On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can enforce Executive Order 14183, which prohibits the trans-identified from serving in the U.S. military. Prior to Tuesday, the military ban was blocked from going into effect after Federal District Judge Benjamin H. Settle issued a nationwide injunction in March, which was later upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In response, the administration filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court arguing that “the district court’s injunction cannot be squared with the substantial deference that the department’s professional military judgments are owed,” culminating in Tuesday’s ruling. Notably, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson adopted dissenting opinions but provided no reasoning, which is typical for rulings responding to emergency petitions. The policy will now remain in effect as legal challenges play out.
The Economist provides a thoughtful analysis of HHS’ report on best practices for treating pediatric gender dysphoria that gives the authors their due for producing a rigorous report instead of a culture war screed. The report performs an “umbrella review” of seventeen systematic reviews–the highest standard of evidence in medicine–of pediatric medical transition and concludes that the overall quality of evidence on the effects of intervention is “very low.” Aside from the chapter on evidence, other chapters focus on a history of the field, ethics, “clinical realities,” and the uses of psychotherapy. The ethics chapter was singled out by the Economist as possibly the “the deepest bioethical analysis of the issue yet to be published.” For more reading, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal also reviewed the report.
On his substack, Peter Sim cuts through the misinformation surrounding the HHS report on pediatric gender dysphoria and argues that “anyone who claims to be on the side of scientific truth and reason is obliged to put aside ad hominem arguments and judge the Review on its merits.” Sim views the report’s merits as considerable and highlights several strengths, including its use of non-ideological and precise language, its ethical analysis, and its analysis of the role played by medical societies and dubious “clinical practice guidelines” in propping up an artificial consensus on gender medicine. While the evidence review itself is obviously a significant contribution, the other sections of the report function as a skeleton key for making sense of the gender medicine movement more broadly.
The Colorado House passed HB25-1312 on Tuesday night sending the bill to the governor’s desk. The bill would introduce more “inclusive” policies in public schools relating to “chosen names” and adherence to dress codes, amend the state’s anti-discrimination act to expand definitions of “gender expression” to include “chosen name,” make it easier for Coloradans to modify their “gender” on state documents, and easier to obtain a new marriage license after a legal name change. Notably, the final bill ultimately removed the most controversial provision, which made “deadnaming” and “misgendering” a form of “coercive control” with massive implications for child custody decisions. That provision was removed last week after a ten-hour hearing in the Senate Judiciary committee, and after feedback from dozens of witnesses concerned about violations of parental rights.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and AGs from nineteen other states have filed a friend-of-the court brief calling on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a decision where the court sided with the Leon County school system over parents in a dispute over the school system’s secret social transition policies. In March, the appeals court ruled against parents January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, whose then 13-year-old daughter was socially transitioned at school against their wishes and without their knowledge. The 11th circuit ultimately determined that the facts of the case did not “shock the conscience,” which was the legal test applied. The friend-of-the court brief, however, argues that the “shock the conscience” legal test was misapplied and that the school system infringed upon fundamental constitutional rights to “make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children, including controversial decisions like whether to allow their children to socially transition.”
Last Week, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a bill into law fully banning medical interventions for trans-identified youth in the state by removing an exception in the state’s ban from 2023, which allowed minors at risk of suicide to receive medical interventions. The law also introduces sex-definitions for male and female, and targets “affirming” telemedicine providers. In addition, the law creates penalties for clinicians who violate the treatment ban and a new cause of action for youth harmed by these practices.
The Telegraph chronicles how England’s Green Party–ostensibly unified by a commitment to environmental issues–became fractured after infighting on trans rights, which has accelerated in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that “sex” under the Equality Act is limited to biological sex. In 2016, a gender liberatory faction of the Green Party proposed a resolution, which later passed, declaring that “The Green Party recognizes that trans men are men, trans women are women and that non-binary entities exist and are valid. We shall respect transgender and non-binary people’s identities as real. The Green Party shall include, and push for further acceptance of, transgender and non-binary people within all areas of society.” This move radicalized female party members who felt that both their sex-based rights and representation in the organization were being taken away.
In Gender Clinic News, Bernard Lane explores how hospitals and government entities who adopted maximalist positions on “affirming care” are quietly pulling down webpages and making silent edits to claims about the benefits and “reversibility” of medical transition. Lane highlights stealth edits made by Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, and the Sax Institute, which is funded by the Health Department of New South Wales.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
