On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to take up a case, Chiles v. Salazar, challenging Colorado’s law banning “conversion therapy” for persons under 18. The plaintiff, licensed counselor Katy Chiles, is arguing that the law violates her freedom of speech. In recent years many blue states have passed “conversion” bans that prevent mental health counselors from engaging in any practice that could change a child’s “gender identity” or sexual orientation, essentially prohibiting counselors from working outside the “affirmative” model under the threat of penalties and licensure loss. Chiles argues that the law is one sided because it prohibits specific client-counselor conversations regarding “gender identity” and sexual orientation that the government disfavors, like helping a minor accept their biological sex, while tolerating—even encouraging—conversations the government favors, like encouraging a child to embrace a cross-sex identity. I recently wrote about the controversy over “conversion” bans for “gender identity” in City Journal, and explained why they’re at odds with therapeutic ethics and likely to lead to diagnostic overshadowing and iatrogenic harm. In National Review, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty of the Ethics and Public Policy Center contextualizes “conversion” bans as a form of government censorship of medicine and science.
A divided panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker to dismiss a lawsuit filed by January and Jeffrey Littlejohn regarding the Leon County School Board’s secret school social transition policy. The lawsuit alleges that the Leon County School Board violated the Littlejohn’s parental due process rights by facilitating the social transition of their then 13-year-old daughter. Although Judge Robin Rosenbaum conceded in his main opinion that the school facilitated the child’s transition without her parents’ knowledge or consent, he determined that the school’s conduct did not rise to the “shocks the conscience” legal standard being applied to the case. In a more critical concurring opinion, another judge called the school district’s policies “shameful,” but not unconstitutional. The dissenting judge argued that the “shocks the conscience” legal test should not be applied here, and that the Littlejohns are entitled to “a day in court on the merits of their claims.”
After Trump recently said that he wanted Congress to "pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children,” Republicans in Congress are pushing for floor votes on two bills that would actualize Trump’s wishes. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is working on a simplified version of a bill she proposed last year which would criminalize rendering “affirming care” practices on persons under 19, while Sen. Josh Hawley has proposed his own bill which would create a “private right of action” for minors who underwent sex-trait modification procedures, allowing them to sue individual providers, clinics, and hospital networks. Both bills would also prohibit federal funds from supporting “affirming” care for minors.
Republican lawmakers in Michigan have introduced HB 4190, which would ban sex-trait modification procedures for minors, however, the bill makes exceptions for hormone treatments if certain conditions are met. During a news conference about trans-identified male athletes competing in girls’ sports, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Woolford, remarked “from the State House to the White House, we are saying that we will no longer allow our daughters and women to be taken advantage of by insecure men, haters of women, radical transgender ideology and those who choose to stand in silence.”
Last Friday, three trans-identified federal inmates filed a class action lawsuit–representing 2,000 trans-identified inmates–challenging part of the Trump administration’s EO 14168, and Bureau of Prisons guidance, restricting access to sex-trait modification procedures. The plaintiffs are arguing that the policies violate the 8th amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” EO 14168 restores sex-based language to the federal government and prohibits federal funds from promoting gender ideology. It also calls on the AG to ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies to prohibit funds from going to “affirming care,” and to maintain sex-segregated facilities based on biological sex not “gender identity.” Throughout February, the BOP issued guidance implementing Trump’s EO, including the “affirming care” provision. The three plaintiffs have either lost access to cross-sex hormones or were told they would lose access soon.
To honor Detrans Awareness Day, the U.S. Department of Education invited detransitioners, and several gender-critical medical and education professionals, to a listening session to discuss “gender ideology” and youth gender medicine. Attendees shared their experiences with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Department of Education officials, and a representative from the Department of Health and Human Services. “We stand firmly alongside parents, professionals, advocates, and especially detransitioners, who understand firsthand the damage caused by indoctrinating kids to believe that they can ever be ‘born in the wrong body’” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said.
In City Journal, investigative journalist Christina Buttons tells the tragic story of Yarden Silveira–born Jorden Matthew Dyke–a detransitioner who passed away at just 23 years old after struggling with severe health complications from “affirming” surgeries, and a lack of medical and social support. As a young child, Yarden received therapy for anger and anxiety, and was later diagnosed with ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. At 13, Yarden came out to his family as gay, although by 15 he had come to believe he was born in the wrong body. Shortly after that, Yarden began socially transitioning. After his 19th birthday, Yarden underwent a rare form of “vaginoplasty,” and complications from this surgery would ultimately compromise his quality of life and shatter the illusion that transition was a cure-all for his distress. After a corrective surgery, Yarden became adamant that his transition was a mistake and sought reversal surgeries. However, the same doctors that were happy to operate on him under the banner of “affirming care,” refused to entertain his detransition needs. “If we can draw any lesson from Yarden’s short and painful life, it is that blind affirmation can do irreparable harm, especially for autistic or otherwise vulnerable youth who cling to the hope that adopting a transgender identity will solve their deeper struggles. When that hope shattered, Yarden was left without options, without support, and finally, without life itself” Buttons writes.
In a new video that builds on a Manhattan Institute analysis of a national insurance database, Leor Sapir challenges the activist narrative that “affirming” surgeries are rarely, if ever, performed on minors. According to the MI analysis, between 2017-2023 roughly seven thousand girls under eighteen had their breasts amputated or altered as part of a transition procedure. In the video, Sapir deftly navigates the complicated landscape of gender medicine and explains the evolution of the “standard of care” for minors, the role played by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s (WPATH) in shaping this standard of care, and the collusion between the then Biden administration and WPATH in promoting the affirmative paradigm despite a weak evidence-base.
Journalist and substacker Jesse Singal takes aim at The New England Journal of Medicine's (NEJM) politicized coverage of youth gender medicine. Singal highlights the NEJM’s recent publication of an article critiquing the Cass Review that repeats objectively false empirical claims about the review that could have been easily avoided with better reading comprehension. Singal argues that the errors are so egregious that if the journal won’t correct them, then it has compromised its intellectual integrity and shouldn’t be trusted as a reliable source of information. “NEJM is racing toward becoming a case study in how scientific institutions are warped, politicized, and ruined, and the editors there should pull the brakes while they still can” Singal concludes.
Joseph Figliolia
Policy Analyst
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