Trans rights

In 1987, the Medical Journal of Australia published a paper titled Gender-disordered children: does inpatient treatment help? by Robert Kosky, then director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services in Western Australia.

It described eight children, all under 12, who were hospitalised at Stubbs Terrace between 1975 and 1980 for what the paper called "gender identity disorder".

The children were separated from their families and treated for months at a time. The paper argued their "cross-gender behaviours" were the result of inappropriate family dynamics — and suggested the hospital program corrected them.

When Anja Ravine, a trans youth health researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, came across it decades later, she was alarmed.

"It's implicit that they were expecting gender identity to return to what was expected. So that is really within the definition of conversion therapy."

Efforts to suppress or change a person's gender identity or sexuality, often referred to as "conversion therapy", are now illegal in most parts of Australia.

"We know now that people who've been exposed to this actually carry long-term psychological scars. It's very harmful," Dr Ravine said.

Despite being nearly 40 years old, the Kosky paper is regularly cited by opponents of gender-affirming care in submissions to lawmakers, courts and medical regulators around the world.

Even in Australia, the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, has written a clinical guide on how doctors should care for gender diverse youth that also cites the paper.

Dr Ravine said that the study being used is "deeply troubling".

In the UK one can barely turn the page of a newspaper without coming across some article written about transgender people. Such articles rarely tend to be trans‐supportive. Sensational stories about trans women invading women's spaces, appropriating female “sex‐based rights”, and trans women dominating women's sports can be found in print, online, and on television. What is happening in the UK is somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, the country has strong protections for trans people, but, on the other, hostility toward trans people is becoming more common. We seek to find out why. By using an online survey of UK residents, we found that anti‐transgender views tended to be held most strongly by those people who scored highly on a scale of authoritarianism. What these results mean in a country currently in the grip of an anti‐trans moral panic has yet to be fully determined.

Wow. This is powerful stuff. Much of it is applicable to US law but Part III, which is  more general, is absolutely required reading:

This Article has shown how the conventional reading of constitutional sex equality jurisprudence as grounded in the biology of sex is wrong and harmful to the cause of transgender equality and to the cause of sex equality writ large. It has argued instead for a reading of constitutional sex equality based in sex as a subordinated social class that could unite the class of women and the class of men, whether cisgender or transgender, and considered how this understanding of sex would stand up to scrutiny.

The story I have told is mostly one of law. But the ends this Article seeks to achieve in reframing our understanding of sex cannot be attained through law alone. This must also be a political project. We have work to do to strive for broader acceptance of sex as a social class. Public approval of this new concept of sex will require a social movement whose goal is to promote solidarity between transgender women and cisgender women by emphasizing the social rather than the biological dimensions of sex. This movement could be forged through the shared interests of at least some strands of feminism and transfeminism: bringing an end to the sex binary — the division of the sexes into two classes — and the sex hierarchy — the superiority of masculine over feminine. Such a movement can seek to demonstrate how combatting discrimination against transgender women pushes back against limiting notions of femininity that constrain all women. Only when we recognize how the categories of male and female limit us all will we reach true sex equality.

There’s a story about being trans that you’ve definitely heard, whether you’re cis or trans: such-and-so loudly protested that they were a girl from their youngest days—three or four or five. She—because The Story is always and exclusively about trans women, isn’t it?—played dress-up with Mom’s clothes and high heels, always knew she’d been born in the wrong body, fought for transition from as soon as they knew it existed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The Story is so pervasive, so overwhelming that its mere existence keeps many of us from even imagining that we might be trans until we’re well into our lives. Even then, it’s held over our heads through every step of our transitions. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” “But you like beer and trucks and building things!” “But there were no signs!”

As if our identities were written in the stars, to be foretold by blind seers in a Greek tragedy. 

The Story is profoundly toxic to the foundations of trans existence at every level. […] The Story demands that extremely young children invent language to describe a thing that their parents don’t even know exists.

[…]

The real problem with The Story is more nuanced. Not having the words to describe a feeling you’re feeling doesn’t mean you don’t feel it—but also—not having those words dramatically changes your understanding of the feeling itself.

