Experienced analysts like former Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund legal director David Brown (interviewed by David Hunt) are praising progressive U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan for their questioning of Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice about his state’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare, but the trans man of the hour is the American Civil Liberties Union’s Chase Strangio, who became the first transgender attorney to argue a case before the nation’s top court.
And in NewsWrap: the United Kingdom’s temporary ban on puberty blockers for transgender young people will remain in force “indefinitely,” U.K. military veterans who were booted from the armed forces for being queer are now eligible for compensation, the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear a challenge to a Wisconsin school district’s pro-trans policies, Montana’s Supreme Court backs a temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of a state ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare, the opening of Warsaw’s QueerMuzeum far exceeded organizers’ expectations, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Michael LeBeau and Ava Davis (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the December 16, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of December 16, 2024
Strangio Is Supreme at the High Court
NewsWrap (full transcript below): The Labour government of the U.K. makes permanent in England, Scotland and Wales the previous Conservative Party's temporary ban on gender-affirming and reversible puberty blockers for trans patients under the age of 18, and Northern Ireland follows suit … the same U.K. government begins to compensate military vets booted from the armed forces for being queer with payments of up to 70,000 pounds … the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the challenge of a conservative parents group to the Eau Claire, Wisconsin school district’s trans student-supportive policies … the Supreme Court of the deep red state of Montana agrees that the Republican-enacted ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare is likely unconstitutional, and refuses to lift an injunction stopping its enforcement -- becoming the first state high court in the U.S. to do so … Poland’s LGBTQ+ people flock to the opening of the country’s first QueerMuzeum in Warsaw — the fifth such venue on the planet (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by AVA DAVIS and MICHAEL LeBEAU).
Feature: History was made in more ways than one when the U.S. Supreme Court heard a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare. This Way Out’s DAVID HUNT reviews the background of the case with another trans rights legal advocate, David Brown. The appearance of trans ACLU attorney Chase Strangio before the high court was as significant as the U.S. versus Skrmetti case itself. Strangio spoke to the press after the conclusion of the December 4th hearings, and described the experience the following day on Democracy Now! (with comments by U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, and Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice, and and music by KEITH JARRETT and THE BLAKES PROJECT).
[Supreme Court case files:
C-SPAN coverage of oral arguments:
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the week ending December 14th, 2024
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Ava Davis and Michael LeBeau,
produced by Brian DeShazor
The United Kingdom’s temporary ban on puberty blockers for transgender young people will remain in force “indefinitely.” National Health Service caregivers will not be able to prescribe such treatment, and the same restrictions will continue for private healthcare providers.
Young trans patients who are already on puberty blockers can still receive them. Patients taking puberty blockers for purposes such as early-onset puberty can also continue treatment.
The ban is based on April 2023’s highly controversial Cass Report. Now Baroness pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass claimed that the risks of dispensing puberty blockers and hormone therapies to trans patients under the age of 18 outweigh any benefits. Critics say that her report comes to faulty conclusions based on highly flawed research. They charge that Cass never treated a young transgender patient herself and actively consulted with anti-trans U.S. groups in preparing her Report.
The findings in that report were the reason the Conservative British government issued a temporary ban on pediatric gender-affirming care in May of 2023. It’s now virtually permanent under the succeeding Labour government.
Labour’s Health Secretary is a gay man, Wes Streeting. He told Parliament that the Commission on Human Medicines determined that treating patients under the age of 18 with puberty blockers for gender dysphoria poses “an unacceptable safety risk.”
The ban covers England, Scotland and Wales. The government of Northern Ireland is following suit.
In the U.S., researchers at Yale University have concluded that the Cass Report relied on highly questionable methodologies that led to suspect conclusions. They found that Cass had failed to consult with transgender people themselves, ignored pro-blocker therapy statements by other interviewees, and omitted contradictory information. Contrary to opponents, puberty blockers and hormone therapies for trans young people are reversible.
Clinical trials of puberty blockers are planned for next year. Health Secretary Streeting said that officials “are working with National Health Service England to open new gender identity services, so people can access holistic health and wellbeing support they need.” He did not elaborate.
