Jimmy and Megan have no doubt that the gender identity of one of their three kids is unfolding differently. What they’re not sure about is whether it’s safe to raise their kids in the home they love. (Produced by David Hunt in Raleigh, North Carolina)
And in NewsWrap: the United States Supreme Court hears a constitutional challenge to Tennessee’s ban on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare, seven are arrested in raids on three queer-welcoming Moscow nightspots “to combat LGBT propaganda,” Walmart abandons its DEI policies and will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, more than two dozen trans activists including whistleblower Chelsea Manning are busted in a U.S. Capitol bathroom protest at the same time as a Montana House committee gives Rep. Zoey Zephyr a pass, and more international LGBTQ+ news reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Marcos Najera (produced by Brian DeShazor).
All this on the December 9, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of December 9, 2024
North Carolina State of Fear for Pro-NB Parents
NewsWrap (full transcript below): The U.S. Supreme Court hears a challenge to Tennessee’s pediatric gender-affirming healthcare ban — the first time it’s heard a case involving transgender young people, and the first time an out transgender attorney, the ACLU’s Chase Strangio, has argued a case before the high court [with brief excerpts from his remarks outside the courthouse, and comments during the hearings by Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and U.S Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar] … some gay “hooligans” arrested in the latest raids on Moscow queer nightspots by Russian security police are reportedly forced to join the military … the largest retailer in the U.S., Walmart, becomes the latest multinational corporation to bow to rightwing pressure and abandon its policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) … trans activists and their supporters dance to Klymaxx’s Meeting in the Ladies Room in a Capitol bathroom near U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to protest Republican efforts to force the chamber’s first out transgender member, Congressperson-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware, to use men’s bathrooms and changing rooms, but Republican lawmakers in Montana fail to force their only transgender member, Zooey Zephyr, to use men’s bathrooms and changing rooms there (written by GREG GORDON and LUCIA CHAPPELLE, produced by BRIAN DeSHAZOR, reported this week by TANYA KANE-PARRY and MARCOS NAJERA).
Feature: North Carolina balances on the razor’s edge of the U.S. political divide. It’s still the Old South on one hand, but on the other hand it’s Research Triangle Park with hundreds of high-tech companies, including Cisco, IBM and Lenovo. Donald Trump carried the state by about three percentage points, but Democrats won the governor’s seat and half of the top state offices. However, Republicans still dominate the legislature, in a position to call the policy tune. Unfortunately, trans and nonbinary youth will have to face the music. This Way Out’s DAVID HUNT explores what life is like for a family living on the front lines of the culture wars (with music by LOGAN PITCHER ).
[text of North Carolina anti-trans law https://legiscan.com/NC/text/H808/id/2837494
Equality North Carolina https://equalitync.org/]
NewsWrap
A summary of some of the news in or affecting
global LGBTQ communities
for the two weeks ending December 7th, 2024
Written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappelle,
reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Marcos Najera,
produced by Brian DeShazor
Gender-affirming healthcare for trans patients under the age of 18 was the issue before the United States Supreme Court this week. The historic December 4th hearings considered a constitutional challenge to Tennessee’s ban on all pediatric transitioning treatments. The case is called U.S. v. Skrmetti, with Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti as the named defendant.
Challenging the ban on behalf of Tennessee families with trans children was the ACLU’s Chase Strangio, the first transgender person to argue a case before the nation’s highest court.
[SOUND: Strangio]
This law, we believe, is unconstitutional. And perhaps the scariest thing for all of us is that Tennessee’s arguments would apply if Congress tomorrow banned this care nationally for adolescents, for adults. They claim that there are no protections based on sex for the transgender people, like myself, who rely on this medical care.
Attorneys fighting the ban argued that it constitutes discrimination based on sex. Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice said that is not true:
[SOUND: Rice and Kagan]
Rice: Tennessee lawmakers enacted SB1 to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions. The law imposes an across-the-board rule that allows the use of drugs and surgeries for some medical purposes, but not for others. Its application turns entirely on medical purpose, not a patient's sex. That is not sex discrimination.
Kagan: The whole thing is imbued with sex.
Progressive Justice Elena Kagan begged to differ …
Kagan: I mean, it's based on sex. You might have reasons for thinking that it's an appropriate regulation, and those reasons should be tested and respect given to them, but it's a dodge to say that this is not based on sex, it's based on medical purpose, when the medical purpose is utterly and entirely about sex.
