"If you are a minor struggling with gender dysphoria, and you want to become comfortable with your body, the Colorado law won’t allow that."

"But there is an explicit exception in the law that allows a counselor to encourage a gender transition."

Said Jim Campbell, lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, quoted in "Supreme Court to hear arguments on Colorado ban of conversion therapy for minors" (WaPo). Oral argument is this morning.

The Supreme Court laid out a test for state laws regulating speech by medical professionals in a 2018 case. The government must show a compelling interest to impose content-based regulation on professional speech and must narrowly tailor any such law, the court ruled. Nevertheless, the high court found the government could regulate professional conduct that “incidentally” steps on free speech rights.... 

The state points to studies that show conversion therapy is ineffective and harmful.... What’s more, the state argues, if the Supreme Court embraces [the therapist's] free speech arguments, it could undermine professional standards and consumer protections....

There seems to be a weakness in the whole idea of the government licensing talk therapists. People can talk to each other about whatever they want, when there's no issue of the state giving the relationship a seal of approval. Once there is a system of designating some conversationalists "licensed therapists," it must consist of line-drawing about speech. 

And if Colorado gets away with its ban on conversion therapy, wouldn't that entitle some other state to ban affirming transgender identity?

UPDATED: I listened to most of the oral argument (which was available at the WaPo link). I'll have more to say when I get the transcript. 3 things I'll be looking for are: 1. Whether the state can take sides in what is really an ideological dispute, 2. Would the state's argument work in "mirror image" cases, where a state has adopted the other ideological side, and 3. Did the lawyer for Colorado really say that "talk therapy" was around at the time of the founding?

"The most basic part of gender identity is what I call our transcendent sense of gender. In a way that goes beyond language..."

"... people often just feel male or female, and some more strongly than others. This can manifest in different ways. Some of my young patients draw themselves as a certain gender and have a 'wow, this is me' feeling.... [I]t’s hard to describe this transcendent feeling in words. But it is the foundation of our gender identity, the scaffolding we’re born with...."

Writes Jack Turban, a psychiatrist, in "Not Everyone Thinks About Gender the Same Way. Here’s One Way to Talk About It" (NYT).

"The profile of the patients changed significantly, too. Many were adolescent girls who had never exhibited signs of gender dysphoria."

"Often, their feelings of wanting to be a boy developed along with their breasts, or when they got their period. They were horrified by their bodies, and they wanted control over the changes taking place in them."

From "How Tavistock Came Tumbling Down/I was a nurse working on a team that recklessly prescribed puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. I blew the whistle in 2005. Now the government is finally listening" (Common Sense).

The author, Sue Evans, talks about how in the early days of these treatments, the patients were mostly "younger boys who believed themselves to be girls from an early age and a few teenagers who felt like they were trapped in the wrong bodies." More recently, there are many more girls, and, as Evans puts it, instead of a longstanding belief that they are in the wrong body, they reject the changes of puberty. 

By a vote of 3-to-2 vote, the Supreme Court of India invalidated the law that let Muslim men divorce their wife by saying "talaq" (divorce) 3 times.

The NYT reports:

Of those who voted against, two said the practice was unconstitutional and one said it went against Islamic law. One of the dissenters was a Muslim judge; the other was the court’s chief justice, who urged Parliament to come up with a new provision.

That is, only a minority said it was a violation of the constitutional right to equality. Moreover, the tone was, according to one law professor, demeaning to women:

“The patronizing tone towards Muslim women in all the opinions is quite breathtaking,” Ratna Kapur, a law professor and author of a forthcoming book on gender and human rights, wrote on Facebook. “Women are talked about as if they are in need of protection, not in terms of their rights.”

She added, “Nearly every reference to the Muslim woman in the majority and dissenting opinions reduces Muslim women to ‘suffering victims.’ ”

"But if gender were nothing more than a social convention, why was it necessary for Caitlyn Jenner to undergo facial surgeries, take hormones and remove her body hair?"

"The fact that some transgender individuals use hormone treatment and surgery to switch gender speaks to the inescapable biology at the heart of gender identity."

Richard A. Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, asks a good question (in the NYT). And another good question:

I wonder, if we were a more tolerant society that welcomed all types of gender identity, what the impact might be on gender dysphoria. How many transgender individuals would feel the need to physically change gender, if they truly felt accepted with whatever gender role they choose?

And:

"In Japan there is a disturbing trend for disaffected young men to fall in love with a pillow printed with their favorite anime character and announce the pillow is their girlfriend."

"So thank goodness your boyfriend does not have such a relationship with any of his [two dozen stuffed animals]. Men have been told that women do not want testosterone-addled brutes in their lives (OK, maybe the success of Fifty Shades sends some mixed messages), and you don’t get much less brutish than a stuffed animal collection. It’s a good sign that the group is only 20 percent of what it once was and that with one exception they live in the closet. You yourself have gone through life with a special teddy bear (do you bring him to your boyfriend’s for a sleepover with his special friend?), so you’re right, you should be more accepting. If this is the only thing that bothers you about a great guy, then you need to look at your own sexist beliefs."

