Transgenderism turns the judiciary into an absurd mess
Hudson Crozier
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Yesterday, two federal district judges moved to protect child sex changes with rulings that will ensure continued harm toward children and the American legal system.
Judge Eli Richardson temporarily blocked provisions of a Tennessee law banning cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors, saying they likely violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge David Hale decided to do the same regarding provisions of a Kentucky law banning the same practices. The rulings, from a Donald Trump and Barack Obama appointee, respectively, offer an illuminating look into the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into as a country.
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Large swaths of Americans believe there is no such thing as a gender “identity” that contradicts biology and recognize that you are either born physically male or female. The judges in these cases subscribe to the view of the plaintiffs that this is not the case. Tennessee and Kentucky officials, therefore, had lost the arguments from the moment they stepped foot in the courtrooms.
“Everyone has a gender identity,” Richardson writes in a footnote. “Those whose gender identity aligns with their sex at birth are cisgender. Those whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth are transgender.”
“The minor plaintiffs are three transgender boys and four transgender girls who live in Kentucky,” Hale explains in his ruling.
Because the judges agree that the children’s beliefs regarding their genders correlate with their real gender, they logically conclude that laws reflecting reality constitute “discrimination” based on gender. The Supreme Court catapulted this legal trend with its Bostock v. Clayton County precedent, which appears in both decisions. The supposed medical evidence they reference is merely an added bonus to what is ultimately a philosophical justification.
Restricting “gender-affirming” chemical substances, the judges say, prevents a group of people from living out a valid identity the way that others may live out theirs. Both rulings note that the states allow these substances to be used on “cisgender” children for purposes other than trying to affirm a mistaken sense of identity. The only reason Richardson allowed Tennessee’s ban on gender surgeries to continue is that he didn’t believe it “will affect [a child’s] treatment for gender dysphoria.”
It is impossible for attorneys fighting sex changes to win such cases because there is essentially no legal debate. The debate is over two perceptions of reality that precede the letter of the law and are totally irreconcilable.
Americans with heads on their shoulders understand that altering children’s bodies in these ways is reality-rejecting, not gender-affirming, and a horrific response to genuine psychological issues. Yesterday’s decisions do not uphold the rights and dignity of children. They grant adults permission to pump their bodies with experimental drugs that disrupt the natural development of their bodies in dangerous ways and sterilize them. If stopping them is not a “legitimate state interest,” I don’t know what is.
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Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.