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Transgenderism, the Supreme Court, and Child Abuse
This past week The Federalist published an article that once again highlighted the damage that transgenderism has inflicted on our society. The article described an amicus brief that has been filed in the Supreme Court for the case R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the case will be heard October 2019. It described the powerful statements in an amicus brief from several individuals who acknowledged the devastation they had experienced in deciding to change their gender identity. In this post, I’m going to provide a summary of the original case, include some of their statements from the amicus brief, and also the impact of these types of beliefs on our children.
Here is a summary of the original brief:
Aimee Stephens (formerly known as Anthony Stephens) was born biologically male. While presenting as a man, Stephens worked as a funeral director at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. The funeral home owner and operator, Thomas Rost, terminated Stephens’ employment after Stephens informed him she would transition from male to female and dress as a woman at work. Stephens filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
After investigating Stephens’ claims, the EEOC charged the funeral home with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by (1) ending Stephens’ employment on the basis of gender and (2) administering a discriminatory dress code policy.
The district court granted summary judgment to the funeral home, which argued (1) the funeral home’s dress code did not violate Title VII, (2) enforcing Title VII and requiring the home to employ Stephens would constitute an unjustified substantial burden on Rost’s religious beliefs, and (3) the EEOC could not bring a claim against the home’s clothing allowance because the home ‘could not reasonably expect a clothing-allowance claim to emerge from an investigation into Stephens’s termination.’
On appeal, the 6th Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment, granted summary judgment to the EEOC, and remanded the case to the district court.
R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The court accepted on April 22, 2019.
In response to this case, an amicus brief was filed to challenge the assumptions regarding gender identity, in particular, the fallacies of the argument for gender fluidity and for the supposed damage caused by untreated transgenderism; it also explained the negative effects of pursuing surgery. One personal testimony was made by Walt Heyer. His statement included the following:
The brief describes Heyer’s journey as both a former transgender person and one who now counsels so many who struggle. From both perspectives, Heyer believes current transgender medical protocols fail to treat the root causes.
Heyer now informally mentors people who also regret attempting to identify as a person of the opposite sex, such as by adopting a different name and opposite-sex pronouns, wearing clothing and hairstyles typically associated with the opposite sex, using sex-segregated spaces and engaging in sex-segregated activities that correspond to the opposite sex, and changing their appearance to more closely resemble the opposite sex through makeup, clothing, surgery, and hormones.
Heyer has seen firsthand the harm that can come from encouraging people down that path. Every person Heyer has mentored has concluded that he or she was not born transgender. They believe transgenderism is a learned behavior, a social ideology, not an innate condition from birth. Heyer says he has seen too much unhappiness and regret over the years from hormone therapy and surgeries to think otherwise.
Instead almost all those who offered testimony stated that the most beneficial treatment was therapy, especially because it dealt with underlying psychological issues. The brief included this statement:
Affirming the dysphoria in people suffering from gender identity issues as if they really were persons of the opposite sex only serves to lead those that are suffering with such issues away from finding the serenity and wholeness of being at peace with their bodies and identities. Forcing employers to affirm the denial of reality is not required by Title VII and is more likely to cause harm than good.
Although this brief may have a limited impact on the case, it still makes a powerful statement against the widespread promotion of transgenderism.
One of the amicus briefs on the other side was submitted by the American Medical Association. You can review that brief here.
My greatest concern for the legitimacy that has been given to transgenderism is the effect it has had on children. In one article, Michelle Cretella, the executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, outlined the misconceptions about transgenderism, and concludes with the following statement:
The crux of the matter is that while the transition-affirming movement purports to help children, it is inflicting a grave injustice on them and their nondysphoric peers.
These professionals are using the myth that people are born transgender to justify engaging in massive, uncontrolled, and unconsented experimentation on children who have a psychological condition that would otherwise resolve after puberty in the vast majority of cases.
Today’s institutions that promote transition affirmation are pushing children to impersonate the opposite sex, sending many of them down the path of puberty blockers, sterilization, the removal of healthy body parts, and untold psychological damage.
These harms constitute nothing less than institutionalized child abuse. Sound ethics demand an immediate end to the use of pubertal suppression, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies.
It is time for our nation’s leaders and the silent majority of health professionals to learn exactly what is happening to our children, and unite to take action.
Let’s hope that this case begins a journey to discrediting changes in gender identity. Too many of our children, and even our adult population, are at risk of ruining their lives.
Published in Culture
There is such a thing as disrupting the workplace, whether it’s due to the way workers dress or their behavior. My guess is the funeral home management believed having a man dressed as a woman would be too disruptive for the other workers and the customers. To offer an extreme example, what if one employee wanted to work in her underwear? Better yet, what if another employee wanted to play loud rap music while he worked? Does the business owner not have the right to determine what the standards are in his business?
I know Tom Rost.
In spite of the supposed widespread acceptance of gender fluidity, can you imagine a person who is dealing with the trauma of a death having to deal with this imagery? The last thing a person wants to have to do when he or she is burying a loved one is come face-to-face with a confused individual who doesn’t know who he or she is. It’s just not right.
@arahant, is there anything you’d like to share about him that wouldn’t betray the relationship?
Susan,
Thanks for this post and the legal update that it contains. You know my position. However, I will restate it in full.
Transgenderism is the most virulent form of a mental illness that in general I refer to as Sexual Schizophrenia. The very last thing to do is to allow this psychological disease to go untreated as a psychological disease and to blindly push forward into transgenderism. The idea that a child that hasn’t yet reached puberty should be subjected to these radical procedures is a pure criminal form of child abuse.
