December 11, 2024 • 21 mins
The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 4, 2024, in a case that could decide whether transgender youth are protected by the Constitution’s promise of equal protection. Although the case seems to stand on shaky ground before the high court’s conservative majority, a transgender attorney arguing the case stood firm. Chase Strangio of the ACLU made history as the first transgender attorney to argue before the Supreme Court, challenging Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming health care for minors.
In this episode, transgender rights attorney David Brown unpacks the potential ramifications of this landmark case and explores some of the court's options. As we dissect the court's deliberations, we focus on the probing questions from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who exposed the state's conflicting justifications for banning gender-affirming care.
In the program's second half, Kathie Moehlig, executive director of TransFamily Support Services, discusses the struggle for gender-affirming care in America, where 26 states have banned the treatment. Families face the harsh reality of relocating to "sanctuary" states for their transgender children's medical needs — if they can afford it. Listen in to gain insights into the emotional and legal landscapes families navigate and the pressing challenge of ensuring health care access for all transgender youth nationwide.
David Hunt is an Emmy-winning journalist and documentary producer who has reported on America's culture wars since the 1970s. Explore his blog, Tell Me, David.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Brown (00:05):
So in a worst-case scenario, the Supreme Court,
just like it did in Dobbs, couldsay you know what, for the past
50-odd years we've been wrong.
Kathie Moehlig (00:13):
We heard during the campaign that you know, kids
are going off to school andthey're being transitioned and
they're getting sex changeoperations at school and that is
like the most ludicrous thing,because that's not how it
happens.
David Hunt (00:31):
Welcome to Tell Me David queer stories, past and
present.
I'm David Hunt.
Twenty-six US states so faroutlaw gender-affirming health
care for trans and non-binaryyouth.
What's the impact of those bans?
We'll hear from the founder ofa California organization that
(00:51):
helps families through thetransgender journey.
But first a short dive into alandmark legal case that could
give more states permission toblock life-saving care for trans
kids.
Listening to arguments overarcane points of law can have
(01:14):
you holding back a yawn.
Listening to oral arguments ina transgender rights case
streaming live from the UnitedStates Supreme Court, December
4th, David Brown found himselfholding back tears.
David Brown (01:30):
I almost cried from happiness.
I'm not a trans person myself,but I've been doing trans rights
law for 20, almost 20 years atthis point, and a generation ago
being transgender was being outand transgender certainly was
was almost a career death movefor attorneys.
There was so muchdiscrimination, there were so
many headwinds to the careers oftransgender lawyers that there
(01:52):
were very few who were out.
David Hunt (01:54):
But one transgender lawyer was very much out on
December 4th with thetraditional salutation "and, may
it please the court.
Chase Strangio of the AmericanCivil Liberties Union made
history that day as the firsttrans attorney to argue a case
before the US Supreme Court, andnot just any case, a case
(02:15):
challenging Tennessee's ban ongender-affirming health care for
minors.
And no, his visibility beforethe justices probably didn't
please the court, at least notits conservative majority as
much as it pleased David Brown.
Brown, former legal director ofthe Transgender Legal Defense
and Education Fund, talked withme about the court's options in
(02:36):
the Tennessee case, officiallytitled United States v Jonathan
Scrimetti, the state's attorneygeneral.
States v Jonathan Scrimetti,the state's attorney general.
The case involves the questionof whether Tennessee's ban on
gender-affirming care violatesthe Equal Protection Clause of
the Constitution's 14thAmendment.
It's familiar ground for theSupreme Court.
Brown says there are severalways the court could resolve
(02:58):
that issue.
They might take a chapter fromthe 2022 Dobbs decision that
struck down abortion rights bystrictly narrowing the right to
privacy.
Brown explains.
David Brown (03:10):
So in a worst case scenario the Supreme Court, just
like it did in Dobbs, could sayyou know what, for the past 50
odd years we've been wrong andactually we think it doesn't
prohibit sex discrimination.
We think it doesn't prohibitsex discrimination, right, we're
going to revert the EqualProtection Clause to its more
narrow understanding that peoplehad in the 19th century, sort
(03:32):
of drag the country back acouple of centuries.
David Hunt (03:35):
That's possible, but unlikely, Brown says.
Also unlikely, he believes,best-case the scenario, a win
for transgender minors and theirfamilies.
So what falls between thosescenarios?
Tennessee argued that its lawtargets medical treatments and
doesn't draw lines based on sex.
