To bring its policies in line with the Trump administration's Executive Order prohibiting males from competing in women’s sports, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee modified its eligibility rules on Monday to functionally prohibit trans-identified male athletes from competing in women’s Olympic sports. The revised policy declares that “The USOPC is committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport. The USOPC will continue to collaborate with various stakeholders with oversight responsibilities, e.g., IOC, IPC, NGBs, to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act.” According to several sports executives interviewed by the New York Times, “The committee’s new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States now must follow the U.S.O.P.C.’s lead.”
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in Bates v. Pakseresht that an Oregon adoption policy likely violated the 1st amendment by requiring the plaintiff, Jessica Bates, to embrace “gender ideology” as a condition to adopt foster children. In 2023, Bates challenged an Oregon Department of Human Services rule that categorically prohibited her from adopting any child because she refused on religious grounds to embrace the tenets of “gender ideology,” including the use of cross-sex pronouns. In its ruling, the 9th circuit ordered the state’s department of Health and Human Services to reconsider Bates’ application because she is likely to succeed in demonstrating that the state’s policy violated her 1st amendment rights. “No one thinks, for example, that a state could exclude parents from adopting foster children based on those parents’ political views, race, or religious affiliations...Adoption is not a constitutional law dead zone. And a state’s general conception of the child’s best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights” the 9 Circuit wrote in its ruling.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reports that Senator Bill Cassidy has sent letters to hospital networks and prominent health insurers asking them to demonstrate how they’ve adapted their policies to conform with the Trump administration’s Executive Order, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. Cassidy also sent letters to the National Association of Community Health Centers, the Federation of American Hospitals, the American Hospital Association, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and AHIP, a health insurance trade association. Recipients have until August 7th to address the queries in the letter.
A New York Times article explores how the Trump administration’s full court press against pediatric medical transition is leading many hospitals, even in blue states with protective “shield laws” for gender medicine, to limit medical transition to adults. The article zeroes in on recent announcements by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Stanford Medicine, and UChicago Medicine, among others. As Leor Sapir points out, however, the Times’ choice of language to frame the issue is not editorially neutral (transgender minors, essential medical care, etc.) but implicitly takes sides on what is a contentious debate.
Last Friday, attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Child and Parental Rights Campaign asked the Supreme Court to take up the case of Foote v. Ludlow School Committee. In the case, parents Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri allege that the Ludlow School District socially transitioned their daughter while at school, against their explicit wishes and without their knowledge. In February, however, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the parents, catalyzing the latest appeal to the Supreme Court. “Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri have a moral belief, backed by well-supported scientific opinion, that a so-called gender transition harms children. Yet the Ludlow School Committee has not only enacted a secret social transition policy that keeps parents completely in the dark about their kids, they also blatantly go against parents’ express wishes. We are urging the Supreme Court to take this case and affirm the constitutional protections parents have in making the best decisions for their children” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti, the defendants and plaintiffs in the case challenging Arkansas’s nearly identical policy have submitted supplemental briefs addressing the ruling’s implications. The defendants are requesting the reversal of a lower court order in light of Skrmetti, and argue the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should apply rational-basis review to Arkansas’ law. The plaintiffs, however, are requesting that the federal appeals court send the case back to district court. Specifically, the plaintiffs argue that the case should be returned to district court “to determine in the first instance whether Plaintiffs have carried their burden of proving that Act 626 violates the Equal Protection Clause under the rational basis test.” While temporarily blocked in 2021, Arkansas’ policy was permanently blocked on First and Fourteenth amendment grounds in 2023 by U.S. District Judge James Moody.
In the Philosopher’s Magazine, Daniel Kodsi and John Maier explore how academic philosophers too often fail to apply their philosophical training, or even any common sense at all, when weighing in on trans issues. “Some of the most macho, straight-shooting, take-no-prisoners analytic philosophers out there are easily left tongue-tied if asked to venture an opinion as to whether there are any male women” the authors write. Kodsi and Maier also scrutinize the argumentation of an amicus brief submitted by Yale philosophers on behalf of the plaintiffs in Skrmetti, which was used to advance the argument that Tennessee's law classifies and discriminates based on sex. The authors take issue with the Yale philosophers’ use of what they see as a misapplied “decompositional strategy” that fails to reveal the law’s hidden, discriminatory intent. The authors argue that if you take the argument in the Yale amicus brief to its logical conclusion, then valuing normal physical and psychological development in boys and girls is itself fundamentally sexist. “It is embarrassing to discover, in a discipline whose public self-image incorporates a socratic ideal of intellectual fearlessness, a conspicuous absence of truth-tellers” they conclude.
The French National Authority for Health (HAS) published recommendations supporting adult medical transition, however, it did not issue any recommendations for minors. “In the absence of sufficiently robust data and consensus, the HAS has chosen to address the issue of children under 18 separately” HAS wrote. This comes as a surprising and welcome development because earlier drafts of the recommendations allowed 16-17 years old access to medical interventions. “The decision to change course—and to reconsider the care of 16-17-year-olds as part of a new HAS working group process on treatment advice for minors generally—has dismayed the affirmative lobbyists and delivered their critics at least a reprieve” Lane writes.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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