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New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
What to Know About the Transgender Rights Movement's Supreme Court Gamble
The Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday allowing Tennessee and other states to ban gender-affirming care for minors was a crushing blow for the trans rights movement. For some trans activists and their allies, the case, known as United States v. Skrmetti, was the culmination of a powerful Trump-era backlash against trans people, artfully stoked by right-wing politicians and abetted by biased media coverage. But some civil rights experts and veterans of the L.G.B.T.Q. movement view the Skrmetti case as a tragic gamble built on flawed politics and uncertain science. An examination by The New York Times found that over the last decade, the movement was consumed by theories of sex and gender that most voters didn't grasp or support, radicalizing and calcifying its politics just as the culture wars reignited. The decision by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Biden administration to take Skrmetti to the Supreme Court was 'one of the biggest mistakes in the history of trans activism,' said Brianna Wu, a trans woman who serves on the board of Rebellion PAC, a Democratic political-action committee. Here are six takeaways from the full Magazine article: Some L.G.B.T.Q. activists and legal experts have long expected a defeat in Skrmetti. In private meetings of L.G.B.T.Q. legal-advocacy groups, many lawyers expected a loss almost from the moment the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, according to one person briefed on the conversations. On the outside, many experts considered the case an extraordinary risk. Not only was there little chance that the conservative-dominated court would expand heightened constitutional protections to trans people; a defeat in Skrmetti could open the door to other losses. 'If you can't win a challenge to strike down a gender-affirming-care ban, it's going to be hard to win other cases around trans rights,' said Michael Ulrich, a professor of health law and human rights at Boston University. Underlying Skrmetti was a broader cultural battle over how to understand — and describe — human identity. In recent years, many L.G.B.T.Q. activists came to believe that gender identity should supplant older understandings of physical sex. In this view, all people have the right to determine their own gender, regardless of how they dressed or whether they opted for medical transition. This self-identified gender — not your physical body — should determine what appears on your driver's license, which bathrooms you could access and what sports teams you could play on. When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, his administration embraced much of that worldview, directing government agencies to interpret old civil rights laws against sex discrimination to include this more novel — and more contested — concept of gender identity. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Boston Globe
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
We should treat the transgender movement as if it were a religious faith
And the fact that he doesn't believe what I believe isn't hateful — just as it isn't hateful when Americans question some of the views espoused by progressive transgender activists. Advertisement Over the past decade, the transgender movement has gone from seeking representation and access to health care to imposing its own supposed truths on American society. Like the idea that gender is fully mutable. That people born male but identifying as women can safely and fairly play in women's sports. That it's dangerous to tell parents when their children are changing their gender at school. That it's even more dangerous to deny life-altering medical care to children confused about their gender. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Related : There are no doubt people who feel they have been born in the wrong body and who lead more fulfilling lives by adopting characteristics of the opposite gender. Adults should have the right to pursue that kind of life. They deserve respect and inclusion, like any other person, and we should teach children that respect as well. Advertisement But the belief that anyone can be born in the wrong body is just that — a belief. It's neither the product of scientific research nor the outcome of a democratic debate. It's a statement of faith. Anyone is entitled to that belief, but they aren't entitled to impose it on others. And trans ideology goes further in public institutions, like schools, than modern organized religion legally can. Even some trans people are uncomfortable with how dogmatic the activism has become. It 'is truly about a messianic vision of dismantling the role of gender and sex in America, which, forgive my language, is just insane,' says Brianna Wu, a trans woman and progressive activist who advocates for transgender health care. In Arlington public schools, teaching materials When religion is taught in public schools, it's often presented through a historical or sociological lens. Here's what a group of people believe, and here's how it all started. Public school teachers can't force students to recite 'Our Father' when they get to the life of Jesus in world history classes. But some schools do readily assert that gender is fully mutable and biological sex is insignificant. And they do pressure students' speech by supporting a pronoun culture whereby everyone has to label themselves according to a fluid gender spectrum. Advertisement 'This is gender ideology as religion,' Wu told me. Activists no doubt believe that by pushing transgender ideology into schools, they're helping build a more just society. But the Catholics trying to open the nation's first religious charter school, in Oklahoma, probably think they're doing the same thing. That The Supreme Court continues to grapple with the fuzzy line between freedom of speech and worship and the separation of church and state. The court has discouraged school-sponsored worship, while allowing accommodations for private religious expression. In the landmark 1962 ruling in Engle v. Vitale, for example, the court found that even nonsectarian prayer sponsored by public schools violated the Establishment Clause. That case was brought by a group of parents who claimed that that form of prayer violated their own family beliefs and religious practices. Injecting transgender ideology into schools doesn't clearly conflict with the Constitution the way sponsoring school prayer does, but it raises similar concerns: that schools are imposing beliefs on children. A December Advertisement Still, trans allies might reason: Sure, the activists go too far sometimes, but we'll tolerate a little dogma in the face of a Republican offensive against transgender rights. But their dogmatism predates the crackdown on youth gender medicine and trans people in the military. In many ways, it has There's another way to champion transgender issues without alienating wide swaths of Americans. Wu believes that transgender activism can accept biological differences while focusing on representation and access to health care — without confusing children. 'Trans extremists have a very clear view. They want access to gender-affirming trans health care [for children], which, to be clear, is extreme,' she says. Wu would prefer a movement that 'is asking for a seat at the table instead of flipping it over.' In schools, that might look like a lesson in respecting one another's differences instead of one that Advertisement Transgender activists have chosen a radical creed. But they go further than religion would, insisting that you, and your government, must adopt their views. And they're losing their fellow citizens because of it. Perhaps they need to be reminded that in this country, people with different beliefs are expected to get along. Carine Hajjar is a Globe Opinion writer. She can be reached at
