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As Supreme Court Case Looms, 164 US Lawmakers Defend Trans Youth
"Decisions about healthcare belong to patients, their doctors, and their families—not politicians," said Rep. Mark Pocan.
Sep 03, 2024
As LGBTQ+ rights advocates prepare for oral arguments in a U.S. Supreme Court case about bans on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, 164 members of Congress on Tuesday urged the justices to strike down Tennessee's 2023 law.
Tennessee is one of over two dozen states that has recently banned some or all of such care for trans minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project. In response to challenges from advocacy groups and the Biden administration, the right-wing high court agreed to take the case in June.
Arguments in United States v. Skrmetti are expected in the fall. The justices will decide whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1—which bans surgery, puberty blockers, and hormone treatment for trans youth—violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Congressional Democrats' new "friend of the court" brief argues that the court "should be highly skeptical of legislation banning safe and effective therapies that comport with the standard of care," and "should carefully examine the deeply troubling role that animosity towards transgender people has played in state legislation."
"The law at issue in this case is motivated by an animus towards the trans community and is part of a cruel, coordinated attack on trans rights by anti-equality extremists."
The amicus brief is led by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
"For years, far-right Republicans have been leading constant, relentless, and escalating attacks on transgender Americans," Markey said in a statement. "Their age-old, discriminatory playbook now threatens access to lifesaving, gender-affirming care for more than 100,000 transgender and nonbinary children living in states with these bans if the Supreme Court upholds laws like Tennessee's at the heart of Skrmetti that are fueled by ignorance and hate."
"It takes a special type of cruelty to target children for who they are," he continued. "I am proud to stand with my colleagues against dangerous, transphobic attacks and to reaffirm that our nation's commitment should be to equality and justice for all."
Pocan emphasized that "decisions about healthcare belong to patients, their doctors, and their families—not politicians."
"The law at issue in this case is motivated by an animus towards the trans community and is part of a cruel, coordinated attack on trans rights by anti-equality extremists," he added. "We strongly urge the Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law and strike down Tennessee's harmful ban."
The brief is co-signed by another 150 Democrats in the House of Representatives, eight other Democratic senators, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with the party. It is also supported by the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
"Thank you to the many members of Congress for standing with transgender and nonbinary youth across our country in asking the Supreme Court to find bans on lifesaving gender-affirming care to be unconstitutional," said HRC vice president of government affairs David Stacy.
"The government should not be able to interfere in decisions that are best made between families and doctors, particularly when that care is necessary and best practice," Stacy stressed. "These bans are dangerous, animated purely by anti-transgender bias, and have forced families to make heartbreaking decisions to support their children."
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The Politics of Joy Versus the Only Thing Republicans Have Left: Cruelty
Compassion for a learning-disabled child is dead on the right: all they have left is cruelty.
Aug 23, 2024
During the 1950s, Republicans were the party that promoted labor unions, Social Security, and a top 91% income tax bracket and 70% estate tax on the morbidly rich. Dwight Eisenhower successfully campaigned on what we’d call a progressive agenda for re-election in 1956.
During the Reagan years, Republicans embraced Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism with its free trade, opposition to unions, ending free college, and tax cuts for the fat cats. They called themselves “the party of new ideas.” They may have done more harm than good, but for most Republicans it was a good-faith effort.
Today, they’ve pretty much given up on all of that. All they have left is cruelty.
When Governor Tim Walz gave his heartwarming acceptance speech Wednesday night here at the DNC in Chicago, his son Gus was caught on camera proudly proclaiming, through tear-streaked eyes, “That’s my dad!”
The response from Trumpy Republicans was immediate: Ann Coulter wrote, “Talk about weird.” Rightwing hate jock Jay Weber posted, “Meet my son, Gus. He’s a blubbering bitch boy. His mother and I are very proud.” Trumpy podcaster Mike Crispi ridiculed Walz’s “stupid crying son,” adding, “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats.” Another well-known podcaster on the right, Alec Lace, said, “Get that kid a tampon already.”
Compassion for a learning-disabled child is dead on the right: all they have left is cruelty.
Ronald Reagan helped shepherd through Congress the most consequential border bill in American history, and when it needed updating Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James Lankford worked with Democrats to update it in a meaningful way. Trump demanded Republicans kill the legislation, invoking the memory of his tearing over 5,500 babies away from their mothers and trafficking them into fly-by-night “adoption” schemes (around 1000 are still missing) and his demand that the border patrol shoot immigrants in the legs.