That argument may find areceptive audience on the high
(03:59):
court.
David Brown (04:00):
They could agree with the state and say you know,
this is about medical care, notabout sex.
David Hunt (04:05):
David Brown.
David Brown (04:06):
And in that case, although it would be devastating
I don't want to de-emphasizethat it would be devastating for
the plaintiffs.
In this case, it would be a bigproblem for trans health care
and for in all kinds of otherways that maybe we don't even
understand yet.
Nevertheless, it would meanthat sex discrimination
maintains validity as a basisfor arguing that trans people
and others LGBTQ people, womenand others have a right to bring
(04:31):
these cases about other thingsin the future.
David Hunt (04:34):
But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wasn't willing to
let Tennessee ignore the plaintext of its own law.
She questioned TennesseeSolicitor General Matt Rice on
the state's conflictingarguments.
Ketanji Brown Jackson (04:47):
I don't know how you can say both that
girls and boys are not similarlysituated at step one when this
law is being evaluated and it'snot making a sex-based
classification.
Matt Rice (04:58):
I think our position is that if you're in the point
where we're treating givingtestosterone to a boy with a
biological deficiency as thesame thing as giving
testosterone to a biological,healthy, biological girl who
wants to transition, then therehas to be some threshold inquiry
that recognizes the biologicaldifferences between those two.
Ketanji Brown Jackson (05:20):
Right, but when you're doing that,
you're making a sex-basedclassification.
I mean the very argumentcarries with it the
characterization that we'retrying to identify here.
David Hunt (05:30):
A close reading of the Tennessee law bears out
Jackson's observation.
In the words of the statute,this state has a legitimate,
substantial and compellinginterest in encouraging minors
to appreciate their sex,particularly as they undergo
puberty.
Will this matter to the court'svery conservative majority?
David Brown (05:52):
David Brown, I understand why people think
there might be a negativeoutcome in this case.
I think it's too soon to say.
We know that Justice Gorsuch,who wrote an important opinion
in the Bostock case holding thattransgender people have valid
sex discrimination claims underTitle VII anti-discrimination
(06:15):
law about employment in thiscountry.
He didn't say anything duringthe whole argument so we don't
really know what's going on inhis mind.
We didn't get a preview of whatmight be going on in his mind
and so it's quite possible hewill extend his reasoning to the
Equal Protection Clause Asimilar justice.
Amy Coney Barrett asked a bunchof very interesting and engaged
questions about the history ofdiscrimination against
(06:36):
transgender people and what thislaw actually does.
So it suggests that she'sthinking about the real-world
impacts of this case and wherethe court's decision might lie
in the arc of history.
David Hunt (06:48):
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case
before the end of the currentterm, next summer, barring
intervention by the incomingTrump administration, which may
seek to reverse the government'sposition in the case.
You're listening to Tell Me,David, queer stories past and
(07:11):
present.
I'm David Hunt, continuing mylook at efforts to outlaw
gender-affirming health care fortrans and non-binary youth and
the impact of those efforts.
There are stories.
(07:31):
Like this one.
Since the age of three, Katiehas known she wants to be a
fashion designer when she growsup.
When her preschool class did aproject making hand-stitched
bags, she was thrilled with theidea of making a purse.
But her teachers told her boysmake book bags.
Katie made a purse anyway andembroidered a unicorn on it for
(07:54):
good measure.
Katie recently started herfirst year of high school, but
every six months she has to missschool to fly from her home in
Texas to California to accessmedical treatment for her gender
dysphoria.
Texas officials have declaredKatie's gender-affirming health
care to be child abuse.
The family will likely beforced to leave Texas for a more
(08:16):
welcoming stateAnd there's this story.
Wood is a 12-year-old fromcentral Ohio.
He's been working to understandhis gender identity since he
was in the third grade.
Eventually he realized that heis a transgender boy.
This summer, wood and hismother visited with his primary
care physician to start learningabout medical treatment options
(08:38):
available for gender dysphoria.
They were referred to aninterdisciplinary group of
psychiatrists, psychologists andendocrinologists at a regional
children's hospital.
In August, wood and his motherwere in an exam room when the
doctor learned that an Ohiojudge had allowed Ohio's ban on
medical treatments for minorswith gender dysphoria to go into
(09:01):
effect.
Wood and his family have had toexplore other treatment options,
none of which are practical orcompatible with their daily
lives.
