World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Files

I wasn’t comparing them, although I’m certain your reading it that way didn’t tell you anything you didn’t know already.

I was comparing the circumstances in how they were treated, and how the obgyn in question will be treated should she ever change her mind again. McCorvey flipped between movements because she felt she’d been used by both when all she was trying to do was survive. Similarly, the obgyn was ok with performing surgeries under the nose of the RCC where by her own admission the nuns didn’t give a rats ass. As her patient cohort changed and no longer conformed to her expectations, that’s what started her down the road of questioning what was going on and caused her to change her outlook. She’d been out of the game for a while, cloistered in her own little world, and soon as she sought answers, she realised she wasn’t going to get the validation she sought from people whom she imagined would legitimise her views.

I’m not inferring anything from what she said, if she says there are reasonable arguments can be made, I’d love to hear them, cos I can think of plenty that are unreasonable, can’t think of any I’d consider reasonable. I think it was just put out there to paint herself as reasonable, knowing that she would never actually be called on to make a reasonable argument; the point was to portray her patients requests as unreasonable.

No, she didn’t find reasonable arguments on a forum of obgyns because from their perspective, what she’s suggesting would threaten a rather lucrative revenue source (anywhere between $5k - $25k), dismiss her as ‘transphobic’ and they still maintain their virtue, so the idea of Liberal Physicians rethinking American Gender Medicine? Not gonna happen, but her calling for it demonstrates her loyalty to the movement at least - while she will never be part of their world, she at least gets to exist in it, for however long they feel she is remaining loyal to their cause.

I don’t think I am misunderstanding, this is what I’m referring to -

Having some doubts

As the years went by, I couldn’t help but notice some troubling trends. The transmasculine patients who came to me had more and more poorly controlled mental health comorbidities. I also started seeing a fair percentage of them who were really quite feminine – not much different in their gender presentation than my cis patients.

I started to be a little more uneasy that hysterectomy was the right thing for this new group of transmasculine patients, but if they didn’t have any contraindications per se, I couldn’t really say no. After all, according to ACOG Committee Opinion #823, Health Care for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals, “Hysterectomy with or without bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is medically necessary for patients with gender dysphoria who desire this procedure.”

The end of an era

Finally, I had the patients that truly stymied me: 21-year-old natal females who identified with a nonbinary gender identity and requested hysterectomy to conform to their nonbinary gender identity, but otherwise did not desire transmasculine medicalization such as testosterone or mastectomy, and had unremarkably feminine mannerisms and dress.

Being judgemental is the least of my concerns tbh, of course I’m being judgemental, she’s no different than the physicians who were A-OK with performing surgeries on patients who conformed to their expectations, and then kicked off like spoilt children when that was no longer the case and patients weren’t just grateful for any bit of support they could get. In those circumstances is it really that unusual that they would have poorly controlled mental health comorbidities? The patients did have the medical profile the treatment had been devised for, really they were the perfect candidates for sterilisation in the past, a phenomenon which she will undoubtedly also have learned about in medical school:

https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144

https://archive.ph/7O6Wv

I do know of course that you’re referring to the development of the procedures for other purposes:

https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/267273-overview#a11

If I’d wanted to load it (the way she has done), I’d point out that she’s doing nothing more than pulling the ladder up after herself. Instead I haven’t done that because I know that like her patients, she’s just trying to survive too, which is why I found it curious for her to suddenly realise that it’s not the world we live in at present, when other people require her assistance just to be able to survive in it. She’s alright though Jan, when her private practice went out of business, she was able to just start again elsewhere, and now she has the support and validation of a whole new community.

When I say I understand it btw, I do, that’s why I really don’t care to pass judgement on her, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same in her position. It’s not remotely on the same level when the CEO of a large organisation providing services for people who are homeless asks you to be their poster boy. I was in a position then to respond “excuse me while you go fcuk yourself”. I know I wouldn’t have been able to be so civil if I’d still been homeless.

The article below is characterising it as the usual conservative v liberal split on the court. It mentions the oft quoted Bostock vs Clayton County case, but not the fact that Neil Gorsuch switched sides, as I expected he would this time.

plodder are you congratulating yourself on being able to predict that a Justice whose judicial philosophy is based on textualism would deliver an opinion that is based upon their judicial philosophy? If so, I’d like to add my name to the list of your congratulators, if only to flesh it out a bit. We’ll have to forego the ceremonial presentation of a rubber medal as the manufacturer is swamped with orders at the moment what with having to change the text on the girls egg and spoon race medals to read ‘biological females ovum and scoop participant’… Jesus, that’s multi-layered levels of dark humour even by my admittedly low standards 😂

