of treat ARE culture warriors.

[Clemdane]

Another issue is that psychiatrists and psychologists, who used to have the dictate to create a safe environment in which their patient can explore their issues, whether dysphoria or depression or whatever, and allow the patient to slowly unravel what it is that is bothering them. They were not supposed to lead the patient in any particular direction, but help them to get clarity on their own thoughts and feelings. Where this is the standard, of course some of the children/teens turn out to be genuinely dysphoric and want to go through with living as the other gender. A larger group discover that their discomfort was about something else, and "trans" was just an easy issue to latch onto and solve.

In the last 10-15 years the trans lobby has been pressuring psychological and psychiatric organizations to abandon this (tried and tested for many decades) approach and switch to a so-called 'gender-affirmative' approach where they immediately reinforce the idea that the patients' problems come from being transgender and tell them they're the gender they feel like and immediately start grooming them to live fully as the other sex.

It's the same approach they are pressuring parents to take. So where instead of listening to a three year old boy who says, "I'm a girl" and then exploring what that means to him and why he would say that (might be because he loves his sister's dollhouse and thinks only girls can play with it or he likes the color pink and thinks boys can't have pink clothes) the parent is pressured to immediately tell their child, "Oh so you are really a girl? Let's go out and buy your some dresses and think up a girl's name for you!" And the parent calls their kid's school and says, "Timmy is now Tina. Please instruct all the other kids to call her "she".

[ThomasD]

" There is considerable literature on gender dysphoria and how to handle that."

Did you even read the abstract?

" However, virtually nothing is known regarding adolescent-onset GD, its progression and factors that influence the completion of the developmental tasks of adolescence among young people with GD and/or transgender identity. Consolidation of identity development is a central developmental goal of adolescence, but we still do not know enough about how gender identity and gender variance actually evolve. Treatment-seeking adolescents with GD present with considerable psychiatric comorbidity. There is little research on how GD and/or transgender identity are associated with completion of developmental tasks of adolescence.."

"We don't know shit."

Or were you actually being sarcastic?

[Enemy of the State]

" Therefore, I cannot find that permitting B.P.J. to participate on the girls' cross country and track teams would significantly, if at all, prevent other girl athletes from participating.

He adds that the argument that a ban on trans girls competing with biological girls in order to protect girls' safety fails because the plaintiff was not asking to participate in a contact sport."

There's a great South Park episode that explains why trans folks should be prevented from participating in sports of the opposite biological sex...

[Mickey Rat]

One assumes there are only a certain number of slots on the team. If the biological male is on the team, that means there is one female who has lost her chance to compete.

[Clay]

It's hard to understand that a Federal Judge with many years of reading, writing, and research doesn't understand why a Trans female shouldn't compete against a biological female.
It seems that we are just seeing an attack on female rights to compete fairly with biological females.
I firmly believe the people will not stand for it. This kind of stupidity on the part of federal judges will divide us even more.
If this kind of stuff stands, the schools might as well scrap women's sports. If I were a teenage girl I would ban sports in protest. The only girl who would show up for the basketball team would be the transgender.

[Clemdane]

So by "anti-trans" you mean "pro-women's and children's rights"?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If trans teenagers are .6% of the population, why are they the fuck all over my TV?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

.6% of the population seems to be driving a huge amount of entertainment programming.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I mean, I'm trying to think of what .7.5% would get you at this point.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

'Cause... we just aren't talking about a mere .6 % of the population enough.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Even Biden agrees, this is THE #1 issue of our time.

Hell, at this point, I might go trans because this fucking thing is starting to look like a major, and I do mean major gravy train. I never thought being oppressed could be so hip!

[Tony]

Aren't you tired of being performative about your cultural sluggishness every single time one of these issues crops up?

Half the population is going to be below average on accepting new social concepts. It's natural, but it's nothing to brag about.

[Roberta]

A lot of this mishigos would go away if people stopped referring to "gender" when they meant "sex". There's very little call for the word "gender" (which just means "type" or "kind") at all; it gets use in language studies and that's about it, when it comes to situations when the word "sex" could not be rightly substituted. Once people realize they're talking about sex, the whole thing becomes silly.

[Mickey Rat]

They are not going to stop it because it is not a misunderstanding, it is a deliberate word game being played here.

[Tony]

A confusion so easily remedied, one wonders how the Ben Shapiros of the world still can't get it after being told by uncountable people and after making millions of dollars being a guy on the internet who explains things to people.

It's almost as if elucidating the simple facts of the situation isn't the point.

[ragebot]

Funny what is happening on Facebook. Blurb from my friend Mary's post

"Facebook shut our Women's Cycling Group down. I asked for a review - but for those who are in that group - that is what is going on. "Hate speech". 11 years and 7000 members..."