Political support for this has little to do with a rational understanding. Rather the left wing, desperate to gain a political foothold, hides behind this absurdity by claiming it to be just one more form of liberation. They have neither concern for those who suffer from the psychological condition nor the rest of society trying to deal with an impossible irrationality. Creating the false narrative that they are ‘protecting transgender rights’ they blindly encourage massive amounts of child abuse and a massive amount of human misery as huge numbers of people have their lives completely misdirected by the totally false narrative.
Dr. Goebbels said tell a big lie and tell it often enough and then they will start to believe it’s the truth. Sexual Schizophrenia is a mental disease and as such is treatable. The giant hoax denies the truth and thus denies any chance of treatment but then encourages abuse.
Regards,
Jim
Yes. I can’t bear the thought of the number of lives that could be destroyed through this lie.
He is a very decent man. I haven’t seen him in several years, but he must at least be in his 70’s by now. The business is named for his great-grandfather and grandfather, and last I knew, his son Matt was the fifth generation in a business that had been helping bereaved Detroiters for a very long time. His family also has the Cremation Society of Michigan.
Thanks so much filling out the picture. I suspected you’d say something like that. I’m glad the business is fighting for what they know is right and true. And I hope they win.
I think gender dysphoria is a “mental disorder.” It doesn’t quite fit the meaning of “schizophrenia.” It’s certainly delusional thinking, but it’s not a hallucination. People suffering from the delusion of gender dysphoria know that their body parts say otherwise. They say to their doctor, “I know I am a man, but I feel like a woman.” In contrast, people suffering from schizophrenia say to their doctor, “I am not a man. I am a woman.” And that’s what they think. That is their reality. It’s a subtle but important difference.
Personally, I think it’s sad for everyone involved. It has to be costing a lot of money. You have to figure both sides feel betrayed. It seems like a lose:lose situation all around.
The only people I don’t feel sad for are those who perpetrate the lies and mislead people into this deluded lifestyle. Blessings to those who are misled, and to those who have to deal with the fallout.
And weirdly enough if this the brief Mark Regnerus collaborated on, I know at least two of the contributors. Thanks for posting about it, Susan.
There is a lot of schizophrenia (in the vernacular sense) going around. I think the reason why transgender politics got any foothold at all is due to the desire of people to be generally accepting and sympathetic to people whom they know who are struggling in any way. The politics comes in when someone wants to organize a victim group. And once organized, the general good will must be destroyed and replaced with conforming orthodoxy that makes a condition that is problematic not just accepted, but celebrated.
I couldn’t find the actual amicus brief amidst the many amicus briefs that were submitted. It’s interesting that I had no trouble finding the AMA amicus brief. I just couldn’t figure out how to negotiate the SCOTUS blog, but if anyone else knows how to, I’d love to see the actual amicus brief; I copied the contents from the Federalist article which didn’t provide the link. Wouldn’t that be something if you knew a couple of the contributors, @hartmannvonaue?
This is a very insightful comment, @rodin. How often do we see good intentions turn into disasters, when people don’t consider the ramifications of their actions?! It would be interesting for someone to study the psychology of the people who perpetrate these misguided politics.
There are quite a few.
I found that site–but yikes! I tried to identify that particular one, but gave up. I did want to put up this post before the year was out!
I’m suddenly overcome by the notion that I should send Tom a “Thinking of you at this sad time” card.
Lesson for all employers. Perform a deep psychological examination of any candidate. If there is anything off, choose another without saying a word. Surely there is some service that is Hovering up peoples social postings and will sell a psychological profile, just as there are services that do criminal and financial background checks. What is psych score?
Absolutely right. The left has taken what is a mental illness that affects an extremely small part of the population and turned it into a “lifestyle choice” backed by law which everyone must approve of . . .
A funeral home is especially sensitive to the customer. Having an employee that draws attention from the proceedings is disrespectful to those in mourning.
Kinda ppl might make good Ricochetti?
I suspect that Tom is getting plenty of hate mail, if the word has gotten out. A thoughtful note from someone who is an acquaintance would likely be a gift, @arahant,
It’s supposed to be a funeral, not a cabaret act from Berlin in the Thirties.
I’m guessing that psych profiles off of social media, if done by professionals, would violate their professional ethics (requirement to do face to face before any diagnosis?). And anyone trying to run such a service would be quickly out of business, cut off from any major bank. Then there are questions of discrimination under the ADA. Any responsible employer would “Call Your Attorney” before taking any such course of action.
Gee, Percival, now I have to try to get that image out of my head!
And any responsible attorney would probably say, “are you crazy”? I tend to agree, @cliffordbrown.
Agreed.
Although, if you remove the ‘psych’ part and just train up a PI to de an eval/recommend report I’m not sure you would get into trouble.
Searching through a person’s twitter/facebook history for inflammatory statements is…well, it’s been established as fair play by those who doxx conservaties, causing them to be fired.
Not hiring a risky person in the first place seems like a good strategy.
Susan,
What all this adds up to is the right has been asleep at the wheel. The never-Trump gang lives in their fantasy world insulated by large amounts of cash, contacts, and legal acumen. It’s forever 1980 and the Gipper is giving a speech. Ordinary people are going to take the brunt of this horror while the idiots continue to babble about Stormy Daniels and how awful Trump is.
Why are those deplorables so ornery? the never-Trump gang yelp. Are they racist, xenophobic, extreme nationalists? No! oh grand and brainless one, their family & children are under direct attack and they are getting no protection whatsoever from the Republican grandees. Meanwhile, every Democrat doubles down on horrors like this. Every day it gets worse.
Regards,
Jim
It’s just that we need to maintain some corners of existence that the Left can’t convert into Cirque du Knucklehead.