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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
Facebook has hired an army of psychologists to make their product more addicting. It seems tech companies have no problem finding psychologists with “flexible morals”.
I’ll go a little further. I bet Facebook and Google are secretly working with the NSA to develop profiles on people already. There is no discrimination, it is just algorithms!
Is anybody going to start advocating for anorexia or bulimia or BIID (body integrity identity disorder)?
Yes, it is one thing, long established, to look through public statements, including social media, before hiring someone. It is another thing entirely to assert a psychological condition.
It really does not mater what SCOTUS says in this matter. The Left and the government is going to continue to aggressively, militantly, push the destruction of sexual and family mores. The conservatives will continue to lose on this matter.
I wish the medical profession would tackle this problem. Perhaps I’m missing something, but it seems to me that the doctors who are promoting this or going along with it are basing their diagnosis and treatment recommendations on very little objective data.
Indeed. People who prone to passionate advocacy are unlikely to practice dispassionate science.
Reality is Reality . Perceptions of reality differ, everyone has their own perceptions. No one has their own reality.
Are you some kind of midwestern hick? In the civilized, enlightened, progressive areas of the country, cabaret act from ’30s Berlin is exactly what they are going for.
It would be okay for my funeral. It would clash with the commedia dell’arte theme I had in mind.
Marci,
This post has an emphasis on the legal aspects of this problem. However, you have brought up a more general concern and since it was directed at me I’d like to answer your concern.
Let’s take a look at the statement, “I know I am a man, but I feel like a woman.” First, how in the world would a man know exactly what a woman feels like? Let’s rephrase this in a way that might make more sense. “I know I am a man, but I have greater empathy for women than men.” This is a completely rational statement that could very well be objectively true. From a therapeutic point of view, we then could ask, “Why do you have such little empathy for men?” We might then get to something tangible that could be worked on. Obviously, there could be a whole variety of experiences that colored this person’s view of his own gender.
Therapy isn’t a magic wand it’s a long process. However, if something completely blocks it from even getting started, say telling a 7-year-old boy that he really is a girl, then the problem will never be addressed, the process will never start, and a life is severely damaged.
Using a blunt diagnosis like Sexual Schizophrenia may seem terrifying. However, it may be the only way at this late date to make it clear just how much of a disaster the transgender phenomenon is and how badly misdirected the legal attempts to justify it are.
Regards,
Jim
What is truly mind-boggling is that the same people who would have the state take your children away if you allowed your 14 year old son to get a tattoo on his arm are the very same people who would be singing your praises for having your 9 year old injected with hormone blockers – which is profoundly more life-altering by several orders of magnitude.
This is the only branch of psychotherapy that actively encourages patients to go under the knife to have perfectly healthy organs mutilated, amputated or to have superfluous infection prone orifices created on their bodies.
The same people who would excoriate any therapist who validates a 16 year old girl’s decision to get breast implants would be screeching for the head of any therapist who questions that same girl’s decision to cut off her breasts and start taking testosterone shots.
What’s even more frightening is that for many liberal parents, it has become a badge of pride to have a child fall somewhere in the LGBT spectrum – it’s even more pronounced if the mother is a self-professed feminist and the poor child happens to be a boy.
To a normal person, a four year old boy clip-clopping around the house in his Mom’s high heels is just a four year old boy goofing around. To the Left, it’s time to change his name from John to Jane, buy him dresses, and congratulate themselves for their “tolerance.”
I agree on every one of your points, @martinknight. I find it deeply distressing that the medical community would encourage teachers and parents to take these steps. It is beyond my own understanding. Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Reckon they’d like to prevent circumcision as well.
That the medical profession is going along with this is what truly frightens me …
For one thing, we know that kids with gender confusion tend to resolve into being comfortable with their biological sex 95% – 98% of the time by puberty’s end.
The fact that such a large percentage of gender confused children come to accept their biological sex is something that many LGBT activists openly consider a “problem.”
The solution to this “problem” includes the reinforcement of opposite sex identification, and, yes, hormone blockers and opposite sex hormones if the child is “successfully” brought to puberty while still identifying as a member of the opposite sex.
Having puberty halted or slowed to prevent virilization or feminization is an important step to prevent a healthy gender-sex resolution. Much like gangs that demand tattoos as a mark of membership, the physical alteration that come with opposite sex hormones creates the impression that there is now no going back and binds the child even tighter into the transgender identity.
From a 95% chance that the individual child would resolve him/herself to his/her biological sex, it is deliberately crashed to near 0.
This is a truly evil thing.
When a man says that he feels that he is really a woman, is he saying that he likes the things that women like? Or is he saying that he is sexually attracted to men? Is he saying that he wants to act in an effeminate way? Is he saying, in other words, that the stereotype of women is what defines what a woman is?
We know that the lesbians will not agree with this definition of womanhood. So why is it that the transgenders push this definition?
