BROADview in Brief

Make a circuit with me...

What’s on in gender news this week, people? First, a quick round-up of reporting across the US: New Jersey school boards seem to be following in California’s footsteps, as district by district, individual boards are voting to repeal a state policy to hide social gender transitions from parents that they’d been told was mandatory. The Holmdel Board of Education was the latest this week, according to Patch.com. Will these boards be taken to court by the New Jersey state attorney general? Journalist Rich McHugh pointed out in August that that was already happening, so it’s probably more accurate to say that California is now following New Jersey… or maybe it’s more like a tangled conga line weaving through American courts from sea to shining sea.

In Virginia, Molly Bohannon reported for Forbes that two parents are suing the Virginia Beach School Board for failing to follow Governor Youngkin’s transgender school policies. Meanwhile, Kyle Orens wrote for WBOC that the school board in Accomack County has stepped right up to shift their policies in line with Youngkin’s guidance. To no one’s surprise, the Virginia ACLU feels that Accomack is now out of alignment with existing Virginia laws.

Clair McFarland disclosed in the Cowboy State Daily that the Wyoming college students fighting to have a female-only sorority house have decided to appeal Judge Alan Johnson’s decision to toss out their case. It will move to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Also in court news, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments on two now-connected North Carolina and West Virginia cases involving insurance coverage for transgender hormones and surgical procedures. Leah Willingham reported for the Associated Press that “at least two judges said it’s likely the case will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.” Indeed, the Associated Press noted that in the continuing ping-pong match of state medicalization bans, a Montana judge put that state’s law on temporary hold four days before it was due to take effect…just as the Washington Post reported in breaking news that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Kentucky and Tennessee’s new restrictions can move forward.

When Americans refer to this circuit or that circuit in a legal context, and you wonder what in the heck we’re talking about, here’s a circuit map of the Courts of Appeal geographic jurisdictions. If there’s a conflict in rulings between the regional Courts of Appeal, that will often set up a path for a case to be heard by the US Supreme Court. 

On the cancellation front, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) decided to scrub a panel called “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby: Why Biological Sex Remains a Necessary Analytic Category in Anthropology” from their conference in November, accusing the presenters of transphobia. Colin Wright followed up on Reality’s Last Stand with No Sex Please, We’re Anthropologists. Professor and free speech scholar Jeffrey Snyder from Carleton College shared on X aka Twitter, “The allegations of transphobia recall Hamline [University’s] baseless charge of Islamophobia. Actions like these undermine academic freedom and chill open inquiry.” It’s almost incomprehensible that professional anthropologists seriously believe that discussing the importance of tracking sex in anthropology is transphobic, but here we are.

In England, Hannah Barnes followed up her latest reporting on the re-analysis of the Tavistock puberty blocker research with a BBC Newsnight segment. But to get an idea of how thoroughly misinformed many people are about the risks and rewards of these drugs, check out Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir’s essay for Metro UK, We Accept Teenagers Taking the Pill – Why Don’t We Feel the Same About Puberty Blockers? (Ugla is a nonbinary activist of Icelandic heritage). How do we help people understand that puberty blockers are not a harmless medication in the face of so much wishful thinking? (Or, adds Lisa, that trying not to get pregnant is not the same as trying to stave off the maturation of the human brain and body.)

Still, at least British lesbians can grab a female-only pint together. This is not so in Australia, per Eva Kurilova for Reduxx. Sorry, mates.

Many thanks to a French-Canadian subscriber for sharing a clip from CTV Montreal of two journalists discussing the reaction of Quebec Premier François Legault to last week’s 1 Million March 4 Children protest and essentially calling for calm dialogue. Our subscriber writes, “I don't expect much courage from the "big national mostly leftie" that is the CBC. But CTV Montreal is one I will check. Other than that, I was disappointed by the type of photos I saw in several online articles. It might be a coincidence, or not, but the few articles I saw seemed to show women of Middle Eastern background when they wanted to show the people AGAINST gender identity and sex ed…As if we were to understand that people raised in other cultures or countries (and possibly in Muslim countries) were an important part of what is essentially presented as a reaction…” I thought that was an interesting take. Is that something that you noticed? We know from the statistics that parents of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds have concerns about what is being taught about gender in schools and what’s being hidden from parents, and we also know the Canadian demonstrations were multi-ethnic. Is the Canadian mainstream media demonstrating the same types of biases that their conservative counterparts are often accused of? Is there an ethnic subtext?

Our subscriber also noted that Quebec with its French heritage is a very pro-debate place, and having spent a fair amount of time in France, I would normally agree with that characterization of French culture. However, the French are not covering themselves in glory when it comes to open discussion about conflicts between women’s rights and trans rights, as Adam Sage pointed out in The Times earlier this year. And in June, Paul Sugy reported for Le Figaro--a leading French centrist paper--that the same type of trans activism that has disrupted normal evidence-based protocols in youth gender medicine throughout much of the West is also impacting the highest reaches of the French medical authority (if your French is rusty, pop that into Google Translate to get the gist). I hope Quebec ultimately does better than France when it comes to talking about gender identity.

All right, I now have a strange craving for a croissant. Bon weekend à tous, and please share your thoughts in the comments below or through this form. If you need something to watch while you’re enjoying your downtime, I was on the FAIR in Medicine webinar with PITT parents this week to discuss the PITT book Tales from the Home Front and the challenges of parenting trans-identified children in today’s cultural environment.  I’ll add the link here as soon as it becomes available later today—FAIR had Lisa on a couple of months ago, if you missed it! Update: Here’s the FAIR parent webinar I mentioned. I think it’s the first time they’ve run a webinar where some panelists were audio-only so they didn’t have the pin speaker panel settings quite right, but the audio works fine.

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With much gratitude for the research assistance of Alejandra Q.