#youth plaintiffs

[bumblebeeappletree]

‘Our land is sick … We need to care for it’ — 14 youth plaintiffs are suing Hawaii’s Department of Transportation. Here’s why.

Originally posted on YouTube on November 1st, 2023.

[progressivegraffiti]

"The win... could energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country, ushering in a wave of cases aimed at advancing..."

[hope-for-the-planet]

Under what legal experts called a “historic” settlement, announced on Thursday, Hawaii officials will release a roadmap “to fully decarbonize the state’s transportation systems, taking all actions necessary to achieve zero emissions no later than 2045 for ground transportation, sea and inter-island air transportation”, Andrea Rodgers, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case, said at a press conference with the governor.

[self-loving-vampire]

In the past three years, as bills targeting gender-affirming care for transgender youth have circulated through state legislatures, some anti-trans activists have thrown around staggering detransition rates—often claiming figures as high as 80% to 90%. These numbers have surfaced everywhere from Montana's legislative hearings on gender-affirming care bans to segments on Fox News. Chloe Cole herself has echoed these claims multiple times. Now, consider this: conservative estimates place the transgender population in the United States at over 1.5 million people. If these extremely high rates were accurate, we'd expect to see around 1.2 million detransitioners. Therapist offices would be slammed with people wanting to “change back,” hearing rooms would be packed to the brim with detransitioners, and prime time news-hour specials would feature… well, people other than Chloe Cole on a regular basis. So when Seven News releases a special stating that they are going to cover “the most controversial topic ever covered,” featuring the same faces that we have seen in multiple ads across the world, people understandingly become skeptical. If detransitioners are so rare, why is Chloe Cole’s face the one they always use? ... It's worth noting that Seven News didn't just recycle the same detransitioners commonly featured in other anti-trans specials to suggest a sweeping wave of detransitioning. The network also included images of a transgender individual who has not detransitioned, implicitly suggesting she regretted her transition.

The far right can find so few detransitioners to fuel its narrative that they are even using images of people who are not detransitioners without permission, on top of just flying the same handful of people all over the country to repeat the same bullshit in every state.

The lack of a detransition wave has even played a key role in court cases. Earlier this year, when asked to substantiate the claim that gender affirming care results in youth who will eventually regret their decisions, the state of Florida ran into a problem. They could not find a single detransitioner in the state of Florida to support the claim. As a result, the judge in the case found the facts in favor of the plaintiffs opposing Florida’s gender affirming care ban. Even in a state as populous as Florida, which has over 90,000 transgender people according to expert estimates, detransitioners appear rare.

And, as the post says, even the detransitioners that exist are generally not useful to the transphobe narrative, since they most often do so due to a lack of support and often retransition when in a better situation.

Importantly, transphobes never seem to actually care about the dignity or healthcare access of detransitioners or anything. Only about banning trans healthcare as a whole because "what if people regret it?" They are not subtle about this either. They constantly refer to trans people (detransitioned or not) as "mutilated", "damaged", "ruined", and so on.

[mariacallous]

The US supreme court heard one of the most consequential LGBTQ+ rights cases in its history on Wednesday, with arguments that laid bare the conservative supermajority’s broad threats to civil rights, bodily autonomy and decades of legal precedent.

In US v Skrmetti, the court is weighing Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth, one of 24 state laws across the US prohibiting treatments that are part of the standards of care endorsed by every major medical association in the country.

The case originated with three trans youth and their parents who sued Tennessee, arguing the care – puberty blockers and hormone therapy – was medically necessary and “life-saving”. The Biden administration joined the case, asserting Tennessee’s law was unconstitutional.

The case hinges on the legal question of whether Tennessee’s healthcare ban constitutes a form of sex discrimination that merits “heightened scrutiny”, which would mean the case be returned to lower courts for a more rigorous review. But the oral arguments made clear that a ruling against the trans plaintiffs could have far-reaching implications for trans rights and anti-discrimination protections more broadly.’

The US and the ACLU argued that the law is discriminatory and bans treatments based on sex classifications; under Tennessee’s ban, cisgender boys with delayed puberty can be prescribed testosterone, but transgender boys are barred from accessing the same treatments for gender-affirming care. Tennessee argued that the law is an “across the board rule” to “protect minors” from “risky” medical interventions.

Elizabeth Prelogar, the US solicitor general, noted that the court would “turn its back on 50 years of precedent” if it sided with Tennessee’s arguments that the law does not constitute sex discrimination warranting closer scrutiny.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, repeatedly compared Tennessee’s ban with the prohibition on interracial marriage, overturned by the landmark Loving v Virginia decision in 1967: “Some of these questions … sound very familiar to me, [such as] the arguments made back in the day, the 50s and 60s, with respect to racial classifications.” Jackson later added: “I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases.”

“I share your concerns,” responded the ACLU’s Chase Strangio, the first out trans lawyer to appear before the court. “If Tennessee can have an end-run around heightened scrutiny … that would undermine decades of this court’s precedent.”

Kate Redburn, co-director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, explained after the arguments that there was the potential for an outcome that “would authorize a much broader range of sex discrimination, which has been previously found unconstitutional.

