Activist Judges Endanger Our Children re Transgenderism

Just when I’d begun to believe that ordinary people in this country were realizing what a travesty and deception transgender treatment is, an appellate court proves how inept and uneducated the courts can be. Rather than making sure they had the latest research on this controversial treatment, the court followed the leftist narrative and have reverted to transgender treatment that is not only useless, but can be harmful to our children.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that state health care plans in North Carolina and West Virginia must cover gender-affirming surgeries:

The appellate decision resolved two cases, one involving a North Carolina state health plan for teachers and state employees and the other involving West Virginia’s Medicaid Program. Both plans contained treatment exclusions for gender-affirming care. The North Carolina plan excluded ‘treatment or studies leading to or in connection with sex changes or modifications and related care.’ The West Virginia Medicaid Program paid for some gender-affirming care, but the plan excluded coverage for gender-affirming surgery to treat gender dysphoria.

For the court decision, you can go here.

It’s clear that Judge Roger Gregory, writing on behalf of the majority, has bought into the leftist agenda, and has no idea what the most recent data actually tells us. He and the rest of his colleagues in the majority have no idea that most of the transgender treatments for children have been challenged or discredited (which I will explain shortly). To defend their legislation, here are the premises of the two states’ legislation:

According to the states, their exclusions are based on diagnosis: everyone gets covered for cancer surgery; no one for dysphoria surgery. Contemplating this idea, the majority opinion by Judge Roger Gregory at first sounds uncertain, if obtuse. ‘Is removing a patient’s breasts to treat cancer the same procedure as removing a patient’s breasts to treat gender dysphoria?’ he asks. ‘There is no caselaw to ground this discussion nor obvious first principles.’ He is undeterred, and he concludes that gender dysphoria and transgender status are intertwined, so that such insurance exclusions are nothing more than a proxy for discriminating against gender identity.

The unconscionable factor in this decision is that because the court has decided to make a political statement, children will undergo gender surgery and possibly be harmed for life.

There are likely many people who are not aware of the latest research findings, just as the judges were not, but the UK decided this relatively new field of gender study was worthy of exploring in more depth:

In England, Dr. Hilary Cass, pediatrician, was hired to study findings in gender identity. At the University of York, they identified some stunning data:

Two papers examined the quality and development of current guidelines and recommendations for managing gender dysphoria in children and young people. Most of the 23 clinical guidelines reviewed were not independent or evidence based, the researchers found. A third paper on puberty blockers found that of 50 studies, only one was of high quality. . . Most of them lacked ‘an independent and evidence-based approach and information about how recommendations were developed,’ the researchers said.

In reflecting on the ruling made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, it’s clear that the states were better served by their legislatures who were likely better informed on the latest data available. In another dissent on this case, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III explained the limits and dangers of judicial activism:

‘This is imperial judging at its least defensible,’ he says, suggesting a coming transgender Roe v. Wade. ‘What plaintiffs propose is nothing less than to use the Constitution to establish a nationwide mandate that States pay for emerging gender dysphoria treatments.’ The great mistake of Bostock is that it arrogated to judges a policy decision that belongs to legislatures, which can better weigh competing interests and evolving evidence on biology and medicine. Now the consequences are coming due, and the Fourth Circuit’s judicial ukase deserves the Supreme Court’s attention.

Let’s hope that SCOTUS takes the case, and that children are somehow protected from this life-altering treatment in the meantime.