New York Times - How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost

[zanahoria]

How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/magazine/scotus-transgender-care-tennessee-skrmetti.html

https://archive.ph/MjbLL

very long read but well worth the time

I read this the other day. I thought it was interesting they way it talked about progression being incremental, but with the medicalisation of minors, the trans movement overreached and went too far. They drove it off a cliff and took the Democrats with them.

I know the New York times has had a podcast released recently about 'gender affirming care', but are they also starting to report more widely on this and is this a deviation from their previous position? Hopefully those on the left in the US are finally beginning to think more critically about this, rather than dismissing all concerns as a right-wing dog whistle.

It has been diversifying its opinion pieces on the issue for quite a while now

Thanks, that was an interesting article, but it states that transgender suicide attempts are exceptionally high and are ameliorated by hormone / puberty blocker "treatment." It also gives a lot of authority to the Dutch Protocol, which we know is greatly flawed.

This is a really interesting piece, especially about how they developed the WPATH recommendations!

I haven't read the article yet, but the US Supreme Court ruling feels highly significant. It seems to me that we have reached a turning point and gender ideology is now only going in one direction. Once we stop harming minors - and we will stop harming them - then what is left?

Fascinating article, thank you for drawing attention to it. The thing that most strongly struck me was how the Supreme Court's decision on "a Detroit funeral director named Aimee Stephens, who was fired after telling her employer that she planned to begin living and working openly as a woman" was seen as important. Here, with our Equality Act, unless there's a huge amount not being said here, this wouldn't have needed to go anywhere near our Supreme Court - a first-level Employment Tribunal would have seen it as a clear case of direct discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment, and hence illegal.

Thank you for link.

That is a really excellent article. If they hadn't been so batshit mental, insisting on things that 99.99% of the population instinctively know is untrue, like a penis not being a male body part and sex being assigned at birth, then we would not be in the shit we are right now.

A really good article that carefully picks it way through the timelines in the US.

The part that jumped out at me was this quote:-

"But when I asked Romero if the A.C.L.U. had consulted with women’s rights groups before bringing Skrmetti — with its high-stakes claims about sex-discrimination protections — before the Supreme Court, he seemed impatient. “I don’t play ‘Mother May I?’ with a group of sister organizations,” Romero said. “I don’t run a peer-review journal. I make the best decisions for this organization on its own.”"

Trans above all else - no consideration for any wider societal implications.

It says this at the beginning as that's where the institutions were at the time, what everyone believed. The author later on talks about the discovery that all the US authorities' consensus on the matter was a 'mirage' as all their recommendations were built on the same limited care recommendations from WPATH. So what appeared to be consistent standards between bodies was actually only one source and that even that evidence was flimsy and actually had worrying influences from outside sources for political reasons.

The states actually went further then even WPATH from which affirmation care originated.

In most respects, the movement’s day in court felt like a retreat. Over more than two hours of interrogation, the conservative justices asked questions about gender identity and pediatric gender medicine that many L.G.B.T.Q. activists prefer to consider settled. Pressed on the longstanding claim that gender-affirming care prevented dysphoric teenagers from killing themselves, Strangio conceded the point. “There is no evidence,” he told the court, “that this treatment reduces completed suicide,”

That’s not how I read it - the article states what various people / organisations etc have claimed then goes on to state there’s little evidence to back up those claims.

what he really meant

“I don’t run a peer-review journal. I make the best decisions for this organization on my own.”

How did Romero end up in charge of the ACLU anyway? His approach seems such a departure from what they were in the past.

Why would Romero be prioritising “the organisation” rather than the needs of stakeholders/affected people (women, gay people, GNC people)?

What he really meant: "I don't care what anyone else wants, thinks or feels. Everyone else is just collateral damage in the rampage for trans privileges".

I am guessing it has gone down the usual route of corporate sponsors and backing of other charities and organizations who have been captured so major appointments are made to suit them

Strangio is worse, he wants to ban books

Very interesting dissection - thanks for posting the link.
It's clear that transactivism is hugely male dominated at the top - it's no surprise that a bunch of men don't care about women's rights

My impression of the article is that the writer is attempting to stay a little bit detached from the heated arguments of this debate, which is not an easy task. Overall, I think he has produced a very useful picture of where liberal America and the Democrats are at this moment. There does seem to be some attempt to row back from the position of unquestionably backing self ID

Strangio is worse, he wants to ban books

Strangio is a biological woman.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true @CinnamonCinnabar. Chase Strangio is genuinely a major force in the US picture, as is Joanna Olsen-Kennedy, and various other women. Strangio is clearly also a very strategically focused thinker, even if their strategy appears mad and disastrous to anyone outside their immediate circle.

Its a great resource for understanding the US issues, which are not always the same as here. McBride and Levy are/were apparently extremely influential. Thank goodness we never had similar here.

Interesting take on this from Andrew Sullivan, who doesn't hold back:

Strangio and [her] fellow nutters have also pushed the gay and lesbian rights movement onto thin political ice — and it’s now cracking beneath our feet. The queer radicals have lost an election, debates in 27 state legislatures, the Biden DOJ, <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/ltyhf/www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">public opinion, the Supreme Court, and now — with this definitive piece and a solid podcast series, <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/ltyhf/substack.com/@sullydish/note/c-124300945" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Protocol — the New York Times. And next month, the most famous clinic in the US transing kids, run by Johanna Olson-Kennedy, will <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/ltyhf/benryan.substack.com/p/dr-johanna-olson-kennedys-pediatric" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">shutter. She was a key promoter of the suicide lie. The lawsuits are going to be brutal.

Strangio Things - by Andrew Sullivan - The Weekly Dish

FYI, Strangio is a woman.