“There could be situations where the government could distinguish between people by sex, and courts would not intervene,” they continued, saying a ruling in favor of Tennessee could make it easier for states to pass policies that discriminate on the basis of pregnancy or other reproductive choices, for example: “Regulations that we now would say are based on stereotypes – especially stereotypes about what women’s proper role is – depending on how expansive this opinion is, those stereotypes could be authorized.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another liberal, also noted that a decision declaring that the ban on care is not discriminatory could open the door to bans on gender-affirming healthcare for all trans people, not just youth: “You’re licensing states to deprive grown adults of the choice of which sex to adopt.”

Matthew Rice, Tennessee’s solicitor general, responded that the “democratic process” was the “best check on potentially misguided laws”. Sotomayor interjected: “When you’re 1% of the population, or less, it’s very hard to see how the democratic process is going to protect you. Blacks were a much larger part of the population and it didn’t protect them. It didn’t protect women for whole centuries.”

“That was a chilling moment,” said Sydney Duncan, senior counsel at Advocates for Trans Equality, who sat in the courtroom. “Is the next step to ban adult healthcare? The state didn’t have a great answer there.” She noted that Tennessee’s law is rooted in “bad science” and misinformation. Doctors cited as expert witnesses for the state have repeatedly been discounted and rebuked by US judges for their lack of credentials and anti-trans bias, the Guardian recently reported.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, asked Prelogar about bans on trans people in athletics: “If you prevail here … would transgender athletes have a constitutional right to play in women’s and girls’ sports?” Prelogar responded that the sports issue – which has become a focus of Republicans’ culture war – was related to a different legal question. Kavanaugh’s questions raised some concerns from advocates that the outcome could have broader impacts for LGBTQ+ rights beyond youth healthcare.

“The justices likely see this case as a potential harbinger of future litigation and constitutional questions about trans people’s equal protection,” Redburn said.

Rice also claimed that trans plaintiffs were seeking a “right to engage in nonconforming behavior”. Redburn said the remark was noteworthy and raised broader concerns about people’s rights to self-expression:

“You can see the motivation is not, as the state has suggested, to protect the health of children, which is something that states have a right to regulate, but instead is based on not only particular animus towards transgender individuals, but also a broader social vision that upholds a certain gender hierarchy.”

The conservative justices appeared reluctant to intervene and block Tennessee’s ban, which means the outcome next year could deliver a dramatic blow to trans rights at a time of escalating attacks on LGBTQ+ equality across the US.

“It’s so important that we understand this case as deeply connected to … laws on race and sex discrimination more broadly,” said Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of United for Reproductive and Gender Equity (Urge), an advocacy group. “These questions of what is privacy, what is autonomy, can we control our bodies and our families – these are all intertwined.”

The questions from Jackson and Sotomayor, she said, made clear that “the struggle for the recognition of trans people’s humanity cannot be separated from questions of race and gender equality that have long been cornerstones of this nation’s jurisprudence”, McGuire said.

She noted that anti-abortion and anti-trans activism were closely linked and that this case would probably be followed by efforts to ban adult gender-affirming care, birth control, IVF and other healthcare: “We have seen the right use marginalized people as the tip of the spear for a much larger attack … This voracious desire to be involved in our most personal, private decisions has no end.”

Imara Jones, a podcaster and CEO of the news organization TransLash, who sat in the room, noted that the healthcare under threat was long established: “If you eliminate gender-affirming care, you’re going to be shortening people’s lives and diminishing the quality of their lives. It’s a very real impact. This is not a constitutional or esoteric consideration for trans people. It’s as personal as it gets.”

Bamby Salcedo, a longtime activist and president of the TransLatin@ Coalition, said she and other advocates were bracing for a harmful ruling, but added: “For many of us as a community, hope is the last thing that will die. Regardless of the outcome, we as people are resilient … and we are going to continue to exist despite the oppression we may experience because of this decision. We are going to continue to fight like hell for all of us to be protected.”

[rjzimmerman]

Montana’s top court delivers rare victory for climate activists. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:

Montana’s permitting of oil, gas and coal projects without consideration for climate change violates residents’ constitutional right to a clean environment, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, upholding a landmark ruling in a case brought by youth activists.

The 6-1 ruling is a major, and rare, victory for climate activists, who have tried to use the courts to force action on government and corporate policies and activities they say are harming the planet. In their decision, the Montana justices affirmed an August 2023 ruling by a state judge, who found in favor of young people alleging the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.

Melissa Hornbein, a senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center and attorney for the plaintiffs, said the decision would force Montana state agencies to assess the greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts of all future fossil fuel projects when deciding whether to approve or renew them.

“This ruling clarifies that the Constitution sets a clear directive for Montana to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, which are among the highest in the nation on a per capita basis, and to transition to a clean, renewable energy future,” Hornbein said in a statement.

In a statement issued after the ruling, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) said the justices’ ruling would lead to “perpetual lawsuits that will waste taxpayer dollars and drive up energy bills for hardworking Montanans.”

Sonny Capece, the executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, said the ruling could have wide-ranging effects on industry as well as other sources of greenhouse gas emissions, such as landfills, local government services and universities.

[she-is-ovarit]

Detransitioner news

I have been thinking about detransitioners lately and wanted to compile articles I have been seeing. This will be a longer post and reblogged for part II as I hope to copy and paste brief portions of the articles under each headline.