They believe their onlyremaining option is to travel
out of state (a six-hourround-trip drive) to receive the
medical care that Wood, hisfamily and his specialists in
Ohio all believe is anappropriate and necessary
(09:24):
treatment option.
Every trip to the pharmacy, thephlebotomist or the doctor is a
day-long affair.
These stories and others arerecounted in a
friend-of-the-court brief filedby a coalition of non-profit
agencies hoping to convince theUnited States Supreme Court to
protect the rights oftransgender youth in a case
(09:44):
challenging Tennessee's ban ongender-affirming care for minors
.
One of the organizations thatsigned onto the brief is Trans
Family Support Services, anon-profit agency based in San
Diego, California.
Kathy Moehlig is the agency'sfounder and executive director.
Kathie Moehlig (10:03):
One in four trans youth have attempted
suicide in the last two yearsand we know that that number has
skyrocketed because of all ofthis misinformation, because of
the attacks.
You know, I have kids on aregular basis that tell me I
don't even know why I shouldexist when my government hates
me.
That's a heavy load for amiddle schooler to be carrying.
David Hunt (10:27):
Moehlig knows the challenges facing gender
nonconforming kids firsthand.
Kathie Moehlig (10:32):
My son started his transition well over a
decade ago, when he was just 11years old, and back then most
people didn't even know what theword transgender meant, much
less it affected younger kids.
We live in San Diego.
We had no doctors who werewilling to treat him.
Schools had no idea how to bestsupport him.
It was before we have all thelaws we do now in California.
David Hunt (10:55):
She founded Trans Family Support Services to help
others on the transgenderjourney.
Since then, the agency hasserved more than 5,000 trans
youth and their families acrossthe country, providing family
coaching, assistance with healthcare and insurance issues, help
navigating the legal system andschool support.
All services are free.
(11:16):
That experience has taught hera lot about the transition
process.
It turns out there isn't atypical trans kid, but, I
pointed out, maybe that's thepoint.
Kathie Moehlig (11:29):
That is absolutely the point.
Every trans person's journey isvery unique to them.
I, you know, when I'm workingwith my families, with my
parents, I'm like you know itwould make my job so much easier
if I could just hand you achecklist and say here you go.
But that's like not what it'sabout, right.
And we believe very much thatthe trans person isn't really
(11:51):
the one transitioning.
It's they're just aligningthemselves with who they know
themselves to be.
It's generally the peoplearound them that are really in
this like transition, and sothat's where our emphasis and
focus really is is making surethat every trans person has at
least one family member who haseducation and knows how to
(12:12):
support and affirm them.
David Hunt (12:14):
I'm going to stop here to detour into the thinking
of someone who doesn't supporttrans youth.
Actually, two men (12:19):
Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack
Johnson and House MajorityLeader William Lamberth.
They're the authors of theTennessee law that bans
gender-affirming care, the lawunder review by the Supreme
Court this term.
If you assumed that the lawoffers a reasoned argument
questioning the medicalconsensus that gender-affirming
(12:40):
care is appropriate in manycases, you'd be wrong.
The law is, well, a screed.
It claims that gender-affirmingcare is harmful, unethical,
immoral and experimental.
That doctors are performinggender reassignment surgeries on
youngsters to make a lot ofmoney.
That doctors have posted nakedpictures of children to
(13:03):
advertise such surgeries.
That the same pharmaceuticalcompanies responsible for the
opioid epidemic are making moneyfrom these procedures.
That one of the pioneers in thefield of gender-affirming care
was a child abuser.
And the law takes a swipe atPlanned Parenthood for good
measure, saying that thenon-profit health agency is
(13:24):
responsible for killing tens ofthousands of unborn children.
The law repeatedly referencessurgeries to remove a minor's
sex organs, perpetuating thenotion that kids are undergoing
sex change operations.
That language mirrors claimsmade by Donald Trump on the
campaign trail.
"Your boy leaves for school,comes back a girl without
(13:47):
parental consent, he claimed atone campaign stop.
Was that a lie?
Yes, it was.
Kathie Moehlig (13:56):
The concept and we heard during the campaign
that you know kids are going offto school and they're being
transitioned and they're gettingsex change operations at school
and that is like the mostludicrous thing, because that's
not how it happens.
There are no minors anywhere inour country that are getting
access to any medical care ofany kind without parental
(14:19):
consent.
That just doesn't happen.
Gender-affirming care is simplyany care having to do with
someone's gender transition andfor some people, the only
gender-affirming care they mayaccess might be mental health
care.