Trump’s acolytes in Congress don’t even pretend any more to have a border policy: all they have left is cruelty.
President George HW Bush worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unwind the USSR in the hope of creating a democratic Russia. Neither expected Vladimir Putin to turn that nation into a virtual concentration camp where gays are routinely murdered, child pornography is legal (and they’ve kidnapped over 700,000 Ukrainian children), and dissenters are tortured, poisoned, and sent to brutal Siberian gulags. Donald Trump celebrates Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “genius” and “savvy,” handing Putin’s ambassador a western spy and top-secret information in his first month in office, and trying to abandon America’s traditional role as a moral leader in the world.
Trump’s GOP has abandoned our founding principles: all they have left is cruelty.
During the 2020 election, Trump followers tried to run a Biden/Harris campaign bus off the road in Texas, threatening to kill the occupants (which they believed included Kamala Harris). A crazed Trump supporter broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her 82-year-old husband with a hammer. Trump tweeted a picture of the bus being attacked, writing below it, “I LOVE TEXAS!” and repeatedly makes jokes about the attack on Pelosi, as if to encourage future attacks on the families of other Democratic politicians.
Not a single elected Republican (as best as I can find with a pretty thorough web search) has condemned either: all they have left is cruelty.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis turned down federal money that would have fed 2.1 million low-income children in his state; he was one of 13 Republican governors to do the same, in a nation where one in seven children — over 11 million every year — go to bed hungry.
We are literally the only developed country in the world with a massive child hunger problem because all Republicans have left is cruelty.
When President Obama succeeded in passing and signing the Affordable Care Act, it offered every state funds to expand Medicaid to give healthcare coverage to all their low-income citizens with the federal government covering 90% of the cost. To this day, ten states under Republican control have refused to accept the money, leading to millions of preventable illnesses and early deaths.
Republican states could have joined all the Blue states and every other developed country in the world by providing universal healthcare, but refuse to because all they have left is cruelty.
When a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated, Republicans like Congressman Jim Jordan, Governor Kristi Noem, Fox’s Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost ridiculed the claim. When the rape and pregnancy were proven and the girl fled Ohio to a state where abortion was legal to terminate the pregnancy, Indiana's Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita promised to launch an “investigation.”
Rokita didn’t investigate the rape, however: he instead went after the physician who performed the abortion. Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.
When Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by seven million votes, he sent a violent mob against the US Capitol. As they tried to murder the vice president and speaker of the house, covered the walls of the building with feces and defaced priceless paintings, Trump gleefully watched on live television for over three hours while refusing to call in the national guard or take any other meaningful action.
Five civilians and three police officers died as the result of his sending that murderous mob because all he and his GOP have left is cruelty.
This week Americans saw Democrats display compassion, care, respect, and reverence for our democracy. We saw the best of this country, hope for the future, and actual plans to improve the lives of Americans.
Last month, in sharp contrast, we watched the Republican convention and saw, instead, a cavalcade of anger, bile, grievance, hate, and, of course, cruelty.
Because cruelty is all Republicans have left.
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We Gave ‘Transvestigators’ an Olympic Stage—Here’s How We Take It Back
The attacks against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif show why cis women must join trans women in this fight against having our bodies and gender debated and defined.
Aug 20, 2024
As the 2024 Paris Olympics come to a close, it’s heartbreaking to see that instead of celebrating the unity these games are meant to inspire, we were forced to collectively watch the opposite—a deepening divide among us. The original values of Olympism were to “encourage effort,” “preserve human dignity,” and “develop harmony.” And it seems when presented with those opportunities, we failed on all three of those fronts as a society.
As a trans woman, I am deeply disturbed by the narrative that was allowed to surround Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, whose victory against Italian boxer Angela Carini in the women’s welterweight boxing tournament was overshadowed by baseless accusations and transphobic conspiracy theories. These attacks were given a national stage by conservative figures, who falsely claimed that Khelif is biologically male, feeding into the ugly rise of a conspiracy theory known as “transvestigations.”