In the days since [Charlie Kirk's] killing, the US right wing has fallen over itself to blame trans people or, as Alex Jones put it to his almost 5 million followers, “the tranny death cult”. Similar formulations can be found across social media. Trans people are terrorists, a death cult, like the Taliban, need to be socially ostracised and banned from transitioning. And we all know there is only one type of trans person most of these people are imagining when they call for us to be electroshocked, shunned, and – let’s be real – beaten and killed. And that’s trans women.

It's over. There and here in the UK. Today I doubt I will see another progressive measure (either in legislation or healthcare policy) put in place for trans people in my lifetime. Who knows what may yet be taken away. In the UK, the terf campaign groups make their goals quite clear: they would like transition banned before the age of 25 and for trans women to be compelled to carry male government ID in all contexts. Once the EHRC guidance banning us from all women’s groups and spaces across society is in place, they intend to sue organisations and service providers that don’t exclude us. Right now, I think it’s best to assume all these things are a likely prospect in the next ten years.

In the community itself there’s been a definite shift in the way we speak about the future. The middle-class trans micro-economy that boomed in the 2010s: Pride month corporate sponsorship, jobs at LGBT charities, DEI talks and panels, diversity modelling and ad campaigns, progressive theatre, educational books about being trans etc, which some of us used to make a living, has gone. A friend and I used to riff on the old Susan Stryker joke that as a trans woman you must commodify yourself one way or another: it’s either escorting or the diversity and inclusion panel. The friend (a sex worker) always said she found more dignity (and better money) in the former.

Today the UK Supreme Court, the highest court, returned a verdict that a key piece of equalities legislation — the Equality Act (2010) — explicitly should not be taken to include trans women when referring to women. The judges were unanimous. They said that trans women were still protected under the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’, but that we were not to be included in the category of ‘women’ for legal purposes.

The judges did not meet or consult a single trans person or trans-focussed organisation. It did meet and consult with single-issue pressure groups who exist solely to exclude trans people from public spaces: For Women Scotland, the LGB Alliance, The Lesbian Project (a splinter from LGBA led by Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel) and others.

The Labour government welcomed the judgement, and recommitted itself to there being ‘sex-based’ rights and spaces. The Conservative opposition openly cheered, with leader Kemi Badenoch gleefully proclaiming common-sense has prevailed and that changing gender is impossible.

[…]

The ruling, which the judges optimistically advised should not be seen as a victory for one side or the other, is at direct odds with the Gender Recognition Act (2004) wherein trans people can legally, for all intents and purposes, be recognised as their correct gender. It is now open season on trans women in any female-coded space, and this will extend to any woman who looks a bit trans. Non-passing trans women, butch women and black women are all going to be harmed by this.

Anti-trans organizations have floated raising the age limit for care to 25 for years, and GOP architects of youth care bans have been explicit: the real goal is to eliminate gender-affirming care entirely. Donald Trump himself has vowed in the past to target trans healthcare “at any age.” Now, with a new letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) circulating to clinics nationwide, the first formal warning shots have been fired. Transgender adults should take notice—and prepare. The infrastructure to strip their care is already being built.

According to a recent CMS letter, clinics across the country are being warned against providing gender-affirming care to individuals under the age of 21. “Federal financial participation (FFP) is strictly limited for procedures, treatments, or operations for the purpose of rendering an individual permanently incapable of reproducing and, under 42 C.F.R. 441.253(a), is specifically prohibited for such procedures performed on a person under age 21,” the letter reads, citing a 1978 regulation restricting federal funding for sterilization. But gender-affirming care for adults rarely meets that definition. Many transgender men and women retain the ability to have children after temporarily stopping hormone therapy, and fertility counseling is routinely offered. When sterilization does occur, it is not the goal of the care—it is an incidental outcome of treatment meant to alleviate gender dysphoria.

More troubling is the use of this decades-old regulation to pressure health care centers into dropping transgender care for adults. The expansion of restrictions to include people up to the age of 21 follows a recent Trump executive order barring gender-affirming care for anyone under 19—a category that includes legal adults. Although that order has been blocked in multiple courts, hospitals have still used it to justify halting care for this population. Now, the CMS letter is having a similar chilling effect: Planned Parenthood of Arizona has “paused” gender-affirming care for all adult patients. This is a deeply alarming development, especially considering that Planned Parenthood is the largest—and often the only—provider of transgender adult healthcare in many parts of the country.