David Hunt (14:33):
But the lies serve a purpose.
The barrage of misinformationcomplicates the public discourse
.
Supreme Court justices, forexample, debated the Tennessee
law as if it were a good faitheffort to address a public
policy issue.
That's not how Moehlig sees it.
Kathie Moehlig (14:51):
It is not done in good faith.
There is not all the medicalevidence, all the mental health
research, all the major medicaland mental health associations
all agree that gender affirmingcare is life-saving care.
So I don't know how taking thataway could be anywhere near
good faith.
It's sensationalism.
(15:11):
It is being used to wield power.
It is used to set updiscriminatory practices.
None of that is in good faith.
David Hunt (15:23):
Why lie about gender-affirming health care?
If a politician told you headvocated denying appropriate
medical treatments for genderdysphoria to young people, you
might think he was oversteppinghis role as a policymaker.
But you might applaud apolitician who promised to
(15:43):
protect kids from backroom sexchange operations and left-wing
gender insanity.
It's framing theory.
How information is presented toan audience influences the
choices they make and how theyprocess that information.
It's not new.
Sociologist Erving Goffmanfirst published his research on
framing theory more than 50years ago.
You know what else Goffmanstudied?
Stigma.
(16:04):
That's another part of thestory.
Kathie Moehlig (16:08):
It is exhausting when we think about the level
of hate and discriminationthat's coming.
I mean, just looking at theidea of that Congress is working
to pass the bill to keep transpeople from using the restrooms
right, and you know it's focusedon one senator who happens to
(16:33):
be trans, but there are lots ofother trans and non-binary folk
that work in that building thatthis has now disrupted their
lives.
They were going along justdoing their job and doing what
they're supposed to be doing,and now this is a disruption
right and that's the goal of thepeople who are doing this.
(16:55):
I'll just say today I talked toa new family.
Their youth just recently toldthem about their gender identity
and instead of just being ableto wrap around that and really
care for this family in the wayin which we have, I had to spend
the first 20 minutes helpingthem to understand what the
political landscape is lookinglike.
David Hunt (17:18):
Outlawing gender-affirming care in some
states creates gender refugees,families forced to move to more
welcoming states because theyare, in essence, second-class
citizens in their home states.
On top of that, there are costs.
Kathie Moehlig (17:33):
It's not just expensive but if you think about
it you're pulling.
You know you're pulling yourfamily out of where you've built
up your resources and probablyhave other family members close
and your jobs and your.
You know the other children inthe family have relationships
and rapport and sports and youknow groups that they belong to.
(17:54):
It is extremely difficult forfamilies to up and move.
David Hunt (17:59):
Families that can't afford to move to a state where
gender-affirming care is offeredare on the losing side of the
nation's growing wealth gap.
Many of these families have tochoose between discontinuing
gender-affirming care for theirchild or traveling across state
lines to find providers willingto work with them.
It's increasingly tough,Moehlig says.
Kathie Moehlig (18:21):
It's difficult for our families who are
fighting and trying to navigateand giving their insurance to
cover things and now findingproviders with 26 states that
have banned this care.
All of those people have to goto other states for their care
and it's impacted wait time.
It impacts the quality of carebecause now we have so few
(18:41):
providers compared to what theneed is.
David Hunt (18:45):
Sadly, trans and non-binary children suffer the
brunt of the stigma.
In its amicus brief to theSupreme Court, Trans Family
Support Services lays out thestark reality.
It's a disheartening read.
"The distress caused byuntreated gender dysphoria, they
say, is often all-consuming,leaving transgender youth with
(19:05):
little capacity to focus onother pursuits.
Losing access togender-affirming care can cause
serious, lasting and potentiallylife-threatening psychological
and physical distress.
All this because gender is thelatest battleground in America's
ongoing culture wars.
Trans youth are the latest easytargets of the right, just as
(19:28):
people with HIV-AIDS, gay andlesbian, school teachers and
queer members of the militarywere in earlier times.
Kathie Moehlig (19:36):
I talk to parents from a perspective of as
parents of trans people,regardless of the age of that
child.
Our job is to help buildresilience in our kids.
That has become so much moreimportant now, and so there's so
much energy and efforts thathave to be put into knowing what
(19:57):
the fights are going to be,knowing what the challenges our
kids are going to experience is,and then how do we go about
still providing them with somehope for their future when the
attacks are so great?