Of course, the Conservative Party supports making the ban permanent. To Green Party M.P. Siân Berry, it’s “a worrying decision.”
To Keyne Walker of the advocacy group TransActual, making the ban permanent is “an unconscionable act that will have severe ramifications for a generation of trans people.” She told LGBTQ Nation, “Evidence of the harm of the temporary ban continues to emerge and will grow now that it has been made permanent. … Meanwhile evidence of actual harm from the past 40 years of puberty blockers’ use remains elusive.”
Also in the U.K., military veterans who were booted from the armed forces for being queer are now eligible for compensation. Defense Secretary John Healey told the House of Commons that those discharges were a “moral stain on our nation.” Service members suffered loss of their pensions and often faced barriers to employment. Even though the U.K. decriminalized same-gender sex in 1967, the ban in the armed forces was not lifted until 2000.
Successful applicants for compensation will initially receive 50,000 pounds, have their ranks restored, and “any blame or dishonor” will be stricken from their service records. They may be eligible for another 20,000 pounds if they can provide evidence of egregious treatment as a result of being discharged, such as harassment, invasive investigations, or jail time.
The total comes to about 90,000 U.S. dollars. The National Audit Office counts around 4,000 potentially eligible veterans.
Applications opened on December 13th. Secretary Healey said that compensation payments will begin “soon into the new year.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to a Wisconsin school district’s pro-trans policies. The Eau Claire Area School District allows trans students to use their chosen names and pronouns. They may also access sex-segregated campus facilities, such as bathrooms and changing rooms, based on their gender identity. Parents or legal guardians do not need to be notified or consent to those choices.
A conservative group called Parents Protecting Our Children opposes the policies. Most of its members “hold religious beliefs that ‘there are only two sexes,” according to Reuters.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker ruled in early 2023 that the parents lacked legal standing to challenge the pro-trans policy because it had not harmed them. That decision was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in March.
The high court rejected the parents’ appeal on December 9th without comment, which is typical. However, conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wanted to hear it. That’s one short of the justices required to consider a case.
The Supreme Court heard a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare in early December. It’s not expected to issue a ruling on that case until June 2025.
A temporary injunction blocking the enforcement of Montana’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare will stay in place per its Supreme Court. The justices in the deep red state are the first in the country to oppose such a ban.
After the Republican-dominated legislature and governor enacted the ban, a group of trans teens and their families joined two medical providers to sue the state. A lower court judge blocked the measure from going into effect in September 2023, calling it “unlikely to survive any level of constitutional review.” Montana’s high court agreed with that analysis this week. The lower court is still considering the issue.
The queer advocacy group Lambda Legal, the ACLU and the ACLU of Montana all worked on the lawsuit. Lambda Legal’s Kell Olson wrote, “Because Montana’s constitutional protections are even stronger than their federal counterparts, transgender youth in Montana can sleep easier tonight knowing that they can continue to thrive for now, without this looming threat hanging over their heads.”
Trans journalist Erin Reed added that the Montana ruling “applies REGARDLESS of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.”
Finally, people in Warsaw are flocking to QueerMuzeum, Poland’s first LGBTQ+ history museum. Its organizers believe it to be the fifth such facility in the world.
QueerMuzeum boasts some 150 exhibits tracing the history of Poland’s LGBTQ+ people dating back to the 16th century. The museum’s main curator is Warszawa Lambda, the country’s oldest queer organization.
Poland’s LGBTQ+ community is cautiously coming out of hiding since the recent elections ended the highly oppressive years-long rule of the far-right Law and Justice Party. The new government introduced legislation to create civil unions for same-gender couples in October. In November, a draft of a proposal to criminalize anti-queer hate speech was approved.
This week’s opening of QueerMuzeum far exceeded organizers’ expectations. More than a hundred people toured the facility on the first day. From now on, only the first 40 people queued up at the entrance will be admitted. Warszawa Lambda says, “The museum is not only a place of memory, but also of research on the past and the future. … It is a space full of love, memory and pride, in the heart of Warsaw!”
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