Law firm for detransitioners opens in Dallas

In all of the controversy around gender transition, there is one group that is persistently marginalized by both the right and left. They are known as detransitioners — people who decide that they want to return to their birth gender, often after receiving years of interventional care, including surgery, to treat their gender dysphoria. Now, the nation’s first law firm focused solely on representing these patients — many of whom feel abused by a medical system that encouraged their treatment — has opened its doors in Dallas. It could forever change how hospitals and doctors approach what’s known as gender-affirming care.

Archive link

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination. The case underscores an important clinical reality: gender dysphoria has multiple developmental pathways, and many who experience it will turn out to be gay. Even the Endocrine Society concedes that many of the youth who outgrow their dysphoria by adolescence later identify as gay or bisexual. Decades of research confirm as much. Gender clinicians in the U.K. used to have a “dark joke . . . that there would be no gay people left at the rate [the Gender Identity Development Service] was going,” former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes reported. Rather than help young gay people to accept their bodies and their sexuality, what if “gender-affirming” clinicians are putting them on a pathway to irreversible harm?

Due partly to Shape’s lifelong difficulty in accepting himself as gay, his lawyers are not taking the usual approach to detransition litigation. Rather than state a straightforward claim of medical malpractice or fraud, they allege that Fenway Health has violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “discrimination because of . . . sex” includes discrimination based on homosexuality. Citing this and other precedents, Shape’s lawyers argue that federal law affords distinct protections to gay men and lesbians—upon which clinics that operate with a transgender bias are trampling. Shape grew up in a Muslim country in Eastern Europe that he describes in an interview as “very traditional” and “homophobic.” His parents disapproved of his effeminate demeanor and interests as a child. They wouldn’t let him play with dolls, and his mother, he says, made him do stretches so that he would grow taller and appear more masculine. At 11, Shape had his first of several sexual encounters with older men. “I was definitely groomed,” he recounts. Shape proceeded to develop a pattern of risky sexual behavior, according to his legal complaint. He told his medical team at Fenway Health about his childhood sexual experiences, calling them “consensual.” The Fenway providers never challenged him on this interpretation, he alleges. They never suggested that he might have experienced sexual trauma or, say, explored how these events might have shaped his feelings of dissociation. (The irony is that Fenway Health describes its model of care as “trauma-informed.”)

Archive link

Ontario detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors

An Ontario detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners for failing to consider other treatments during her mental health crisis before ushering her on an irreversible journey she regrets. Michelle Zacchigna, 34, of Orillia, Ont., north of Toronto, names eight health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, a psychotherapist and a counsellor in a lawsuit filed in Ottawa. None of the defendants, who work or worked at various clinics and institutions in southern Ontario, responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit prior to deadline. Four of the defendants have filed notices of intent to defend against the suit in Ontario Superior Court, but no statements of defense have been filed. None of the claims have been tested in court. Zacchigna said she faces an uphill battle in her lawsuit. “I’ve been under the impression that all medical malpractice suits are challenging. Doctors win the majority of cases in Canada,” she told National Post. “It’s very much a David vs. Goliath undertaking.” In her statement of claim filed in court in November, Zacchigna says she had difficulty forming relationships with classmates in elementary school and was often bullied. By the time she was 11, she engaged in self-harming behaviour, including cutting her arm with a knife. This continued into early adulthood. When she was 20, she tried to kill herself and she was referred by her family doctor for psychotherapy, where she was treated for social anxiety and clinical depression. She remained unhappy and depressed, and her mental health decline led to her dropping out of university, according to her claim. About a year into therapy, she engaged with an online community around gender nonconformity. “Michelle came to believe that her biological sex of female did not match her true gender identity of male,” her claim says. “She further came to believe that this mismatch between her biological sex and gender identity was causing her feelings of depression, self-harming behaviour and unease in her body, a mental health condition commonly known as gender dysphoria,” her claim states. This was the first time Zacchigna felt she was born in the wrong body, and she had not previously identified as male, her claim says. “However, as a result of what she read on the internet, she became convinced that she was a transgender man, and that once she embraced this new identity, her depression would subside.” Zacchigna started attending a support group in Toronto for people considering gender transition. A counsellor there told her of opportunities to proceed through a medical transition, her claim says. Zacchigna was invited to apply for medical intervention in 2010. The counsellor wrote a recommendation letter outlining a medical history that didn’t fully match her real past, the claim says. The counsellor didn’t recommend any alternatives, or seek confirmation of Zacchigna’s own diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Her regular therapist also wrote a recommendation for transition treatment, saying Zacchigna was an “ideal candidate for hormone therapy,” even though the therapist had no previous transgender clients, according to the claim.

Part II incoming.

[thehopefuljournalist]

Am I a little bit late for some of you? I might be. But anyways. Here's what went right around the world this past week :)

Youth climate activists won a huge climate lawsuit

Sixteens youths (aged five to 22) from Montana, US, have emerged victorious after suing state officials for violating their right to a clean environment.

In their lawsuit, they argued that Montana's fossil fuel policies contributed to climate change, which harms their physical and mental health. Montana is a major coal producer, with large oil and gas reserves. The state has rebuffed these claims, saying that their emissions were insignificant on a global scale.