Eleven states that have deemedthemselves either safe havens or
(20:18):
sanctuary states that we knowthis care is going to be
protected, as long as the statehas the right to protect that.
But 11 states is certainly notenough.
We have trans youth in everystate in this country and they
all deserve the right to medicalcare.
David Hunt (20:42):
I'd like to thank trans rights attorney David
Brown and Kathy Moehlig, founderof Trans Family Support
Services, for sharing theirinsights for this program.
Audio of the Supreme Court'soral arguments, courtesy of
C-SPAN.
For Tell Me, David, I'm DavidHunt.
So in a worst-case scenario, the Supreme Court,
just like it did in Dobbs, couldsay you know what, for the past
50-odd years we've been wrong.
Kathie Moehlig (00:13):
We heard during the campaign that you know, kids
are going off to school andthey're being transitioned and
they're getting sex changeoperations at school and that is
like the most ludicrous thing,because that's not how it
happens.
David Hunt (00:31):
Welcome to Tell Me David queer stories, past and
present.
I'm David Hunt.
Twenty-six US states so faroutlaw gender-affirming health
care for trans and non-binaryyouth.
What's the impact of those bans?
We'll hear from the founder ofa California organization that
(00:51):
helps families through thetransgender journey.
But first a short dive into alandmark legal case that could
give more states permission toblock life-saving care for trans
kids.
Listening to arguments overarcane points of law can have
(01:14):
you holding back a yawn.
Listening to oral arguments ina transgender rights case
streaming live from the UnitedStates Supreme Court, December
4th, David Brown found himselfholding back tears.
David Brown (01:30):
I almost cried from happiness.
I'm not a trans person myself,but I've been doing trans rights
law for 20, almost 20 years atthis point, and a generation ago
being transgender was being outand transgender certainly was
was almost a career death movefor attorneys.
There was so muchdiscrimination, there were so
many headwinds to the careers oftransgender lawyers that there
(01:52):
were very few who were out.
David Hunt (01:54):
But one transgender lawyer was very much out on
December 4th with thetraditional salutation "and, may
it please the court.
Chase Strangio of the AmericanCivil Liberties Union made
history that day as the firsttrans attorney to argue a case
before the US Supreme Court, andnot just any case, a case
(02:15):
challenging Tennessee's ban ongender-affirming health care for
minors.
And no, his visibility beforethe justices probably didn't
please the court, at least notits conservative majority as
much as it pleased David Brown.
Brown, former legal director ofthe Transgender Legal Defense
and Education Fund, talked withme about the court's options in
(02:36):
the Tennessee case, officiallytitled United States v Jonathan
Scrimetti, the state's attorneygeneral.
States v Jonathan Scrimetti,the state's attorney general.
The case involves the questionof whether Tennessee's ban on
gender-affirming care violatesthe Equal Protection Clause of
the Constitution's 14thAmendment.
It's familiar ground for theSupreme Court.
Brown says there are severalways the court could resolve
(02:58):
that issue.
They might take a chapter fromthe 2022 Dobbs decision that
struck down abortion rights bystrictly narrowing the right to
privacy.
Brown explains.
David Brown (03:10):
So in a worst case scenario the Supreme Court, just
like it did in Dobbs, could sayyou know what, for the past 50
odd years we've been wrong andactually we think it doesn't
prohibit sex discrimination.
We think it doesn't prohibitsex discrimination, right, we're
going to revert the EqualProtection Clause to its more
narrow understanding that peoplehad in the 19th century, sort
(03:32):
of drag the country back acouple of centuries.
David Hunt (03:35):
That's possible, but unlikely, Brown says.
Also unlikely, he believes,best-case the scenario, a win
for transgender minors and theirfamilies.
So what falls between thosescenarios?
Tennessee argued that its lawtargets medical treatments and
doesn't draw lines based on sex.
That argument may find areceptive audience on the high
(03:59):
court.
David Brown (04:00):
They could agree with the state and say you know,
this is about medical care, notabout sex.
David Hunt (04:05):
David Brown.
David Brown (04:06):
And in that case, although it would be devastating
I don't want to de-emphasizethat it would be devastating for
the plaintiffs.
In this case, it would be a bigproblem for trans health care
and for in all kinds of otherways that maybe we don't even
understand yet.
Nevertheless, it would meanthat sex discrimination
maintains validity as a basisfor arguing that trans people
and others LGBTQ people, womenand others have a right to bring
(04:31):
these cases about other thingsin the future.