The treatment of young trans patients with reversible puberty blockers and hormone therapies can often be lifesaving -- literally. That’s the opinion of virtually every professional medical and mental health organization in the United States, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, the justices’ questions and comments led most observers to believe that the conservative 6-to-3 Supreme Court majority will uphold the Tennessee ban.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other conservatives cited the United Kingdom’s discredited Cass Report, which claims that pediatric gender-affirming healthcare is too risky. He also pointed to Sweden’s back-pedaling on the issue as a reason to say that the jury is still out on whether the benefits of puberty blockers and hormone therapy outweigh the risks.
[SOUND: Kavanaugh]
If it's evolving like that and changing, and England's pulling back and Sweden's pulling back, it strikes me as a pretty heavy yellow light, if not red light, for this court to come in, the nine of us, and to constitutionalize the whole area when the rest of the world, or at least the countries that have been at the forefront of this, are pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment because of concerns about the risks.
Kavanaugh and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch are all Trump appointees to the court. Gorsuch famously authored the surprising 6-to-3 Bostock decision in twenty-twenty, the first time a ruling involving a transgender person was handed down by the Court. It found that federal laws banning employment bias based on sex also protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. However, Gorsuch was notably silent during this week’s two-hour-plus hearing.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar questioned the constitutionality of the Tennessee law. She asserted that transgender people should be a protected class in anti-discrimination laws:
[SOUND: Prelogar]
If you're approaching this from the standpoint of saying, is this a group with a distinguishing characteristic that has no bearing on their ability to contribute, and that needs some protection from the courts, I think if any group qualifies, this one does, in light of the current laws and what might come in the future.
A ruling in support of the Tennessee ban would most likely validate similar bans on pediatric gender-affirming healthcare. They’ve been enacted by Republican majorities in more than two dozen other states, and some of them continue to be challenged in lower courts. A decision by the Supreme Court is not expected until next June.
The justice system in Russia can move swiftly when it’s so-called “part of measures to combat LGBT propaganda.” That’s how the official state-run TASS news agency described the November 30th raids on three queer-welcoming nightspots in Moscow. Seven patrons of Arma, Inferno and Mono were soon thereafter convicted of “petty hooliganism” and disrupting public order, according to the press service for the Lefortovo District Court in Moscow. The defendants were charged with what was called “an administrative offense, which was expressed in obvious disrespect for society, accompanied by obscene language in a public place.”
Raids like this have been going on sporadically since President Vladimir Putin’s regime declared the non-existent “international public LGBT movement” to be extremists in twenty-twenty-three.
Young men netted in the raid on the Mono nightspot were handed military draft notices per reports in local news outlet Vyorstka.
One of the arrested patrons is the director of a travel agency for gay men. According to the Moscow Times, he was also detained for “organizing tours for members of the LGBT community.”
Walmart is abandoning its policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. The largest retailer in the United States will no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index of the national queer advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign.
It’s the latest major U.S. multi-national company to jump the
DEI ship. Walmart has additionally promised to be sure that “inappropriate sexual and/or transgender products” are not marketed to children, according to USA Today. Items like chest binders for trans youth will disappear from the website. The term “LatinX” and any vestiges of what critics consider part of the “woke agenda” will be erased from corporate communications. Walmart’s 1.6 million employees at nearly 5,000 locations in the U.S. alone will no longer receive racial-equity training.
Far-right social media influencer Robby Starbuck is taking credit for this latest attack on corporate DEI programs. He’s convinced a growing list of multi-nationals to abandon their diversity efforts, companies like Tractor Supply, John Deere, Lowe’s, Ford, Harley Davidson and Jack Daniel’s.
Starbuck’s victory post called Walmart’s capitulation “the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America.”
Finally … [Klymaxx music dropped in/fades out under:] … more than two dozen trans activists and cisgender allies failed to disperse while dancing to the strains of Klymaxx’s Meeting in the Ladies Room in a U.S. Capitol bathroom close to the offices of House Speaker Mike Johnson. They were protesting Republican efforts in the lower chamber to force transgender Democratic Congressperson-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware to use male bathrooms and changing rooms. Trans whistleblower Chelsea Manning was among those arrested for what they called this week’s act of “joyful resistance.”
Speaker Johnson has backed South Carolina Congressperson Nancy Mace’s efforts to blockade the House’s first trans member. Banners displayed by supporters in the hallway declared, “Flush bathroom bigotry” and “Congress, stop pissing on our rights.”
It’s a different picture in the Republican-dominated Montana state House, where a bid to force a trans woman to use male facilities failed. A House committee rejected a proposal against outspoken transgender state lawmaker Zooey Zephyr in a narrow vote of ten Yes and twelve No.
Zephyr celebrated the win in a social media post that read, “I’m happy to see that this proposed ban failed and am grateful for my colleagues – particularly my Republican colleagues – who recognized this as a distraction from the work we were elected to do.”