Judge Kathy Seely, in a 103-page ruling, set a legal precedent for young people’s rights to a safe climate by finding in their favour. “Every additional tonne of GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions exacerbates plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries".

This win marks the very first time a US court has ruled against a government for a violation of constitutional rights based on climate change. It will now be up to Montana lawmakers to bring state policies in line.

“As fires rage in the west, fueled by fossil fuel pollution, today’s ruling in Montana is a gamechanger that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos.” - Julia Olson, executive director of nonprofit law firm, Our Children’s Trust, which represented the youths in this case.

Number of Mexicans living in poverty fell by millions

Thanks to a new minimum wage boost and increases to pensions, the number of Mexicans living in poverty fell by 8.9 million between 2020-2022, according to new data published by the country’s social development agency, Coneval.

Coneval’s statistics suggest that the number of people living in extreme poverty also fell – from 10.8 million in 2020 to 9.1 million last year – although that figure is still up from a pre-Covid 8.7 million recorded in 2018.

There is still a long way to go, and some critics do claim that during the current president, López Obrador's presidency has been characterized by austerity.

An organised crime group trafficking endangered species has been jailed

The Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC), a small European wildlife charity, is apparently busting kingpins behind as much as half of the world's illegal trade in pangolin scales. The traffickers began six-year jail sentences a few weeks ago.

The wildlife charity went undercover to expose three Vietnamese and one Guinean national, members of an organised crime group trafficking body parts of endangered species including rhinos. 

They were arrested in May 2022, following a four-year investigation by the WJC, and were accused of trafficking 7.1 tonnes of pangolin scales, as well as 850kg of ivory. Last month they pleaded guilty to smuggling and were jailed for six years.

All eight species of pangolin are listed as threatened animals, four critically endangered - they are protected by international law.

“There has not been a reported seizure of pangolin scales in Asia originating from Africa in more than 550 days,” said Steve Carmody, WJC’s director of programmes. “There is no clearer example of the importance of disrupting organised crime networks.”

AI gave conservationists a breakthrough

The use of AI-controlled microphones and cameras seems set to revolutionise

biodiversity monitoring in the UK following groundbreaking work by researchers at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). They used the tech to record and analyse 3,000 hours of wildlife audio captured by monitors located near London railway lines.

The computers detected dozens of bird species, foxes, deer, bats and hedgehogs, and mapped their locations.

It’s hoped the innovation will help improve conservation and habitat management on Network Rail land.

This year is best ever for UK renewable energy installations

This years looks to be the best year so far for UK renewable energy installations, with record numbers of households fitting solar panels and heat pumps.

2023 marks the first time solar panel installations have topped an average of 20,000 a month, as homeowners look to harvest energy from the sun amid rising utility bills. 

Read the full story here.

The UK’s Tree of the Year shortlist was revealed

The Woodland Trust has announced the shortlist for its annual celebration of some of the UK’s most treasured ancient trees, and for 2023 the spotlight is on the urban landscape.

“Ancient trees in towns and cities are vital for the health of nature, people and planet,” said the charity’s lead campaigner Naomi Tilley. “They give thousands of urban wildlife species essential life support, boost the UK’s biodiversity and bring countless health and wellbeing benefits to communities.”

Article published August 17, 2023

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what interested you, and if there's any specific topic you'd like me to dig into, my DM's are always open :)

Much love!

[zinniajones]

These "expert" pediatricians were paid by a far-right legal group to come up with evidence to attack the WPATH transgender standards of care

What this is: Leaked documents show the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom paying manufactured experts to attack WPATH’s transgender standards of care, asking them to find evidence for harmful anti-trans myths that they knew were baseless and unsubstantiated. This is an original finding and report by Zinnia Jones (she/her), a transgender Florida resident of 11 years whose access to HRT is now jeopardized by the enactment of state law and policy based on work from these same experts.

Detailed summary: From 2019 onward, states across the US have been faced with an intensely active wave of reused anti-trans experts, recurring characters who keep repeating the same spurious arguments against gender-affirming care in court cases, legislatures, and other policy bodies. Where did they come from, and why did this start happening?

Due to the Florida-based anti-LGBT hate group American College of Pediatricians choosing to set one of their Google Drive folders to be publicly viewable by anyone, files were released this month showing the contents of their staff’s communications and other working notes over several years.

These documents included records of the Alliance Defending Freedom - another hate group who are also responsible for bringing the mifepristone case with ACP as a plaintiff - approaching ACP's leaders in 2018 and 2019 to offer them a grant of $10,000 or more. The ADF wanted the pediatricians “to draft a white paper that refutes the WPATH Standards of Care”, “for use in litigation and should also benefit many other allies at State and Federal Level”.

ACP’s president Quentin Van Meter and executive director Michelle Cretella promptly got to work on this “Special Project”, and the ADF hosted expert witness workshops at ACP's conferences. ACP members including Van Meter went on to present anti-trans testimony in several ADF-litigated cases and ADF-involved trans youth care bans.

In May 2022, Van Meter authored a sham report for Florida Medicaid to justify their trans coverage exclusion, mostly drawing from previous ACP position statements; court filings later revealed Michelle Cretella was recommended by the Florida governor’s office, and she pointed the way to all the other anti-trans experts hired by Florida in 2022 to support the Medicaid exclusion of transition care.