The Australian Christian Lobby has sent an election mail out in Victoria, spreading transphobia and trying to discredit The Greens.

Residents of the City of Yarra and Moreland City Councils contacted QNews after they received transphobic election material.

It arrived in their letterbox the day after Trans Day of Visibility.

The pamphlet from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) was titled: “Male and Female Matter”.

It states that the Greens are “experimenting with biology at your expense”.

“Male and female matter, The Greens don’t agree,” the pamphlet read.

Siting that “while you wait for urgent medical care, The Greens want to use your tax dollars for free gender transition surgeries”.

The pamphlet also says that the Greens wish to put more gender clinics in hospitals while emergency departments are in crisis.

While it may be tempting to put all the blame on Trump or the Republicans or Project 2025 (and they deserve the lion’s share), to do so would be to ignore decades of choices, missed opportunities, and betrayals within the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement that, read together, show how and why transgender people find themselves so vulnerable to political scapegoating and attacks today.

[…]

Jessica Xavier—founder of the transgender lobbying group It’s Time, America!—proposed addressing these tensions in relation to conversion therapy by focusing on how the tie that truly binds LGBTQ+ people together is not sexuality but gender variance. “We talk about gender variance when men take jobs as nurses [and] when men have long hair,” she said, to explain why the pivot away from morality toward gender variance was necessary. If you extend this view, you quickly realize that engaging in same-sex sexual relationships is in itself a defiance of gender norms, much like career and grooming choices. Xavier elaborated her perspective: “If we frame this as a larger societal pressure that reaches to straight people … If we all realize that we’re fighting the same enemy in different ways, that language has more implications for society: It’s gender.” Gender and sexuality are impossible to tease apart, and those connections affect everybody who has ever worried that maybe they aren’t “man enough” or “a good woman.” Attacks on transgender people are toothless in a social world where everybody is freed from strict gender norms. But such freedom also makes it harder to control populations, which might explain why political power grabs usually feature some aspect of suppressing gender expression.

[…]

Over time, focusing on sexuality, relationships, and families headed by same-sex partners meant that gender essentially fell off the “LGBT” agenda—until suddenly it became the right’s primary target. As a result, transgender people are now vulnerable to political attacks for many reasons, not least of which is the missed opportunity over those many decades to educate the public about gender norms and gender variance. It’s safe to say that this history might also be why those in power can behave as though the group doesn’t have the backing of a critical mass of supporters or influential allies—because of this legacy of negligence by the larger movement, frankly, they don’t.

Clearly, the resistance to addressing gender head-on earlier in our history has had a broader impact on how LGBTQ+ politics are understood today. In particular, the failure to center gender and the ideas about masculinity and femininity that affect us all (not just LGBTQ+ people) has meant that coalitions with other groups were over before they began. These include most obviously organizations fighting for reproductive rights and gender equity, as well as others focused on bodily autonomy, such as activists looking to preserve the right to asylum, provide food and shelter to poor and homeless people, and end mass incarceration.

The Department of Justice and the Department of Education have joined forces to create a Title IX Special Investigations Team, targeting “the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities,” as per an April 4 press release.

Enacted by Congress in 1972, Title IX was meant to protect students at all levels from discrimination “on the basis of sex.” Traditionally, it’s been used to combat sex-based violence, harassment, and discrimination within federally-funded academic institutions. At least 21 state attorneys general have also explicitly stated that Title IX protections include trans people.

Under the Trump regime, however, Title IX has taken on a new role. It’s become a tool for harassing trans students, or students merely suspected of being trans, especially if those students are athletes.

“Protecting women and women’s sports is a key priority for this Department of Justice,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi, a Trump appointee, in a press release announcing the new effort.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is also standing at the helm. The ex-World Wrestling Entertainment CEO has a messy, decades-long history tainted by reports implicating her in child sex abuse and steroid scandals at the WWE.