From Emily Yoffe's advice column. 

6 things:

1. Does objecting to one extreme — "testosterone-addled brutes" — mean you're hypocritical to accept the other extreme? That excludes a preference for someone who fits your conception of balanced, moderate, and normal.

2. I don't think people seeking a life partner should be told to "be more accepting." You'd better find somebody who's right in the zone of what you like, whatever it is. The problem I see with this woman is that she's not looking closely enough at what she herself likes. She wants an outsider to pass judgment on whether there's something wrong with the man. I'd say it's not that this woman needs to "be more accepting," but that she shouldn't deny herself the pleasure and fulfillment of accepting this man, if that's what she wants.

3. Is it "sexist" to consider writing off a man who has a big stuffed animal collection? This woman is (apparently) heterosexual, so she's already applying "sexist" judgment in her choice of a partner. If that's okay and not sexist — and what a weird world it would be if we thought we shouldn't do that — then why is it wrong, as you search for a person of the sex you prefer, to search more precisely for the manifestation of masculinity (or femininity) that you find especially appealing? The problem, as stated at #2, is that the woman is having trouble using her own thoughts and feelings and wants to import what other people think.

4. Having her own teddy bear does not obligate the woman to accept a man with huge stuffed animal collection. To have one is very different from having a big collection — in stuffed animals and in many things. But more important, you can quite appropriately want to possess various things and at the same time not want your partner to have things like that. If she discovered that her boyfriend has a big collection of makeup, the argument that she should accept it because she too has makeup is something that we easily see as silly. (Maybe the day is coming when it won't look silly per se.)

5. If the brutishness of brutish men has a physical cause — testosterone — shouldn't we be more empathetic the way we are toward other medical conditions that impair the mind? Isn't it ableist of us to direct hostility toward "testosterone-addled brutes"?

6. "Men have been told that women do not want testosterone-addled brutes in their lives...." What, exactly, have men been told and how have they adjusted? I think the message has been that women don't want violence and subordination. No sensible man should read that to mean that women want babyish men. If the man is too dumb to understand that the rejection of violence and subordination is not a rejection of masculinity, then maybe the problem is that he's too dumb. Or he just doesn't love women enough to get the message straight.

"So in the past I've been quite tempted by the idea that perhaps I'm not a woman after all."

"I mean, I'm masculine in all sorts of ways — I am ambitious, logical, aggressive, strong, and highly competitive. And I'm certainly not silly, frivolous, dainty, weak, or overly emotional ... Oh dear. That's where I run into a major problem, isn't it? When I start listing traits of mine that I'd call masculine, they're always positive. They're points of pride. Whereas when I list traits I lack that I'd call feminine, they're negatives. It seems I can't consider my own masculinity or lack of femininity without relying on some of the worst and most pernicious sex-based stereotypes. This suggests to me that the enterprise itself is suspect...."

From "Why I’m Still a Butch Lesbian," by Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart.

ADDED: Urquhart doesn't say use the word "transgender," but I think she's making an argument to young people who may be overeager to see themselves as transgender. Pay attention to the last 3 sentences of the linked essay. And look at this cartoon at her webcomic Tiny Butch Adventures.

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm frontpaging myself here:

Personally, I find it hard to believe that so many women waste so much time thinking about the extent to which they are feminine. What difference does it make? You are who you are. Isn't that valuable? Unless you have character flaws — and there are flaws that are stereotypically feminine — why should you care or seek to do anything about it? It's like paying attention to whether someone else is taller than you… except that there's room to fake it and to try to be what you are not.

I do think women can be manipulated and bamboozled by others who push them to be more "empathetic," and it's very important to learn how not to get played. But that's another reason to forget about trying to seem more aligned with the stereotype. You make yourself vulnerable to those who would exploit you by making you feel that you need to be kinder or more nurturing.

"If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl..."

"... Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout."

But what if a child is presented as a boy who has a strong identification with things that are traditionally female? Here's Bobby Montoya, whose mother tried to get him into the Girl Scouts, but didn't claim he was female:



My problem with this is that the argument that he belongs in the Girl Scouts is premised on stereotyping girls. I think the better argument for kids like Bobby is: Let children choose their own toys, hairstyles, clothes and don't make a big deal about whether he or she has chosen things that are more often chosen by members of the opposite sex. Emphasize individual freedom!

Bobby's family put him in a situation where he was excluded because — as the troop leader allegedly put it — he has "boy parts." He has a real physical difference from the girls, and he was classified based on that, not his personal preferences and interests. Now, he's focused on genitalia-based limitations, as if his natural body parts are his problem!

AND: When is it appropriate to make your child a gender celebrity?

"Chaz couldn't be happier."

"This is an important step in his transition and will allow him to change a variety of his identity documents to show who he truly is."

"He insisted he would not attend his First Communion... unless he could wear a pretty white dress."

"Their church said absolutely not, so the parents found a new one that let them."

Gender identity disorder in Omaha.