One notable document found in the ACP’s drive contains “Transgender Research Requests”, with the ADF asking Cretella and other ACP leaders to “substantiate” now-commonplace anti-trans talking points. These included bizarre claims by the ADF such as “it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex”, and “For those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery, a paper that says they are no happier (and perhaps worse off if the research supports it)”.

The ADF was asking this anti-trans group to come up with anything that could support the arguments they were already planning to make.

This appears to be one of the very sites where those baseless myths about suicide, social contagion and other supposed harms, now regularly repeated in court cases and testimony and uncritically accepted by the mainstream right wing, were conceived and gestated.

These same experts then substantially reused these work products in their reports for Florida Medicaid, a public health agency whose accepted standards determination process is supposed to be a transparent and open-ended evaluation of peer-reviewed medical evidence.

Altogether, these documents appear to demonstrate a paid smear by a hate group and right-wing law firm against a leading professional transgender healthcare organization following the best available evidence and medical practices, as well as misconduct on the part of ACP experts who reused this work in their reports for a Florida public health agency.

(asks are open)

[cultivating-wildflowers]

"The leader of the long-running study said that the drugs did not improve mental health in children with gender distress and that the finding might be weaponized by opponents of the care."

And from Wikipedia:

In December 2024, Olson-Kennedy was sued by a 20-year old female detransitioner, alleging she had caused permanent harm by a rushed diagnosis of gender dysphoria "mere minutes" after first seeing the plaintiff at age 12, who went on to receive puberty blockers and a double mastectomy at age 14. The lawsuit also names the St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco and a second doctor as defendants, alleging that the latter had "rubber-stamped" the mastectomy. The same day, a group of Republican senators announced an inquiry into her unpublished NIH study. All senators involved except for one had previously sponsored a ban on youth gender-affirming care.

Worth noting: The leader of this study, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, is married to a trans-identifying "therapist" who runs a gender clinic.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and restrictions on it for trans adults can be enforced while a lawsuit against it proceeds. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the state is likely to win the case, known as Doe v. Ladapo, so the injunction against the law should be stayed. Doe is one of the anonymous plaintiffs who sued, and Ladapo is the Florida surgeon general. “The district court likely misapplied the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith when it concluded that the prohibition and regulation provisions, and the implementing rules, were based on invidious discrimination against transgender minors and adults,” the majority opinion states. Judges Britt C. Grant and Robert J. Luck were in the majority.

Judge Charles R. Wilson dissented, writing that the district court had “identified sufficient record evidence to support concluding that the act’s passage was based on invidious discrimination against transgender adults and minors” and that “withholding access to gender-affirming care would cause needless suffering.” In a June 11 ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a permanent injunction against the law and the restrictions, finding them unconstitutional.

[...]

The ban on gender-affirming care for minors was first enacted in March 2023 through the adoption of rules by the Florida Board of Medicine and Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Joseph Ladapo, and the Florida Department of Health. SB 254, which was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and took effect in May 2023, wrote the ban into state law, subject to a narrow continued-use exception for minors who had started treatment before the ban. SB 254 also created felony criminal and civil penalties for Florida medical providers. It further added severe restrictions that effectively blocked access to essential medical care for trans adults and minors who would be eligible for the continued-use exception, including requiring that care be provided exclusively by physicians, barring telehealth, and requiring patients to complete unique, onerous, and misleading consent forms.

A three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court ruled 2-1 that Florida is permitted to enforce its gender-affirming care ban on trans youths and restrictions on trans adults law SB254 while the Doe v. Ladapo lawsuit continues to proceed.

[catdotjpeg]

Highlighting the double standards in how US sends military aid: W/ Ukraine, "State Dept put geographical limitations on a reg basis." Yet, no such efforts to "stop the flow even though the vast majority of weapons being used to further the genocide are coming from the US"

Important reminder from the legal team: "We bring this case BECAUSE the court of law is part of the system. We may win/lose in the court of law. But in the court of public opinion, we have already won"

Plaintiff team [The Center for Constitutional Rights, Defense for Children Palestine, and al-Haq:] "Joe Biden has said that NO ONE is above the law. Well, that applies to you POTUS too. We will hold you accountable"

Today is also the last day of appeal for Leonard Peltier The First Nation Delegation here to strengthen the solidarity for land, dignity, and justice against cop city and militarism

Bringing this home, Indigenous Justice connecting the ties between Cop City and IOF. Our own SFPD implementing the same policing and surveilling techniques against community organizing

"We will not allow our govt to continue to support this genocide. It's the people who are taking Joe Biden to court to say NO BUSINESS AS USUAL." - from our ED Lara Kiswani

Bay Area community members are drawing 40,000 seeds to represent the martyrs "The seeds also represent the seeds of resistance. There will be free Leonard Peltier and a free Palestine" - Lara Kiswani

"All this suffering and destruction is made possible by US backing. 68% of Israel's weapons are from the US. From arms shipment to backing at the UN, this genocide is completely dependent on US support." Palestinian Youth Movement

"How do we materially disrupt the US war machine?" Logistics companies like Maersk make a killing from killing. Palestinian Youth Movement calling for Mask Off Maersk campaign Day of Action tmrw

"Do not let anyone tell you this genocide has nothing to do w you. It has everything to do w you" GABRIELA Oakland connecting the military ties that enable fascist govts from Israel the Philippines to India and the US.