Mary also runs the Facebook group Save Women's Sports South East and there are multiple posts there about men who think they are women dominating women's bike races where there are money prizes. Also posts about boys who think they are girls dominating high school track meets.

Just as an aside several years ago I saw Suzy Favors elbow a girl in a race in Philly; thought she was gonna knock the girls tit off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzy_Favor_Hamilton#:~:text=Suzy%20Favor%20Hamilton%20%28born%20August%208%2C%201968%29%20is,graduated%20from%20the%20University%20of%20Wisconsin%E2%80%93Madison%20in%201991.

[Cyto]

This is a wonderful issue for demonstrating how broken our entire legal system is, from the legislature, to the courts.

We are supposed to have a system that provides the "rule of law, not men". But this series of cases shows this to be a complete fiction.

We have legislatures panicking to signal to their base that they are on the right side of a mostly made up issue (granted, one that was intentionally designed by the left to be exactly this sort of wedge issue trap... If you believe that the Charlotte mandate on trans use of restrooms was anything else, I have a bridge to sell you)..... And we have courts inventing standards out of whole cloth, even completely standing the law on its head to achieve the desired result.

There is absolutely no way to reasonably read Title IX to mean that you have to let boys compete with girls, but only if they say a legal version of " Simon Says" first. It is just silly. Either title IX requires creating "separate but equal" sports opportunities for women as it has always been interpreted to mean, or else it means "no discrimination by gender", which would be the end of women's athletics in schools. But no, they just make something up... You have to have segregated women only sports, except that you must allow boys to participate if they are trans girls, as long as it is only 1 or 2. What the he'll does that even mean?

The judge is probably right.. Schools should probably reasonably accommodate most of these cases. But you can't pretend that the law requires it because it is a rare exception. That is just stupid.

Plus, they all pretend that the debate is about some chubby trans girl from the middle of nowhere who is the only trans girl in 3 counties. The debate centers around the top levels of competition, not Podunk Iowa. This is why you see talking heads on MSNBC claiming " there has never been one example", even as the talking heads on the right show footage of the two Vermont Trans girls winning the state in track, a trans MMA fighter breaking the orbits of a female fighter, over the hill male weight lifters becoming world record holding female weight lifters, middle aged teen handball players destroying women half their size and half their age..... It is clearly a dishonest discussion from the jump.

It is bad enough that we are too weak-minded to fend off these intellectually dishonest attacks on civil discourse, but to take the mentality that allows people to dismiss LGBTQ heroine Martina Navratilova as trans phobic (!) for having the temerity to suggest that trans women should not be competing in the professional women's tennis circuit that she helped create and codify that as law by judicial fiat? Are we insane?

Hey, judges! Every political or social opinion you have is not binding law! Stop backing in to decisions and start following the law as written!

Hey, politicians! Just because some think tank says you can gain political advantage by passing some wedge issue law - it doesn't mean you have to do it!

Hey pundits and political journalists! You guys are perhaps the worst of all. Stop pretending that up is down just because your team says so. You are not doing God's work. Quite the opposite.

[Tony]

Ah, a wedge issue trap! That's a new one. It's not just a wedge issue, with a documented chain of custody in Republican ratfuckery circles. Democrats made them pass laws to require government agents to check children's genitals. Those mean Democrats, forcing Republicans to fall for their innate sexual morality hysteria!

[Cyto]

You were literally here for it. Charlotte passed along requiring private businesses to allow men to use the women's restroom. That is where this issue began. The state legislature responded by saying cities could not pass such laws. The DNC was ready, with boycotts loaded and set to fire as if restoring the status quo anti was somehow akin to outlawing anyone who looks different.

Pretending that this is forcing people to check children's genitals isn't just dishonest, which is the norm with talking points, it is objectively stupid.

I lament what reason has become. There are barely any people even capable of understanding an argument any more, let alone formulating one.

[Tony]

If small-government libertarians are advocating for any laws restricting people's freedom because of the nature of their genitals, then I guess I'm right about small-government libertarians, aren't I?

[Tony]

That sounds perfectly reasonable.

Not reasonable is repeating this so often that it creates the impression that there's an actual political faction opposed to it.

[Ben of Houston]

Tony. We have a political movement dedicated to supporting "trans rights" in the form of children being able to transition to another gender. Children as young as toddlers. Some courts have even held that children are able to transition against parental consent.

We know for a fact that children are incompetent by definition. We know that psychiatry has a long history of diagnosis fads. We know that parent will manipulate their child into doing things that are against the child's best interest. There is no one that can make the decision to transition.

If a person wishes to transition as an adult, then that's their decision. Transitioning as a child is not something that society should accept. If someone truly does have gender dysphoria as a child, then they can deal with it when they grow up and have the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to make this decision.