David Hunt (04:34):
But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wasn't willing to
let Tennessee ignore the plaintext of its own law.
She questioned TennesseeSolicitor General Matt Rice on
the state's conflictingarguments.
Ketanji Brown Jackson (04:47):
I don't know how you can say both that
girls and boys are not similarlysituated at step one when this
law is being evaluated and it'snot making a sex-based
classification.
Matt Rice (04:58):
I think our position is that if you're in the point
where we're treating givingtestosterone to a boy with a
biological deficiency as thesame thing as giving
testosterone to a biological,healthy, biological girl who
wants to transition, then therehas to be some threshold inquiry
that recognizes the biologicaldifferences between those two.
Ketanji Brown Jackson (05:20):
Right, but when you're doing that,
you're making a sex-basedclassification.
I mean the very argumentcarries with it the
characterization that we'retrying to identify here.
David Hunt (05:30):
A close reading of the Tennessee law bears out
Jackson's observation.
In the words of the statute,this state has a legitimate,
substantial and compellinginterest in encouraging minors
to appreciate their sex,particularly as they undergo
puberty.
Will this matter to the court'svery conservative majority?
David Brown (05:52):
David Brown, I understand why people think
there might be a negativeoutcome in this case.
I think it's too soon to say.
We know that Justice Gorsuch,who wrote an important opinion
in the Bostock case holding thattransgender people have valid
sex discrimination claims underTitle VII anti-discrimination
(06:15):
law about employment in thiscountry.
He didn't say anything duringthe whole argument so we don't
really know what's going on inhis mind.
We didn't get a preview of whatmight be going on in his mind
and so it's quite possible hewill extend his reasoning to the
Equal Protection Clause Asimilar justice.
Amy Coney Barrett asked a bunchof very interesting and engaged
questions about the history ofdiscrimination against
(06:36):
transgender people and what thislaw actually does.
So it suggests that she'sthinking about the real-world
impacts of this case and wherethe court's decision might lie
in the arc of history.
David Hunt (06:48):
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case
before the end of the currentterm, next summer, barring
intervention by the incomingTrump administration, which may
seek to reverse the government'sposition in the case.
You're listening to Tell Me,David, queer stories past and
(07:11):
present.
I'm David Hunt, continuing mylook at efforts to outlaw
gender-affirming health care fortrans and non-binary youth and
the impact of those efforts.
There are stories.
(07:31):
Like this one.
Since the age of three, Katiehas known she wants to be a
fashion designer when she growsup.
When her preschool class did aproject making hand-stitched
bags, she was thrilled with theidea of making a purse.
But her teachers told her boysmake book bags.
Katie made a purse anyway andembroidered a unicorn on it for
(07:54):
good measure.
Katie recently started herfirst year of high school, but
every six months she has to missschool to fly from her home in
Texas to California to accessmedical treatment for her gender
dysphoria.
Texas officials have declaredKatie's gender-affirming health
care to be child abuse.
The family will likely beforced to leave Texas for a more
(08:16):
welcoming stateAnd there's this story.
Wood is a 12-year-old fromcentral Ohio.
He's been working to understandhis gender identity since he
was in the third grade.
Eventually he realized that heis a transgender boy.
This summer, wood and hismother visited with his primary
care physician to start learningabout medical treatment options
(08:38):
available for gender dysphoria.
They were referred to aninterdisciplinary group of
psychiatrists, psychologists andendocrinologists at a regional
children's hospital.
In August, wood and his motherwere in an exam room when the
doctor learned that an Ohiojudge had allowed Ohio's ban on
medical treatments for minorswith gender dysphoria to go into
(09:01):
effect.
Wood and his family have had toexplore other treatment options,
none of which are practical orcompatible with their daily
lives.
They believe their onlyremaining option is to travel
out of state (a six-hourround-trip drive) to receive the
medical care that Wood, hisfamily and his specialists in
Ohio all believe is anappropriate and necessary
(09:24):
treatment option.
Every trip to the pharmacy, thephlebotomist or the doctor is a
day-long affair.
These stories and others arerecounted in a
friend-of-the-court brief filedby a coalition of non-profit
agencies hoping to convince theUnited States Supreme Court to
protect the rights oftransgender youth in a case
(09:44):
challenging Tennessee's ban ongender-affirming care for minors
.