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network reaffirming that anti-Zionist Jewish people will not allow their identity to be weaponized for Israel's fascist, racist project. "Zionism is racism. So anti-zionism is anti-racism"

-- Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), 10 Jun 2024 11:57am PDT

[tomorrowusa]

Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton have drawn additional attention to what a terrible governor Ron DeSantis is.

“Florida isn’t safe with DeSantis at the helm of our state government,” said Matthew Grocholske, 20, campaign strategy lead with the Orlando, Florida, chapter of the youth-led Sunrise Movement. [ ... ] Florida environmentalists say that DeSantis’s policies to boost fossil fuels, suppress carbon-free energy and ignore global heating have fueled the climate crisis that has exacerbated such hurricanes. [ ... ] Hurricanes – including Helene – are becoming more dangerous due to the climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. DeSantis’s policies have fueled that crisis with his policies and rhetoric, climate advocates say. “When it comes to our climate crisis, Ron DeSantis is easily the worst governor in Florida’s history,” said Delaney Reynolds, 25, a PhD student in climate resilience at the University of Miami and lead plaintiff in a 2018 youth-led climate lawsuit against the state government. DeSantis’s opposition to climate action began early in his career. One day after taking office in 2013, the then representative voted against a measure proposed after Hurricane Sandy to guarantee people could collect on federal flood insurance claims. During his 2018 run for governor, he pledged to protect Florida’s Everglades and waterways. But though he admitted that “human activity contributes to changes in the environment”, he also said: “I am not a global warming person.” More recently, he has gone further, slamming climate action as “woke”. There is ample evidence that warmer ocean temperatures fuel more powerful storms, and preliminary studies show Helene’s strength was made far more likely by global heating. Yetas Florida was battered by record-breaking rain this past June, DeSantis staunchly denied any potential link to the climate crisis. “This clearly is not unprecedented,” he said at a news conference at the time. “I think the difference is, you compare 50 to 100 years ago to now, there’s just a lot more that’s been developed, so there’s a lot more effects that this type of event can have.”

D'oh! Of course it's "unprecedented". That's what the climate crisis is all about. Weather keeps getting more extreme.

DeSantis is doing his best to destroy the state's response to climate change.

In August, DeSantis’s administration sparked outcry for its so-called Great Outdoors Initiative, which included plans to pave over thousands of acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts. In May, the governor made headlines for signing legislation scrubbing most references to climate change from state law. The policy, which took effect on 1 July, restructured the state’s energy policy to nullify goals to boost wind and solar, instead focusing on hardening energy infrastructure against “natural and manmade threats”. [ ... ] During his run for president in the 2024 Republican primary, DeSantis also promised to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and fend off electric vehicle mandates, moves that climate experts warned would have boosted greenhouse gas emissions. His promises rhymed with his state policies. This past legislative session, DeSantis reportedly quietly helped craft a ban on wind energy infrastructure in Florida. And he also signed a far-reaching energy omnibus bill boosting the gas industry and increasing the barriers to purchasing electric vehicles. [ ... ] Last year, DeSantis turned down federal aid for energy efficiency, electrification and slashing carbon pollution. In 2022, he vetoed from the state budget a $5m allocation for a hurricane shelter in a north-east Florida town, and barred the state’s pension fund from making investment decisions that consider the climate crisis. The previous year, he adopted a bill banning Florida’s cities from adopting 100% clean energy goals. Such policies have exacerbated the climate crisis, which fuels hurricanes like Milton and Helene, Grocholske said. “The catastrophic level of this hurricane is directly due to the policies our state government is passing,” said Grocholske. “It’s clear that [DeSantis’s] administration has been one of the biggest threats to climate justice our state has faced in its history.”

Ron DeSantis is actively inviting the destruction of much of his own state.

DeSanctimonious is not on the ballot this year. But there are elections for the Florida legislature.

Florida State Legislature

Look up your legislative districts. If you live in ones represented by MAGA Republicans, contact your state or county Democratic Party to find out how you can help defeat them.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Azeen Ghorayshi

Published: Jun 25, 2024

Newly released emails from an influential group issuing transgender medical guidelines indicate that U.S. health officials lobbied to remove age minimums for surgery in minors because of concerns over political fallout.

Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Age minimums, officials feared, could fuel growing political opposition to such treatments.

Email excerpts from members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recount how staff for Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a transgender woman, urged them to drop the proposed limits from the group’s guidelines and apparently succeeded.

If and when teenagers should be allowed to undergo transgender treatments and surgeries has become a raging debate within the political world. Opponents say teenagers are too young to make such decisions, but supporters including an array of medical experts posit that young people with gender dysphoria face depression and worsening distress if their issues go unaddressed.

In the United States, setting age limits was controversial from the start.

The draft guidelines, released in late 2021, recommended lowering the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies.

The proposed age limits were eliminated in the final guidelines outlining standards of care, spurring concerns within the international group and with outside experts as to why the age proposals had vanished.

The email excerpts released this week shed light on possible reasons for those guideline changes, and highlight Admiral Levine’s role as a top point person on transgender issues in the Biden administration. The excerpts are legal filings in a federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care.

