On second read, the NYT story on the trans legal movement makes the moderates look worse than the radicals.
My notes on that and more...🧵
@nickconfessore
2.
NYT implies trans advocates should have avoided debates over sex or made up a palatable theory.
But how can you argue trans people are not the sex they seem to be, without making up a novel theory of sex? And why should voters accept a made-up theory of sex?
3.
Why is a sex discrimination law prof opining about medical ethics? To avoid talking about the repercussions of trans ideology for her field (it's dark).
She requested anonymity "for fear of blowback from students and colleagues."
Her job is to argue with them!
4.
What would incrementalism look like? The trans rights that Americans support - nondiscrimination at work, sex stereotyping banned - are already in place.
What's left - kiddie sex trait change, compelled speech, girls' sports, co-ed prison.
5.
Instead of describing what transition actually entails for a boy - brain fog, sterility, cognitive impairment, stroke and cancer risk, sexual dysfunction - NYT defers to a court filing that was likely crafted by the ACLU.
6.
Decent summary of how gender theory changed. But why did it change?
In the 90s, activists who didn't want to undergo genital surgery overthrew the doctors who thought it was important (e.g., to prevent cancer).
badfacts.substack.com/p/how-ftms-hij…
badfacts.substack.com/p/how-transgen…
7.
Gender doctors have always pretended sex is nonbinary and "assigned." This goes back to the 1960s, not the 2010s.
Quacks like Harry Benjamin and John Money cooked up gender theory. Later academics just elaborated on it.
badfacts.substack.com/p/how-endocrin…
8.
Regulating child gender med requires the state to wade into the identity muck.
After all, TN won at SCOTUS by arguing it had banned the meds for a certain "purpose." The statute explained that purpose.
9.
NYT doesn't mention the ACLU's co-counsel, commercial litigators Akin Gump, which volunteered seven attorneys to sue Tenn.
Why omit that? It disrupts the article's thesis that the ACLU is radical.
lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/david-vs-gol…
10.
Ugh no.
Trans activists bulldozed into gay orgs in the 90s. In 2000 a gay org represented a "trans kid" suing his school to wear skirts. "LGBT" groups have been gangbusters for trans ever since.
badfacts.substack.com/p/how-ftms-hij…
badfacts.substack.com/p/how-transgen…
11.
Did LGBT orgs center gay marriage before winning that in 2015? Yes, because it was a cash cow.
Trans activism was likely subsidized by gay rights work for over a decade and then inherited almost all its riches, connections, and good will in 2015 🤑
badfacts.substack.com/p/the-fight-ag…
12.
Strangio can't be the reason the ACLU went its own way here. In 2016 she was just a young line attorney. ACLU ED Anthony Romero must have thought sex denialism was good for business. He's notoriously fixated on fundraising.
lisaselindavis.substack.com/p/brandt-files…
13.
I think the radicals are correct. Americans won't accept trans demands unless they first adopt a different (wrong) concept of sex.
14.
The moderate alternative to Strangio's outrageous public pontificating is to sneak trans rights through with trickery.
The reasonable course is to avoid and suppress debate about sex. The radical course is to say what you believe.
15.
Nah, I think ACLU wanted to fight in federal court because fighting in federal court is its business model.
I wrote about its choice to fight for marriage equality in court instead of in legislatures:
badfacts.substack.com/p/the-fight-ag…
16.
Why did Biden officials have such a blinkered view of state bans on child gender med?
Because DOJ lawyers drafted an alarmist and diversionary memo, is my guess.
17.
Why did DOJ intervene in attacking Alabama's PGM ban?
My theory: because that lawsuit was a hot mess and DOJ wanted to salvage it. ACLU might have actually told DOJ it was a hot mess, because its nemeses were plaintiffs' counsel.
badfacts.substack.com/p/news-lawyers…
18.
Skrmetti was bound to set a bad precedent, yes.
Any trans case would. The moderates know SCOTUS will rule sooner or later that trans isn't a suspect class.
The moderates want to delay the inevitable so they can keep exploiting the lack of precedent.
19.
The ACLU's state court prospects aren't great (except for a few gender med cases that they are in fact pursuing).
Blue states have expansive-seeming gender identity discrim laws but ACLU doesn't want to test them. They fall apart under analysis.
20.
Is this Strangio's way of screening journalists, to make sure they are sycophantic before going on the record?
21.
Anon DOJ official misleads NYT.
DOJ didn't want Alabama going to SCOTUS because lots of bad facts had come out in discovery and the trans legal team was under investigation for judge-shopping and perjury.
22.
In spring 2024, supposedly, Biden officials realized they'd been played.
Yet SG Prelogar put on a bombastic, misleading performance in Dec. 2024 Skrmetti oral argument.
I suspect DOJ housed ideologues all along.
23.
It seems Biden officials talked to NYT - anonymously - with an agenda to distance their clique from trans activism.
24.
The moderate essay cited here is not rooted in reality.
It is based on the idea of "brain gender."
Here's the NYT story that exposes the cowardice and fecklessness of moderate trans advocates.
archive.ph/sp1CR
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