How awful it is to allow men to define what a woman is.
I’ll put aside the funeral home director’s behavior. As a libertarian, I support his right to run his business as he sees fit, whether I agree with him or not. What I find interesting, from both Susan and many of the other comments above, is how sure you all seem to be about this phenomena with which most of you have no experience of any kind.
I’d extend my tolerance of the home’s director’s decisions about his business to transgendered persons decisions about their lives. Cherry picking a couple of people who have had unsatisfactory experiences with their treatment doesn’t answer the underlying question – who’s best positioned to decide? The transgendered person, perhaps with the assistance of such professionals as s/he sees fit to consult? Or a bunch of internet kibbitzers?
None of us are authorities on transgenderism, and that includes the medical professionals. There are plenty of those professionals who have worked with these folks, as well as people who have “tried out” transgenderism and realized it was a big mistake. Please keep in mind that we aren’t talking about gays, @catorand. This topic is a new one (unlike homosexuality) and lots of people love jumping on the bandwagon because it is the flavor of the month. Do you think the people who support this lifestyle are all acting in the best interests of those they are trying to “protect”?
I assume you read the testimony of the those in the amicus brief, and that you checked out the article by the president of the American College of Pediatrics. I find them credible.
Finally, I am not kibbitzing about this topic. I am trying to have a serious discussion about the children and adults whose lives are being destroyed by this propaganda. I think that is a worthy endeavor. If you don’t think it is, you don’t have to participate.
Definitely us. 😁
I’m aware this issue is quite different from homosexuality. I’m also aware that there are similarities, especially in regards to the reaction that people who are different sometimes engender in others and the crushing pain that stigma and ostracism can cause such a person.
But I’ve said what I think, and I don’t expect to persuade anyone here on this subject, so I’ve no need to participate further if you’d rather be left alone to speculate and judge in peace.
The point, so far as I am concerned, is not what is best for the transgendered individual. I’ll live and let live. But when that person insists he has a right to work in my firm, that he can compel me to call him “she,” that he wants access to my wife’s locker room at the gym and to my daughter’s school sports team, then I choose to stand up for the rights of those who are negatively affected by the trans person’s choices.
I just wanted to remind you that if you find this discussion unacceptable, you don’t need to participate. I just object to your (in my opinion) trivializing it. You’ve participated in other civilized discussions on the topic, so I’ve no reason to ask you to leave, @catorand.
Thank you for reminding us of the case at hand, @manwiththeaxe.
You are quite right. The transgender movement is both psychotic and evil. It should be destroyed.
From the linked article, Summary of Argument, page 3:
“International consensus” — there’s an expression being thrown around that I have difficulty believing, fully intended to assure any person involved in an adjudication process that this opinion is not only solidly grounded but good as well. This is an empty rhetorical expression. It says ‘don’t consider the insanity this position might cause, don’t try to imagine a context, don’t use your own common sense or anything that any moral teaching worth its salt might disagree with, just nod and let us have our way.’
It occurs to me that ugliness in modern art is not confined to the field of art. It exists in the minds of people like scientists and medical professionals pushing the envelope of what kinds of ugly problems people can develop in their lives if they just encourage them– without taking any responsibility or getting involved in any meaningful way — and study their problems as if these people were insects, all the while getting positive reinforcement from their professional circles for being so forward looking.
I have long used the phrase “lab coat left.” It came to mind when Obamacare was rolled out with a Rose Garden show, where staff handed out white lab coats for everyone to wear as costume. From trying to redefine murder, out of moral and criminal status, into psychiatric professional control, through much of “environmentalism,” to the past decades of leveraging sexuality against Christianity, it is all leftism wrapped in lab coat costumes.
I liked this comment, but since you bring up Dr. Goebbels, we know from history that the Nazis were very duplicitous and their words didn’t accord with their actions. For example, mentally defective people (even if they were only suffering from post traumatic shock owing to a horrendous crime being done to their persons) would be sent to spas where it was said they would recuperate. But, as was dramatized in such series as Holocaust, these people would be led to slaughter in groups, a sorry letter sent home to their relatives that the patient unfortunately died, that person’s body was cremated for plausible reasons (it was during wartime). The end result was that society defectives that could be rounded up, even with unwitting assistance of their families, were thus eliminated from society.
So I must ask the question, is there a eugenics angle in this? Are we seeing it take shape? The high rate of suicide among people who have permitted themselves to be mutilated before getting psychological help seems to be one way of helping such people down the path toward self-elimination.
An interesting question, @raykujawa. Worth thinking over. And frightening. Thanks.
Usually with the left.
Wholly unaware how “allies” and the individual’s own actions and treatment of those who love them isolates them.
I’m biting my tongue to not call you out on your nasty condescension.
You know nothing.
This better not be true – none of it. No “social profiles” like China is doing – if we allow this by the social media giants, there will be no more freedom.