One excerpt from an unnamed member of the WPATH guideline development group recalled a conversation with Sarah Boateng, then serving as Admiral Levine’s chief of staff: “She is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in D.C., and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out.”

Another email stated that Admiral Levine “was very concerned that having ages (mainly for surgery) will affect access to care for trans youth and maybe adults, too. Apparently the situation in the U.S.A. is terrible and she and the Biden administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. She asked us to remove them.”

The excerpts were filed by James Cantor, a psychologist and longstanding critic of gender treatments for minors, who used them as evidence that the international advisory group, referred to as WPATH, was making decisions based on politics, not science, in developing the guidelines.

The emails were part of a report he submitted in support of Alabama’s ban on transgender medical care for minors. No emails from Admiral Levine’s staff were released. Plaintiffs are seeking to bar Dr. Cantor from giving testimony in the case, claiming that he lacks expertise and that his opinions are irrelevant.

Admiral Levine and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment, citing pending litigation.

Dr. Cantor said he filed the report to expose the contents of the group’s internal emails obtained by subpoena in the case, most of which remain under seal because of a protective order. “What’s being told to the public is totally different from WPATH’s discussions in private,” he said.

Dr. Marci Bowers, a gynecologic and reconstructive surgeon and the president of WPATH, rejected that claim. “It wasn’t political, the politics were already evident,” said Dr. Bowers. “WPATH doesn’t look at politics when making a decision.”

In other emails released this week, some WPATH members voiced their disagreement with the proposed changes. “If our concern is with legislation (which I don’t think it should be — we should be basing this on science and expert consensus if we’re being ethical) wouldn’t including the ages be helpful?” one member wrote. “I need someone to explain to me how taking out the ages will help in the fight against the conservative anti-trans agenda.”

The international expert group ultimately removed the age minimums in its eighth edition of the standards of care, released in September 2022. The guidelines reflected the first update in a decade and were the first version of the standards to include a dedicated chapter on medical treatment of transgender adolescents.

The field of gender transition care for adolescents is relatively new and evidence on long-term outcomes is scarce. Most transgender adolescents who receive medical interventions in the United States are prescribed puberty blocking drugs or hormones, not surgeries.

But as the number of young people seeking such treatments has soared, prominent clinicians worldwide have disagreed on issues such as the ideal timing and criteria for the medical interventions. Several countries in Europe, including Sweden and Britain, have recently placed new restrictions on gender medications for adolescents after reviews of the scientific evidence. In those countries’ health systems, surgeries are only available to patients 18 and older.

The email documents were released by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, in a challenge to the Alabama ban brought by civil rights groups including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of five transgender adolescents and their families.

Transgender rights groups have turned to the courts to block laws, like Alabama’s, that have been approved in more than 20 Republican-controlled states since 2021, but the courts have been split in their rulings.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on youth gender medicine, which makes it a felony for doctors to provide any gender-related treatment to minors, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. The petition, filed by the Department of Justice, cited the WPATH guidelines among its primary “evidence-based practice guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria.”

Additional emails cited in the new court filings suggest that the American Academy of Pediatrics also warned WPATH that it would not endorse the group’s recommendations if the guidelines set the new age minimums.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mark Del Monte, chief executive of the American Academy of Pediatrics, pointed out that the medical group, which represents 67,000 U.S. pediatricians, had not endorsed the international guidelines because it already had its own in place.

He said the academy had sought to change the age limits in the guidelines because the group’s policies did not recommend restrictions based on age for surgeries.

Last summer, the pediatrics academy reaffirmed its own guidelines, issued in 2018, but said that it was commissioning an external review of the evidence for the first time.

The numbers for all gender-related medical interventions for adolescents have been steadily rising as more young people seek such care. A Reuters analysis of insurance data estimated that 4,200 American adolescents started estrogen or testosterone therapy in 2021, more than double the number from four years earlier. Surgeries are more rare, and the vast majority are mastectomies. or top surgeries. In 2021, Reuters estimated that 282 teenagers underwent top surgery that was paid for by insurance.

Gender-related surgeries for minors have been a focal point for some politicians. Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, has argued that surgeons should be sued for “disfiguring” children. In Texas, where parents of transgender children have been investigated for child abuse, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has called genital surgeries in adolescents “genital mutilation.”

The final WPATH guidelines state that distress about breast development in particular has been associated in transgender teenagers with higher rates of depression, anxiety and distress.

“While the long-term effects of gender-affirming treatments initiated in adolescence are not fully known, the potential negative health consequences of delaying treatment should also be considered,” the guidelines state.

“Gender-affirming surgery is valued highly by those who need these services — lifesaving in many cases,” Dr. Bowers said.

==

Expect Levine to resign with no admission of fault and a wave of gaslighting akin to that of Claudine Gay. That is, being a martyr who is departing to avoid being a "distraction," while reframing justifiable scrutiny for ethical violations as being the beleaguered victim of a relentless campaign of bigotry.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

Impressive this coverage actually appeared in the New York Times.

[mariacallous]

US Supreme Court could allow broader curbs on transgender rights

Dec 5 (Reuters) - During arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in this week's major transgender rights case, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the lawyer defending Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care for people under age 18 that courts have a historic role in protecting minorities from discrimination.