One of the organizations thatsigned onto the brief is Trans
Family Support Services, anon-profit agency based in San
Diego, California.
Kathy Moehlig is the agency'sfounder and executive director.
Kathie Moehlig (10:03):
One in four trans youth have attempted
suicide in the last two yearsand we know that that number has
skyrocketed because of all ofthis misinformation, because of
the attacks.
You know, I have kids on aregular basis that tell me I
don't even know why I shouldexist when my government hates
me.
That's a heavy load for amiddle schooler to be carrying.
David Hunt (10:27):
Moehlig knows the challenges facing gender
nonconforming kids firsthand.
Kathie Moehlig (10:32):
My son started his transition well over a
decade ago, when he was just 11years old, and back then most
people didn't even know what theword transgender meant, much
less it affected younger kids.
We live in San Diego.
We had no doctors who werewilling to treat him.
Schools had no idea how to bestsupport him.
It was before we have all thelaws we do now in California.
David Hunt (10:55):
She founded Trans Family Support Services to help
others on the transgenderjourney.
Since then, the agency hasserved more than 5,000 trans
youth and their families acrossthe country, providing family
coaching, assistance with healthcare and insurance issues, help
navigating the legal system andschool support.
All services are free.
(11:16):
That experience has taught hera lot about the transition
process.
It turns out there isn't atypical trans kid, but, I
pointed out, maybe that's thepoint.
Kathie Moehlig (11:29):
That is absolutely the point.
Every trans person's journey isvery unique to them.
I, you know, when I'm workingwith my families, with my
parents, I'm like you know itwould make my job so much easier
if I could just hand you achecklist and say here you go.
But that's like not what it'sabout, right.
And we believe very much thatthe trans person isn't really
(11:51):
the one transitioning.
It's they're just aligningthemselves with who they know
themselves to be.
It's generally the peoplearound them that are really in
this like transition, and sothat's where our emphasis and
focus really is is making surethat every trans person has at
least one family member who haseducation and knows how to
(12:12):
support and affirm them.
David Hunt (12:14):
I'm going to stop here to detour into the thinking
of someone who doesn't supporttrans youth.
Actually, two men (12:19):
Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack
Johnson and House MajorityLeader William Lamberth.
They're the authors of theTennessee law that bans
gender-affirming care, the lawunder review by the Supreme
Court this term.
If you assumed that the lawoffers a reasoned argument
questioning the medicalconsensus that gender-affirming
(12:40):
care is appropriate in manycases, you'd be wrong.
The law is, well, a screed.
It claims that gender-affirmingcare is harmful, unethical,
immoral and experimental.
That doctors are performinggender reassignment surgeries on
youngsters to make a lot ofmoney.
That doctors have posted nakedpictures of children to
(13:03):
advertise such surgeries.
That the same pharmaceuticalcompanies responsible for the
opioid epidemic are making moneyfrom these procedures.
That one of the pioneers in thefield of gender-affirming care
was a child abuser.
And the law takes a swipe atPlanned Parenthood for good
measure, saying that thenon-profit health agency is
(13:24):
responsible for killing tens ofthousands of unborn children.
The law repeatedly referencessurgeries to remove a minor's
sex organs, perpetuating thenotion that kids are undergoing
sex change operations.
That language mirrors claimsmade by Donald Trump on the
campaign trail.
"Your boy leaves for school,comes back a girl without
(13:47):
parental consent, he claimed atone campaign stop.
Was that a lie?
Yes, it was.
Kathie Moehlig (13:56):
The concept and we heard during the campaign
that you know kids are going offto school and they're being
transitioned and they're gettingsex change operations at school
and that is like the mostludicrous thing, because that's
not how it happens.
There are no minors anywhere inour country that are getting
access to any medical care ofany kind without parental
(14:19):
consent.
That just doesn't happen.
Gender-affirming care is simplyany care having to do with
someone's gender transition andfor some people, the only
gender-affirming care they mayaccess might be mental health
care.
David Hunt (14:33):
But the lies serve a purpose.
The barrage of misinformationcomplicates the public discourse
.
Supreme Court justices, forexample, debated the Tennessee
law as if it were a good faitheffort to address a public
policy issue.
That's not how Moehlig sees it.
Kathie Moehlig (14:51):
It is not done in good faith.
There is not all the medicalevidence, all the mental health
research, all the major medicaland mental health associations
all agree that gender affirmingcare is life-saving care.
So I don't know how taking thataway could be anywhere near
good faith.