The reason the article mentions Bostock, as you’re probably aware by now at least having read the judgment, is because it was the plaintiffs argument that the reasoning in that case should apply to this case. There are many reasons why it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, and one only needs to be about my level of intellect to predict that SCOTUS, or indeed Gorsuch’s opinion, if they were being consistent (which is why I was of the opinion that the case could go anywhere, given the arguments presented by both parties were so poor as to be considered not even worth entertaining, but SCOTUS did anyway), is that they would apply the same logic as applied in Dobbs:

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the court held that the United States Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), devolving to state governments the authority to regulate any aspect of abortion that federal law does not preempt, as "direct control of medical practice in the states is beyond the power of the federal government" and the federal government has no general police power over health, education, and welfare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization

Even if one were never aware of Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy, and for similar reasons was unaware of the other eight Justices judicial philosophies, again it wouldn’t have required even an average intellect to interpret Gorsuch’s silence during hearings as an indication that he’d already formed an opinion on the legality of the matters involved, and the hearings were a mere formality:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/gorsuch-stays-quiet-at-supreme-court-transgender-rights-argument

An example being a hypothetical law which set one legal drinking age for men and a different one for women. I think it's fairly clear where this kind of thinking is headed with respect to other issues like sports.

It’s clear where Alito’s thinking is headed alright, not necessarily from the above, but more importantly from his assertion that SCOTUS should decide on whether or not people who are transgender constitute a suspect class, offering an opinion that nobody asked for, that they do not.

It was difficult to understand what point you were making in your previous post in regards to the article in question characterising it as ‘the usual conservative v liberal split’ when you have indeed made the argument in previous posts about cases unrelated to the circumstances in this case that Conservative Justices wouldn’t see it the way I imagine they would, were a case concerning Title IX ever to come before SCOTUS.

That hasn’t happened yet, so in the same way as I took your warning as well-meaning then, I’ll take it the same way now, because I just don’t have it in me to point out that was an acorn that fell, and not the sky as you appeared to be determined to prove by providing articles written by disgruntled liberals in any tabloid rag or social media outlet that would air their views aimed at the tongue-wagging over their morning croissants crowd.

I do appreciate that on this occasion you provided a source from a liberal media outlet which has struggled somewhat in recent years in providing the croissant licking crowd with something to chew over, in that when they decided that transgenderism was the next hot-button topic to push the envelope of intellectual discourse, they received significant pushback from within their own ranks -

https://nytletter.com

But to characterise Gorsuch opinion as ‘changing sides’ when in reality it was simply unrelated to the previous cases we have discussed, it’s like when you mistakenly characterised me as progressive - certainly there was no ill-intent behind it, and while it was funny, I felt guilty for laughing at the mere idea of being characterised as progressive, in the same manner as characterising Gorsuch as having changed his opinion based on cases where the circumstances are entirely unrelated is what’s known as making a category error, or invoking an association fallacy. It doesn’t even rise to amusement, it’s just… awkward 😬

Your point was that the article doesn’t mention that Gorsuch switched sides, as though Gorsuch in your opinion actually did ‘switch sides’, when in reality he simply didn’t - the circumstances in this particular case, and the circumstances in cases we previously discussed, were unrelated. That’s why I would expect the article to mention Bostock (because it was the plaintiff’s argument that the same reasoning should apply), and doesn’t mention Gorsuch ‘switching sides’, because he didn’t -

The article below is characterising it as the usual conservative v liberal split on the court. It mentions the oft quoted Bostock vs Clayton County case, but not the fact that Neil Gorsuch switched sides, as I expected he would this time.

If that actually was your point, and not simply to point out that you were right, then I wouldn’t have bothered responding to try and understand your point because I’d have perceived it as merely stating the obvious, there was simply nothing to discuss. Obviously you’re wrong about Gorsuch ‘switching sides’, but there’s nothing to be gained simply from pointing that out IMO.

EDIT: I think I see now where you were operating under the impression these were similar circumstances as the cases we had previously discussed where Title IX would be considered applicable -

You were the one citing Bostock as a relevant precedent for these cases.

I’ve never cited Bostock as relevant to this particular case, precisely because it isn’t relevant, because this particular case wasn’t about the interpretation of Title IX. What I have said about this particular case is that it’ll be interesting to see where it goes, and that indeed it could go anywhere.

I don’t imagine it would either, any more than other civil rights groups or social justice movements have stopped to ask themselves are we wrong to want to be protected by law from discrimination and to be treated as being of equal status in law?

