Transgender people’s feelings trump free speech at school, federal judge rules
Hudson Crozier
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Middleborough Public Schools in Massachusetts sent 12-year-old Liam Morrison home from school one day in March for wearing a T-shirt that supposedly violated the dress code. Staff had pulled him aside, told him it was making other students feel unsafe, and asked him to remove it, but he refused.
Morrison didn’t disrupt any activities or behave in any other way the school found objectionable, so one would expect his shirt to be very inappropriate. But it didn’t depict graphic violence or nudity or convey hatred toward a group of people. It bore a statement of fact that people Morrison’s age typically learn in their biology classes: “There Are Only Two Genders.”
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Morrison’s parents sued the school district to defend their son’s constitutional rights to free speech and protection from viewpoint discrimination in what should have been a slam-dunk case. A district court judge appointed by former President Barack Obama, however, ruled in favor of the censors on Friday by refusing to halt their policy temporarily while the case proceeds.
Judge Indira Talwani agreed with the school that, actually, it was Morrison who “invaded the rights” of students through his factual, nonviolent statement. She cited the school’s unproven claim that offending a gender-dysphoric child’s sense of identity in any way puts them at risk of suicide. Even some doctors who support transitioning children agree that this narrative is “exaggerated and hysterical,” and there is no solid data to back it up, but Talwani treats it as an undisputed fact.
“School administrators were well within their discretion to conclude that the statement ‘THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS’ may communicate that only two gender identities … are valid, and any others are invalid or nonexistent,” Talwani wrote, “and to conclude that students who identify differently, whether they do so openly or not, have a right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities.”
It would be impossible to argue that the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with the intent of protecting “gender nonconforming” children from any statement that might invalidate their feelings, a right given to no other group in society. But the leftist legal movement abandoned all notions of judicial integrity on politically charged legal matters long ago. Even so, Talwani’s mental gymnastics are breathtaking.
Talwani even admits that the school hosts various LGBT-related events and “promotes messages commonly associated with ‘LGBTQ Pride.’” Children who have been told they are a different gender than what their bodies would indicate already have the institution on their side. But it takes quite a lot to affirm a belief so misaligned, a total restructuring of their environment to insulate them from simple, logical thoughts that might cause the theory to crumble.
Therefore, to progressives, trans-identifying people will never have enough rights. There are no barriers to their war on reality. In many respects, the delusional tyranny they envision cannot be stopped through convincing arguments, only by using political power to remove their influence from our institutions. Fortunately, the powerful legal group backing Morrison, Alliance Defending Freedom, is not known for quitting in these battles.
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Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.