On Tuesday, the Fourth Judicial District Court struck down Montana’s law prohibiting minors from accessing sex-rejecting procedures for the treatment of gender dysphoria, granting a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs and a permanent injunction blocking enforcement of the law. The court rejected the state’s logic that its legislative ban was animated by a compelling interest to protect minors from the harms of experimental practices, determining that the state failed to demonstrate that these procedures pose a “medically acknowledged, bona fide health risk.” Judge Jason Marks, however, was overly deferential to evidence from the plaintiffs showing that “that major medical organizations acknowledge the gender-affirming medical care banned by SB 99 is generally appropriate for treating adolescents with gender dysphoria…” As the HHS report on best practices for treating gender dysphoria makes clear, the consensus of medical associations is not a substitute for high-quality backing evidence, and most medical societies have not independently evaluated the science. Judge Marks ultimately ruled that the Montana policy violates the right to privacy, the state constitution’s equal protection clause, and freedom of speech and expression.
According to a memo reviewed by Reuters, the Defense Department has issued instructions barring trans-identified troops from receiving cross-sex hormones and sex-rejecting surgeries. The move comes weeks after the Supreme Court determined, in response to an emergency petition, that the Trump administration could enforce its policy prohibiting the trans-identified from serving in the military. According to Pentagon officials, there are at least 4, 240 active-duty troops who identify as transgender.
Earlier this week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law which prohibits male inmates from using facilities designated for biological women in state correctional facilities. “States have a duty to protect the privacy and safety of women and girls. Letting men intrude into women’s intimate spaces is a denial of the real biological differences between the two sexes and has devastating effects on women,” declared Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel, Sara Beth Nolan. While critics argue that it a human right to self-identify into the gender category of your choosing, these same critics often fail to grapple with the reality that unbridled self-identification often undermines the sex-based rights of women and girls. As National Review notes, a 2022 report on California prisons found that over 33% of male inmates seeking to transfer to women’s prisons were registered sex offenders.
The Texas House voted 85-59 in favor of a bill which would modify the state’s definition of abuse and neglect to ensure that parents who raise their child in accordance with their sex cannot be penalized in welfare cases. Specifically, the bill would modify the state’s family code so that parents who refuse to use a child’s requested name or pronouns cannot be penalized. “At the end of the day, nobody loves their child more than mom and dad…And what this legislation does is it ensures mom and dad don’t lose custody of their child over a difference in ideology” said Rep. Matt Shaheen. By contrast, critics of the bill suggest that not affirming a child will harm their mental health, even though there is no reliable evidence from systematic reviews that social transition improves gender dysphoria or related psychiatric illness, and there are concerns that it could interfere with a child’s early identity development. Defenders of the bill also point out, however, that mental and physical abuse are still illegal and that there are mechanisms in place to protect sex-distressed youth. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Last weekend, the Texas House passed HB 299 and SB 1257. HB 299 is a sex definition bill that provides legal definitions of male and female, while SB 1257 requires insurers who cover “affirming care” practices to also cover detransition related medical care. The sex definition bill is being framed as a “women’s bill of rights” that enshrines a “clear, consistent and biologically accurate” definition of women into Texas law. After another vote on Monday, the detransition coverage bill now heads to the Governor’s desk while the sex definition bill heads for a public hearing.
In City Journal, Colin Wright defends the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ report on best practices for treating pediatric gender dysphoria, calling it a “comprehensive and sober reevaluation of the science, ethics, and clinical practices” of the field. Wright summarizes the main take-aways from the report, including but not limited to the umbrella review’s findings of “low quality” evidence for benefits, its rejection of ideological terminology and framing, and the report’s ethical analysis of the risk-benefit ratio of treatment. Wright also provides cogent rebuttals to two criticisms advanced by critics of the report: the anonymity of the authors and allegations of political bias. Wright asserts that the report does “what no American medical body has had the courage to do: assess the state of pediatric gender medicine without ideological blinders…”
In City Journal, I wrote about the American Academy of Pediatrics’ condemnation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ report on best practices for treating pediatric gender dysphoria and how its knee-jerk response reinforces the report’s analysis of how medical societies continue to prop up an artificial consensus on gender medicine. While many Americans assume that medical societies have carefully evaluated the evidence for medical transition, I explain how many of these organizations are ideologically captured by the activist wings of their organizations and end up “endorsing ‘affirming care’ in their treatment guidelines despite low-quality evidence. In turn, other medical associations uncritically adopt their guidelines, choosing to defer to their ostensible expertise.” The broken chain of trust between these associations and the public “stalls the development of better standards of care and undermines public trust by forcing sex-distressed youth and their families to make medical decisions under false pretenses.”
In a brief but effective op-ed, Do No Harm’s Dr. Roy Eappen draws attention to one of the many paradoxes of the transgender movement. In this case, how a movement built in allyship with lesbians, gays and bisexuals ultimately medicalizes many of these same individuals by reframing their natural “gender nonconformity” as indication that they are really the opposite sex. As Eappen notes, most of the youth with sex-distress grow up to be gay and many “don’t conform to gender roles.” Because gender ideology denies the realities of biological sex and defines men and women in relation to sex stereotypes, this leaves gender non-conforming youth coded as “transgender” even if they’re perfectly happy in their own skin. “While activists are attacking the Trump administration’s report for being ‘anti-trans,’ the reality is that it’s pro-gay and lesbian. It’s about time the U.S. stood up for these kids and stood up to the ideologues who endanger the next generation of people like me” Eappen concludes.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