Certainly if Strangio’s views are any indication, the outcome of this case is just the beginning, and it’s taken them nearly a decade to get to the point where they had the opportunity to argue their case in the US Supreme Court -

For me, the answer is clear: I want to advocate for a world where our bodies are not sexed by the presence or absence of a penis. I hope that our ideas of trans existence and bodily self-determination transcend the narrative that the world has already set for us. To engage only on those terms fails to account for the truth of our bodies and our lives.

I was assigned female at birth, but I have never had a female body. If it takes longer to convince the world of that than it would to simply say that I was born with a female body but am now male, I am invested in that longer path, because ultimately we will all be better off when we can challenge the idea that our body parts define us.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-body.html

It’s a bit out there, but given they’ve managed to get this far, I’m not surprised by how they choose to describe themselves -

Strangio has described himself as "a constitutional lawyer who fundamentally doesn't believe in the Constitution."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Strangio

Do I think politicians who are determined to put every sort of legal obstacle in their path, ever stop to ask themselves if they might be wrong? Hell no, evidently 😂

https://translegislation.com

On the contrary - it has everything to do with this particular case, because it is a civil rights issue. The law was introduced by the state of Tenessee as a means to deprive children experiencing gender dysphoria of a particular course of medical treatment which would alleviate their condition (medical professionals are permitted to prescribe the medication if it is for the purposes of helping children to conform to their sex). The parents of the children were right to challenge the law - it was the basis on which the law was challenged that amounted to a poor argument.

It was a poor law in the first instance; it was poorly challenged in the second instance. For whatever the plaintiff's reasons were, they abandoned the parental rights and due process arguments in favour of arguing sex discrimination as it applied to children, attempting to argue that in this way, the state law constituted a violation the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. It didn't, because the states have more authority than the federal government in decisions about healthcare within the state (hence the earlier comparison to Dobbs, where SCOTUS determined that decisions about healthcare as it relates to abortion were a matter for the states legislature).

I don't agree that it was actually a terrrible case to be taking, because even though they lost, each case is going to attract an inordinate amount of publicity given the nature of the circumstances involved. Publicity means visibility, and that means there will be more challenges to existing and indeed future legislation which is introduced with the intent of limiting the freedoms of people who are transgender.

There's so much to this that even now I'm having difficulty determining where to start, but I'll give it a go -

That's right. We were talking about Title IX and you said the reasoning for a Title IX case would be the same as for Bostock and I said it wouldn't, just like it wasn't in this case. I think Title IX is even more clear cut. Alito spelled it out at the start of his opinion.

We hadn't previously discussed this case though, which is why when you declared that your prediction had been right, I figured that it was rather easy to claim that you had been proven right when you'd kept that prediction pretty close to your chest in the first place. Alito spelling things out is not remotely unusual for him, nor is the fact that he tries to spin anything to suit his judicial philosophy which appears to be more fluid even than gender in that it's subject to the whims of his absence of any political philosphy. Succinctly - Alito is nothing more than an entirely predictable bombastic blowhard. The only Justice whose opinion in the case was unpredictable is that of Coney Barrett.

Gorsuch (and Barrett and Roberts who agreed with him) in Bostock said that gay and trans people should not be discriminated against in the workplace. Why should they be? Ability to do a job rarely has anything to do with sexuality or transgender status? But, there's no way they are going to make the leap from that reasonable position to allowing men compete in women's sport, just by government decree, with no legislative backing for it.

The defendants in those cases (there were three, joined) gave their reasons as to why they believed they should be able to discriminate against gay and transgender people which largely amounted to the argument that Title VII did not cover discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status. Whether an employee could or couldn't do the job was not a matter for the Courts. The decision was based upon the fact that sex in Title VII does prohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation and/or transgender status. That's why the decision was criticised by some social conservatives and your garden variety arseholes who claimed that SCOTUS was legislating from the bench, a fairly common accusation by people when a conclusion is reached that is not in their favour. I have no doubt that should a Title IX case ever come before SCOTUS, any which way they apply the law, they will be accused of legislating from the bench.

