BROADview in Brief
More lawsuits, new sports recs, and celebrations from TERF island
As the number of detransition lawsuits slowly rises, a new law firm has been set up in Texas that focuses specifically on detransition cases. It’s heartening to know that if you need legal support for anything related to medical malpractice or non-belief in gender identity, there are a growing number of lawyers across the country to turn to. Meanwhile, many lawyers and lawsuits are already working to overturn bans on youth medical transition, with Missouri being the latest state to face a challenge.
Speaking of lawsuits, a parent in Wisconsin is suing the Eau Claire school district because the district refused to provide the script that was used when her child’s band teacher announced their own gender transition. Most states have freedom of information laws that cover this type of request, and they are being used more often in today’s tense political environment.
In California, Chino Valley Unified passed a new school board policy requiring parental notification if a child requests a gender transition at school. I have no doubt this will end up in court, too.
The Daily Mail got early access to University of Florida research showing high numbers of post-surgery complications for a cohort who went under the knife in the name of gender, most with either mastectomies or vaginoplasties: 81% endured general long-term pain, 57% found sexual intercourse painful, and almost a third could no longer control their bladders. Gosh, why in the world would any parents have concerns about their children transitioning, even as adults? I can’t imagine. Perhaps it will turn out that this is all a nefarious plot driven by the adult diaper industry. With those kinds of numbers, it’s probably not surprising that “of the estimated 1.6 million trans and non-binary Americans aged 13 and above, only 31% take cross-sex hormones and 16% opt for surgery,” per WashPo and Kaiser.” My guess is that it’s less about insurance coverage and more about wising up to the risks.
In sports news, more athletic organizations are turning the men’s category into a new “open” category to protect female sports. Earlier this month, it was the International Cycling Union and this past week it was World Aquatics—the latter hasn’t announced details, but for cycling, it’s a combined men/open category intended to include all males, no matter how they identify. This was all extremely timely as the Independent Council on Women’s Sport (ICONS) held a summit in Denver last week and issued their press release on Tuesday.
As a Democratic ex-politician who served for many years on local boards of education, I find one of the more surprising aspects of the current gender moment to be how left-wing electeds and candidates screw up the “what is a woman” question. There are easy ways to respond for those who want to be inclusive while still keeping a pinky toehold on reality, yet many on the left have blithely memorized activist slogans without any meaningful reflection. They don’t realize until too late that they are wandering through a linguistic quagmire that will suck them under at the worst possible public moment. “I’m not a biologist” will garner no one’s respect. Maybe try: “Woman is a term for adult biological females. When it comes to trans women—biological males who want to be included in the female category—I think we should be as inclusive as possible.” That could be fine as long as you’re able to respond coherently to follow-up questions on when inclusion may not be possible (or shut questions down if, say, you were hoping to be appointed as a judge).
Why do I bring this up? Because a pivotal political moment is underway in the UK: Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, has suddenly figured out that a woman is flat-out an adult female. Whoa! Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, affirmed that the party will no longer pursue self-ID as it shifts to a more centrist position on the British Gender Recognition Act after last year’s Scottish debacle.
I know, I know, the UK is TERF Island, etc., etc., but the reality has been that only (some of) the ruling Conservative Party has pushed back against the most extreme trans activist campaigns. All the British left-wing parties had been gung-ho on self-ID and “transwomen are women, no debate.” Many gender realists and gender-critical feminists have been reprimanded or expelled from Labour and other leftist party leadership positions over this issue. And even the Tories have been unable to publish coherent transgender guidance for schools. Clearly, some Conservative leaders still believe that we are all born with a gender identity, and they are battling with their colleagues who disagree.
But a shift is happening. A year ago, Keir Starmer could not say what a woman was. Now even Iain Anderson, the Chair of Stonewall, has called for polite discussion on trans issues in his bumbling, fumbling interview last week on Sky TV—as one amused Broadview subscriber described the interview: “It’s gold!” One nugget? Anderson almost kind of walked back the previous CEO of Stonewall’s assertion that people who are same-sex attracted rather than same-gender [identity] attracted might be akin to sexual racists: baby steps, but progress.
As part of the fantastic A Woman’s Place UK speaker series, Professor Michele Moore gave the first speech I saw that helped me process my concerns about what was happening in schools. A Woman’s Place, LGB Alliance, Sex Matters, Transgender Trend, Safe Schools Alliance, Standing for Women, Our Duty Group, and many other British organizations and institutions have fought hard for years to get to this moment. Brits, I know you disagree with each other on the issues at times, but I salute you for pulling in the same direction hard enough and long enough to make a real difference for women and children. Keep it up. You give the rest of us hope.
Unfortunately, in the rest of the English-speaking world, you’d likely still be labeled as anti-trans for holding your normal-until-yesterday beliefs.
While I couldn’t be at Mermaids vs The Alliance on Saturday, a heck of a lot of people were (see photo above), and you can read a review by barrister Naomi Cunningham here.
Until next week, thank you so much for the kind words, suggestions, tips, and links! You can keep sharing them here.
Your round-ups are always excellent, and this one was particularly welcome. It was indeed heartening to see Starmer and the Labour Party finally change course. There is more to do, of course, but it was a relief to see some light finally break through. So in contrast, BTW, to the Judiciary Subcommittee meeting yesterday on pediatric gender-related medical interventions. I made a clip that includes my Congressmember, Jerry Nadler, followed by Paula Scanlan, a UPenn swimmer, and Chloe Cole. In the face of the courageous testimony from these brave young women, his partisan-fueled disregard for the calamity befalling women and girls, relying on bad evidence and sources, was particularly dismaying. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5079931/user-clip-hearing-gender-affirming-care-minors (I, BTW, am a lifelong Democrat. I did call his office after that. I’ll lift up what I posted yesterday about the points I covered in that call, in case anyone else wants to call their own Democratic Congressmember on this.)
I commend to all here, as one example from Kate’s missive, taking some time to view presentations from the ICONS summit, all of which are now online. I have listened to all of the presentations on Day 1 so far, and they are really impressive. Carole Hooven’s presentation was particularly wrenching. I had not known that she, like Kathleen Stock, had been hounded out of her job as an evolutionary biologist at Harvard. Linda Blade had a very illuminating presentation including a timeline on how IOC has gone wrong over the years in handling the issue of including biological males who identify as trans in women’s sports. And Helen Joyce, as always, was excellent.
Sorry to go on so long, but just to say, again, Kate, your weekly missives are wonderful, and in this case so heartening. Indeed, let me not forget to underscore that the photos and reports coming out of the Mermaids v. LGB Alliance performance should lift everyone’s hearts. I am so, so grateful to Kate Harris and Bev Jackson for fighting hard and standing tall.
Thank you so much, Kate! The Labour Party news feels big and the WaPo-Kaiser poll is a good tool in the toolkit for, is the active verb now, "peaking" people? Some of the people around me, when they realize that you can separate your positions on "basic human rights for people who identify as trans" and "gender affirming care for minors" or "men in women's sports/prisons", they start to reflect. It helps that the majority of those polled seemed able to walk that line.