Did you see that some chess authorities somewhere have banned transgender women from playing chess in the women’s divisions? That was a while ago, but you have to wonder. What does gender have to do with chess?
COURT WATCH
Looking ahead to 2024, there are a number of GLBT issues now heating up in the federal appellate courts, which suggests the High Court will be stepping into our lives one way or another. Most critically, perhaps, is the question of whether states can ban transgender health care for minors. The difficulty here is that much of transgender health care now centers on pre-puberty and mid-teen years.
Mainly gone are the days when a person of twenty or thirty, having struggled in silence for years, decides to seek medical help for the first time. To be transgender in the 21st Century is to recognize a discord between sex and gender at a relatively early age, leaving it to parents and professionals to decide if a child should medically delay puberty, or perhaps experiment with different roles.
Or what? I’m not sure. What I do know is that it should not be up to the state to simply outlaw any and all treatment. The High Court has recognized the constitutional rights of parents as fundamental, but we will see if that extends to the right to determine the best course of action for their transgender children.
Our side recently asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on a health care ban out of Tennessee, which would likely decide the issue nationwide. Let’s watch to see if they take the case, or if they let the anti-transgender ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stand and wait for the results of continuing litigation. Meanwhile, keep an ear out for news from the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, now considering anti-trans health insurance policies out of West Virginia and North Carolina.
CHECK MATE
What else might the High Court do? Well, they might decide whether or not states have the right to keep transgender girls off their high school and college sports teams. We are waiting to see what the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has to say about Connecticut’s trans-friendly state laws.
Did you see that some chess authorities somewhere have banned transgender women from playing chess in the women’s divisions? That was awhile ago, but you have to wonder. What does gender have to do with chess? Hang on, I’ll check this out. It was the International Chess Federation, and it seems they have various matches with just men, with just women, and with both. Transmen and transwomen now have to play in the mixed category. That still doesn’t explain why the categories exist to begin with, but I tire of this topic.
While we’re on the subject of gay law, as 2023 came to a close the justices decided not to review a ruling out of the Ninth Circuit in favor of Washington State’s ban on conversion therapy. Our adversaries in the conservative legal universe insist that preventing this dangerous practice is a violation of the deranged therapists’ free speech rights.
Hey, we all love our free speech. But you can’t insist that the constitution gives you the First Amendment right to, let’s say, advertise investment opportunities in your Ponzi scheme. Your little scam is illegal! So is conversion therapy. I thought it was kind of nice that the justices denied review, essentially upholding the idea that a state has the right to set standards for licensed counselors. Guess who wanted to take the case? Ding ding ding! Right you are—it was Thomas and Alito.
Make no mistake dear readers, Alito is the worst justice of the bunch. Thomas is is pretty bad, but Alito makes the other conservatives on the Court look like Solomon.
SWAN FAKE
Move over gay penguins. We hear from the Melbourne Zoo that two male swans, Billy and Elliot, have developed a special connection and built what Pink News describes as a “wonderful” nest. The pair were rewarded with a couple of (supposedly) realistic eggs made from a 3D printer, but although they expressed an interest in these items, they did not try to hatch them.
Keep in mind that the many gay penguins we have encountered over the years seem to have no problem trying to hatch unfertilized eggs, rocks and God knows what else, so either they have the patience of Job or they’re not the brightest creatures on the planet. Perhaps swans are either less determined to succeed in the egg department or smarter than penguins, or both. The zoo keepers plan to give them some more fake eggs next breeding season.
HOOP LA
College basketball season is about to begin in earnest, so I’ll continue to ignore important GLBT news and tell you about a recent game between Oak Hill Christian College (out of Minnesota) and North Dakota State. North Dakota won 108 to 14, which at first makes you wonder what the hell these two schools were doing on the same court. But according to the Fox Sports article I read, many people commenting online thought North Dakota should have run up the score even further once they took a look at Oak Hill’s anti-gay statements of faith.
“We uphold the sanctity of marriage as God-ordained, a special union between a biological man and a biological woman, within which sexual relations are honored and affirmed by God,” they blathered, continuing with more holier-than-thou GLBT-bashing polemics which I will spare you.
And finally, as this issue went to press, a federal judge in Idaho, B. Lynn Winmill, just put a hold on the Spud State’s ban on health care for transgender minors in a ruling that includes some trenchant prose:
“Critics say such decisions are anti-democratic and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by their elected legislature. And they are right,” she wrote. “But that is precisely how our constitutional democracy is supposed to work. The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment fully understood and intended that the amendment would prevent state legislatures from passing laws that denied equal protection of the laws or invaded the fundamental rights of the people.”
I’m not sure I’ve seen this core element of constitutional law expressed so clearly and cleanly.