It's sensationalism.
(15:11):
It is being used to wield power.
It is used to set updiscriminatory practices.
None of that is in good faith.
David Hunt (15:23):
Why lie about gender-affirming health care?
If a politician told you headvocated denying appropriate
medical treatments for genderdysphoria to young people, you
might think he was oversteppinghis role as a policymaker.
But you might applaud apolitician who promised to
(15:43):
protect kids from backroom sexchange operations and left-wing
gender insanity.
It's framing theory.
How information is presented toan audience influences the
choices they make and how theyprocess that information.
It's not new.
Sociologist Erving Goffmanfirst published his research on
framing theory more than 50years ago.
You know what else Goffmanstudied?
Stigma.
(16:04):
That's another part of thestory.
Kathie Moehlig (16:08):
It is exhausting when we think about the level
of hate and discriminationthat's coming.
I mean, just looking at theidea of that Congress is working
to pass the bill to keep transpeople from using the restrooms
right, and you know it's focusedon one senator who happens to
(16:33):
be trans, but there are lots ofother trans and non-binary folk
that work in that building thatthis has now disrupted their
lives.
They were going along justdoing their job and doing what
they're supposed to be doing,and now this is a disruption
right and that's the goal of thepeople who are doing this.
(16:55):
I'll just say today I talked toa new family.
Their youth just recently toldthem about their gender identity
and instead of just being ableto wrap around that and really
care for this family in the wayin which we have, I had to spend
the first 20 minutes helpingthem to understand what the
political landscape is lookinglike.
David Hunt (17:18):
Outlawing gender-affirming care in some
states creates gender refugees,families forced to move to more
welcoming states because theyare, in essence, second-class
citizens in their home states.
On top of that, there are costs.
Kathie Moehlig (17:33):
It's not just expensive but if you think about
it you're pulling.
You know you're pulling yourfamily out of where you've built
up your resources and probablyhave other family members close
and your jobs and your.
You know the other children inthe family have relationships
and rapport and sports and youknow groups that they belong to.
(17:54):
It is extremely difficult forfamilies to up and move.
David Hunt (17:59):
Families that can't afford to move to a state where
gender-affirming care is offeredare on the losing side of the
nation's growing wealth gap.
Many of these families have tochoose between discontinuing
gender-affirming care for theirchild or traveling across state
lines to find providers willingto work with them.
It's increasingly tough,Moehlig says.
Kathie Moehlig (18:21):
It's difficult for our families who are
fighting and trying to navigateand giving their insurance to
cover things and now findingproviders with 26 states that
have banned this care.
All of those people have to goto other states for their care
and it's impacted wait time.
It impacts the quality of carebecause now we have so few
(18:41):
providers compared to what theneed is.
David Hunt (18:45):
Sadly, trans and non-binary children suffer the
brunt of the stigma.
In its amicus brief to theSupreme Court, Trans Family
Support Services lays out thestark reality.
It's a disheartening read.
"The distress caused byuntreated gender dysphoria, they
say, is often all-consuming,leaving transgender youth with
(19:05):
little capacity to focus onother pursuits.
Losing access togender-affirming care can cause
serious, lasting and potentiallylife-threatening psychological
and physical distress.
All this because gender is thelatest battleground in America's
ongoing culture wars.
Trans youth are the latest easytargets of the right, just as
(19:28):
people with HIV-AIDS, gay andlesbian, school teachers and
queer members of the militarywere in earlier times.
Kathie Moehlig (19:36):
I talk to parents from a perspective of as
parents of trans people,regardless of the age of that
child.
Our job is to help buildresilience in our kids.
That has become so much moreimportant now, and so there's so
much energy and efforts thathave to be put into knowing what
(19:57):
the fights are going to be,knowing what the challenges our
kids are going to experience is,and then how do we go about
still providing them with somehope for their future when the
attacks are so great?
Eleven states that have deemedthemselves either safe havens or
(20:18):
sanctuary states that we knowthis care is going to be
protected, as long as the statehas the right to protect that.
But 11 states is certainly notenough.
We have trans youth in everystate in this country and they
all deserve the right to medicalcare.
David Hunt (20:42):
I'd like to thank trans rights attorney David
Brown and Kathy Moehlig, founderof Trans Family Support
Services, for sharing theirinsights for this program.
Audio of the Supreme Court'soral arguments, courtesy of
C-SPAN.
For Tell Me, David, I'm DavidHunt.
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