The Transgender Conveyor Belt

Original Twitter thread by Luke Goodrich

1. School boards adopt curricula to “disrupt” kids’ thinking on gender as early as pre-K. In Maryland, eg, schools don’t let parents know when these concepts are taught or let kids opt out. So some kids start questioning their gender.

2. If a kid questions her gender, many schools are legally required to affirm new identities with pronouns, bathrooms, and the like–and conceal it from parents. California and NJ even sued schools that dared notify parents, claiming it violated kids’ “privacy.”

3. If parents take a kid to counseling, 22 states and 100+ local governments now have “conversion-therapy bans.” These laws require counselors to assist gender transitions and forbid helping kids embrace their biological sex. So counseling goes only one way: toward gender transition.

4. If parents affirm a child’s God-given body, some states now strip custody. Indiana, eg, took a child from Catholic parents after they wouldn’t call him by a new female name and pronouns, and put him in a foster home “where she is [ac]cepted for who she is.”

5. Likewise, Massachusetts and Oregon deny parents the chance to foster and adopt if bureaucrats think parents wouldn’t “affirm” a child who might someday, hypothetically, seek a gender transition.

6. If a child wants a gender transition, the federal government requires employers and insurers to pay for it. If an insurance plan excludes that coverage, employers and insurers can be sued for “sex” discrimination.

7. Many doctors know gender surgeries harm kids. But the feds passed a rule requiring doctors to perform those procedures, including on children, or be guilty of “sex” discrimination. So doctors that offer hormones for menopause, or mastectomies for breast cancer, must do the same for girls who want to look like boys–or risk federal penalties.

This is how the conveyor belt works: Schools encourage kids to embrace a new gender. Teachers must affirm it and hide it from parents. Counselors must support it. Parents must go along or risk losing custody. Employers and insurers must pay for it. Doctors must perform it. All imposed by law.

The good news is that every step of the conveyor belt is now being challenged in court.

My firm (@BECKETlaw) sued the MD school district arguing parents must be notified and allowed to opt kids out when the school pushes controversial views on gender identity. Others have sued schools that secretly transition kids behind parents’ backs.

Counselors are challenging one-way-ratchet counseling laws as violating freedom of speech, and three Supreme Court Justices have expressed interest in allowing kids to access the biology-affirming counseling they need.

My firm defended the Indiana Catholic couple who lost custody of their son for not using a new female name and pronouns. We also sued Massachusetts for refusing to let a Catholic couple foster or adopt.

We also sued the federal government–and won–for trying to force religious doctors and hospitals to perform and insure gender transitions for kids. Two courts ruled that forcing doctors to perform gender transitions violates religious freedom.

Children who were rushed into a transition and harmed are also fighting back, filing medical malpractice lawsuits against the healthcare providers who permanently scarred and sterilized them.

And evidence is mounting that gender transitions are harmful, especially for kids. 22 states have passed laws prohibiting them for kids. Multiple European countries are pulling back, too, concluding the risks for kids outweigh the benefits.

In sum: The transgender conveyor belt is not inevitable. It’s a legal anomaly that conflicts with religious freedom, parental rights, free speech, and sound medical science. It should be stopped before it destroys more lives.