It wouldn't be a leap from a reasonable position if it was determined that the reasoning in Bostock could be applied to a Title IX case, depending upon the circumstances of the case of course, and this is where I wonder are you still harbouring the impression that Title IX has anything to do with sport, when it does not. Title IX relates to education, specifically institutions in receipt of federal funds, and that is why even though states have the authority to determine educational policies, educational institutions receiving federal funding must comply with the provisions of Title IX. This is why, and I don't know if you'll remember, but let's be candid - you were pretty pleased with the outcome of the Supreme Court decision in Kentucky which declared the Biden Administrations Executive Order expanding the interpretation of Title IX to protect students from all sorts of discrimination, unlawful. It was, to be frank, an utterly useless victory, in that at the same time as it was intended to target students who are transgender, it also rolled back the protections which were introduced with the aim of protecting women from on-campus rape and sexual assault perpetrated by men, and a few other bits and pieces. In effect - the claimants managed to hammer the nail, but they made shít of the floorboards while they were at it, with the effect that Title IX in… I think it's 27 states out of 50, offered students less protection from discrimination, which allows for arguments of this nature to flourish, instead of simply being dismissed -

Between June 1, 2009 and August 31, 2016, 29 % of Title IX reverse discrimination claims survived a motion to dismiss. Although a higher number of Title IX claims in cases citing Columbia survive a motion to dismiss, only 21 % of those Title IX reverse discrimination claims survived a motion to dismiss pursuant to Columbia’s burden-shifting framework. If Columbia is going to change the landscape of reverse discrimination suits, it has yet to do so.

https://www.klgates.com/reverse-gender-discrimination-under-title-ix-01-25-2018/

They're just getting started -

Reverse Discrimination under Title IX: Do Men Have a Sporting Chance

Has to be said though that the court in this recently decided case didn't really consider the issues I'm talking about and it's not even true to say that the court has banned youth trans medicine. It merely decided that the issue doesn't warrant "enhanced scrutiny" in terms of discrimination law, and it's up to each state to decide its own policy democratically. That won't be the case for Title IX which is a specific federal law.

All SCOTUS actually decided, was that this case wasn't a matter for SCOTUS.

Title IX has nothing to do with sport? From the wikipedia article on it:

I was hoping I was wrong, but regardless, Title IX has nothing to do with sports. Its purpose couldn’t be clearer. Sports programmes and activities within education, are an education programme -

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

My own view on this is that I agree with most of it. I think it is scaremongering to say that there's a threat to vaccination programs. It's not like there has been a systematic review of vaccination (like Cass) which questions its efficacy.

Of all the stuff in that article, that’s what stands out to you? 😳

Give the guy a chance plodder, he’s only in the door, just getting started -

https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/wsj-kennedy-op-ed-restore-public-trust-in-vaccines.html

It stands to reason that you’d think it stands up in the same way a 40 year old prostitute claiming to be a barely-legal 18 year old virgin thinks it stands up - they came up with the idea! 🤨

It wouldn’t mean that anyone could use the result as a basis for getting any medicine they wanted, they could certainly make the argument, but unless they had reason to claim it was similarly based upon sex discrimination, their argument is unlikely to prevail. That’s what happened in this case too - they tried to make the argument that the law amounted to sex discrimination, which would have made it a Constitutional issue, but because there was no evidence of sex discrimination, they had no argument.

Similarly, rather than the suggestion being that it would have opened the doors to anyone and everyone being able to have access to medication for any purpose, the scope of Bostock was limited to its own particular circumstances - it didn’t apply outside of that context, and in coming to that decision SCOTUS were mindful of another case which they ruled on a month later -

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jul/08/birth-control-ruling-supreme-court-religious-exemptions

That’s not even getting into your reasoning that because the drugs haven’t been through clinical trials for this purpose and are being used off-label as though that should mean anything. It doesn’t, drugs are commonly used off-label and the manufacturers aren’t keen to seek FDA approval because they argue it costs too much. That doesn’t mean physicians can’t prescribe the drugs for purposes for which they aren’t intended. Zoloft is one that immediately, erm, springs to mind -

The SSRI medication sertraline (Zoloft) is approved as an anti-depressant but is also commonly prescribed off-label to help men suffering from premature ejaculation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs_known_for_off-label_use

I get where you’re trying to go with the argument, and the new Trump administration appointees in HHS, FDA and CDC are waaaay ahead of you in questioning established medicine in order to determine it’s safety and efficacy with their own brand of science (totally not politically motivated of course, just like the UK where Lady, or Baroness Cass as she is now known after receiving a Peer from the Conservative Government… wait a second 🤔) -

https://apnews.com/article/fda-trump-makary-vaccines-ultraprocessed-food-safety-ce9df8eb4bba5c950e500c62d975afe2

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fda-review-mifepristone-abortion-pill-access/

Made possible because of the way SCOTUS in Roe v Wade applied the law to ensure abortion would be available in the States even though the legal argument was sketchy, based upon the idea of a woman having a right to privacy. I’m still not convinced Ginsburg’s gender equality argument would have been able to withstand political pressure either even though it had a stronger Constitutional argument. For whatever their reasons, they chose not to use that argument then either -

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240315-in-history-ruth-bader-ginsburg-foresaw-threat-to-us-abortion-access