These so-called “transvestigations” are a disturbing form of misogyny, and part of another category of transphobia known as transmisogyny, targeting women under the guise of protecting womanhood. Khelif is a cisgender woman, assigned female at birth, and identifies as a woman. Yet, her victory, that should have been internationally lauded, was met with a wave of online harassment and accusations.
When we allow fear and hatred to dictate who counts as a “real woman,” we undermine the very foundation of women’s rights.
This is the chilling reality of the world we live in: Anti-trans and transphobic narratives have seeped into the mainstream, reaching a global stage. Now, it’s not just trans women who are under attack by those with nothing better to do than police gender and spread disinformation, but cis women too—anyone whose womanhood doesn’t fit an impossible standard.
“Transvestigations” didn’t start with Khelif, and unfortunately, they won’t end with her. It’s a new label for an old problem—misogyny rebranded, now weaponized against both cis and trans women. It’s a way to attack women while pretending to defend them. It uses language that claims to protect women’s rights but only protects women who fit a certain mold. Many other Olympic athletes—especially women of color—have been subjected to having their gender analyzed because of their strength, abilities, and looks. And when birth certificates, health records, or hormonal testing aren’t enough to satiate this mob of “transvestigators,” they move the goalpost further, constantly redefining what it is to be a woman.
It concerns me to know that cis women are now being persecuted in the same way myself and my trans sisters have been since the beginning of time. As these persecutions intensify, the barometer and measure of “womanhood” will continue to be pushed and challenged. Are we going to start declaring that women with conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome, or women who undergo IVF, aren’t “real” women? Are we going to label women who choose not to have children as less of a woman? Are we going to question the gender of our mothers, sisters, and aunts who have undergone breast augmentation after cancer? Are we going to no longer consider our grandmothers who receive hormonal therapy during menopause to be women? Are we going to let these harmful, misogynistic, arbitrary definitions of womanhood continue to divide us? If you are a woman or care about women and girls, this should worry you as well.
Khelif won the gold, but at what cost? She defended herself in the ring but entered an even bigger battle having to defend her human dignity. She spoke out after her quarterfinal win, urging spectators to refrain from bullying athletes, highlighting the devastating impact such attacks have on mental health. She said, “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit, and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
If this is the impact on a cis woman, imagine the daily mental toll on trans women who face this scrutiny not just in sports, but in every aspect of their lives. Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization. Forty-three percent of transgender youth have been bullied on school property, compared with 18% of cisgender youth. And now, many human rights organizations are declaring an epidemic of violence against trans people in the United States because of the uptick in attacks, an explosion in violent and hateful rhetoric aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, and the onslaught of discriminatory legislation.
As a trans woman, I know all too well the pain of having my humanity debated, politicized, and threatened. But the harm doesn’t stop with trans women. When we allow these narratives to flourish, when we let public opinion dictate who is “woman enough,” we are all at risk. Consider the growing number of anti-trans bills in the U.S. that seek to police gender in ways that hurt everyone. In states like Idaho, Arizona, and Georgia, these laws are putting young girls at risk, subjecting them to invasive exams to “prove” their gender, such as genital exams, before they can compete in sports.
This is not protection—it’s abuse. It’s a violation of bodily autonomy, and it’s a betrayal of everything women have fought for. The sad truth is that these policies, framed as protecting women, do the exact opposite. They endanger all women and girls, creating an environment where no one is safe from scrutiny.
The reality is that transphobia and transmisogyny don’t just harm the trans community—they harm everyone. When we allow fear and hatred to dictate who counts as a “real woman,” we undermine the very foundation of women’s rights. We allow the patriarchy to pit us against each other. They are creating infighting against an imaginary enemy, saying trans women are the true threat to feminism, distracting us from uniting against the real forces that oppress us all.
Imane Khelif’s story is a powerful reminder of what’s at stake. But this is not just about her—it’s about all of us. It’s about the girls and women who will come after her, who will face the same scrutiny if we don’t stand up now and stand up together. Cis women must join us in this fight against having our bodies and gender debated and defined.
This fight isn’t just for trans women—it’s for all women. It’s for anyone who believes in the right to define our own identities, free from the fear of harassment, discrimination, and violence. I hope that out of this, we will see more allies, more voices speaking out against the dangerous rhetoric of “transvestigations.” I hope that cis women will join us on the frontlines and join us in declaring it is not up to the government or the public to define our womenness, or moreso, our humanness.
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