"When you're 1 percent of the population or less, (it is) very hard to see how the democratic process is going to protect you," Sotomayor told Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice during Wednesday's arguments, referring to the transgender population.

Sotomayor's observation underscored key legal issues in the dispute - the role of U.S. courts to serve as a check on the legality of actions by legislatures and the level of scrutiny they should apply to laws under legal challenge.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, appeared ready to uphold Tennessee's Republican-backed law, which was challenged by President Joe Biden's administration and other plaintiffs but was affirmed by a lower court.

The administration wants the justices to conclude that the ban represents unlawful discrimination based on sex, which under Supreme Court precedent would trigger tougher judicial review and make is harder to defend under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection.

But the lower court rejected that approach. Instead, it used what is called a rational-basis review merely requiring a rational connection between a law and a legitimate state interest.

A ruling by the Supreme Court using the rational-basis approach to uphold Tennessee's law, according to legal experts, could make it easier to defend a broader array of measures targeting transgender people, from bathroom use to sports participation, and extend even to restrictions on adults.

The Tennessee law bans medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, the clinical diagnosis for significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and the sex assigned at birth.

Some of the conservative justices emphasized an ongoing debate among experts and policy makers over the potential benefits and risks of the treatments, suggesting the need for deference to elected legislators to make policy.

"If the court holds that discrimination against transgender people does not constitute sex discrimination and does not otherwise qualify for heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause, then equal protection challenges to other forms of anti-trans governmental discrimination will be tough to win," said Paul Smith, a Georgetown University law professor who has argued many cases at the Supreme Court including a landmark gay rights victory in 2003.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that certain European countries that he said have been at the forefront of youth transgender care policy are "pumping the brakes" on these treatments. In light of this, Kavanaugh signaled hesitance about having the Supreme Court "constitutionalize the whole area."

Liberal justices expressed alarm that the court would not scrutinize legislative choices to ensure that they are not merely aimed at harming a disfavored minority group.

"What's really going on here is discrimination against - a disregard for - young people who are trans," liberal Justice Elena Kagan said.

Some legal experts said wider implications of favoring Tennessee in the case would depend on the rationale expressed in the eventual ruling, expected by the end of June.

Tennessee has argued that the ban is based on the treatment's medical purpose, not the patient's sex.

If the court decides that laws making "biologically rooted distinctions" between individuals are not subject to tougher judicial review, for instance, "then there might still be heightened scrutiny for distinctions that are more distant from biology as such, like bathrooms and sports," said University of Mississippi School of Law professor Christopher Green, who filed a legal brief backing Tennessee.

This law is among numerous measures pursued in recent years, primarily in Republican-led states, concerning LGBT rights including limits on discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools, reinforcing sex-separated spaces like bathrooms in public places, and participation by transgender athletes in women's sports.

'SERIOUS HARM'

Though Tennessee's law targets transgender adolescents, a ruling upholding it could make it easier for legislatures to impose restrictions on transgender adults as well.

"If the court finds that there is no sex classification involved in (the ban), it seems hard to imagine they would find one in a ban on gender-affirming medical care for adults," said lawyer Karen Loewy of the LGBT rights group Lambda Legal, which helped represent transgender minors and their parents who challenged the law.

Upholding the lower court's ruling could "do serious harm to decades of sex-discrimination law, which has required heightened scrutiny for any law rooted in overbroad generalizations about men and women," Loewy said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for Biden's administration, urged the justices to adopt the tougher judicial review.

"Maybe the states will ban medical care for adults who are transgender, maybe they'll ban adoption by transgender people or not allow them to be teachers," Prelogar said. "That doesn't look anything like the workaday economic regulation that just gets rational-basis review."

Rice said that to the extent that a law dealing with adults would pass rational-basis review, "that just means it's left to the democratic process - and that democracy is the best check on potentially misguided laws."

The administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who as a candidate advocate restricting transgender rights, could reverse the position taken by Biden's administration. Were that to occur, the court still might decide the case given that other challengers to the law also argued on Wednesday.

[alilyamongroses]

We three, we're not a crowd. We're not even company.

“Hands on his hips, [Edward VI] would imitate Henry’s straddling pose, and emit ‘thunderous oaths’ in his high, imperious voice. By calculated displays of wrath and coldness, he sought to make men fear him as they had his father. By now a fanatical Protestant, he was fond of lecturing those around him in the articles of his faith, a role which sat oddly with his youth. His councilors and courtiers were already in awe of him. ‘He will be the wonder and terror of the world if he lives,’ declared Bishop Hooper that year.”

“A strong feature of Star Chamber cases brought by female plaintiffs was the accusation that those supposedly charged with keeping law and order were in fact undermining it… Elizabeth Barnardiston brought her case to Star Chamber because the man she accused of orchestrating the disruption to her property at Grafton – a parcel of her jointure – was Sir John Seymour of Wolf Hall, the current sheriff of the county, who had a reputation for being overbearing.”

“As queen, she made a point of distancing herself from her inferiors, and could be remote and arrogant, being a stickler for the observance of etiquette at her court. Chapuys feared that, once Jane had had a taste of queenship, she would forget her good intentions towards the Lady Mary, but his fears proved unfounded. Jane remained loyal to her supporters, and to Mary’s cause, and in the months to come would endeavor to heal the rift between the King and his daughter.”