The Roberts Court is a fascist organization representing the ruling elite who installed them!
These black-robed vultures, perched on the high rails of Justice, are weak-minded ideologues - Extreme in opinion and mediocre in judgment and intellect!
Fascism reigns Supreme!
The Roberts not-so-Supreme Court is packed with narrow-minded justices who represent the views of this “old guard!”
The “old guard “ of ultra-conservative, white wealthy males selected these judges BECAUSE of their 19th century world views on science and morality!
It’s no surprise that 19th century minds cannot intelligently manage 21st century reality!
I am a gender critical gay man and a centrist Democrat. I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Skrmetti. If the outcome of this case comes as a surprise to liberals and progressives, it is because of their willful ignorance—ignorance that is not accidental but cultivated through ideological gatekeeping and the suppression of dissenting voices.
For years, any feminist, gay person, parent, academic, or clinician who raised good-faith concerns about the rapid medicalization of gender-distressed youth has been branded a “transphobe” and their views dismissed as “hate.” This rhetorical sleight of hand has allowed activists to evade substantive debate by recasting principled critique as bigotry. In doing so, they have effectively shielded themselves from scrutiny—and ensured that much of the political left remains unaware of the broad, serious, and growing gender critical movement. This movement, contrary to activist caricature, is neither beholden to Donald Trump nor aligned with white Christian nationalism. It is rooted instead in liberal values, empirical evidence, and a commitment to safeguarding children, women’s rights, gay and lesbian realities, and the integrity of science and law.
The consequence of refusing to engage with these voices has been predictable: intellectual complacency, strategic miscalculations, and a mounting series of legal and cultural defeats. Skrmetti is only the latest, and it will not be the last. The left cannot continue to mistake doctrinaire orthodoxy for moral clarity—or to pretend that its only opponents are Bible-thumping authoritarians. That delusion is not just unsustainable. It is self-defeating.
The New Republic’s commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti is a case study in liberal denial and moral panic. The piece by Matt Ford displays several recurring flaws in progressive reactions to gender-critical legal developments: an inability to acknowledge bad facts on their side, a tendency to catastrophize defeats, and a conspicuous refusal to engage with gender-critical arguments on their own terms.
The most glaring error is the piece’s assumption that opposition to the medicalization of gender-distressed youth must be rooted in hatred or religious dogma. There is no recognition that the field of "gender-affirming care" is young, ideologically captured, and underregulated. Nor is there acknowledgment that the growing ranks of detransitioners—many of them young women who say they were rushed into life-altering treatments—raise serious questions about informed consent and medical ethics.
Ford also ignores that major European countries (including Sweden, Finland, and the UK) have reversed course on pediatric gender medicine, shifting toward more cautious, psychotherapeutic models after systematic reviews found little evidence of long-term benefit and growing evidence of harm. He also accepts without skepticism the authority of medical organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, portraying them as disinterested oracular bodies rather than activist-influenced institutions that have stifled dissent, ignored contrary evidence, and ignored the wave of European policy reversals on pediatric transition. Ford’s treatment of the issues implies that all serious scientific questions have been answered and that only bigotry motivates further scrutiny. This is not journalism—it is advocacy disguised as legal commentary.
When American courts uphold laws like Tennessee’s, they are not dragging the country into reactionary darkness—they are recognizing that the science is far from settled and that children deserve protections against irreversible procedures when the risks are unknown and the evidence weak.
The piece also mischaracterizes the ruling itself. It faults the majority for not recognizing “transgender” as a suspect class, as if this were an obvious next step in equal protection jurisprudence. But the opinion reflects a sober understanding of what the equal protection clause does and does not guarantee. “Transgender” is not a stable or easily defined class. The term encompasses a wide range of identities and expressions, some of which are transient, self-diagnosed, or socially constructed. Courts have long been reluctant to confer heightened protections on such amorphous categories, and for good reason. The legal system requires definable terms, not ideologically freighted abstractions.
Sotomayor’s dissent embraces activist framing wholesale, presenting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as if they are well-established, lifesaving treatments rather than experimental interventions with poorly understood long-term effects. Her invocation of Loving v. Virginia is deeply inapt; that case dealt with immutable racial classifications and a law explicitly rooted in white supremacy. Tennessee’s law is rooted in concern for child welfare—concerns shared by international health bodies and thousands of professionals who do not share Sotomayor’s ideological commitments.
Perhaps most troubling is the liberal refusal to reflect on why they are losing these cases. Instead of acknowledging strategic overreach or empirical weakness, progressives retreat into a familiar story of victimization and judicial betrayal. But the courts are not the problem. The problem is a movement that has insulated itself from critique, refused internal debate, and demonized potential allies. That may work on social media, but it fails in the courts—and in the court of public opinion.
If progressives wish to defend gender-related rights effectively, they must start by listening to their critics instead of caricaturing them. They must stop outsourcing their moral compass to activist organizations and rediscover the importance of neutrality, evidence, and liberal proceduralism. Otherwise, they will continue to be blindsided by rulings like Skrmetti—and they will have only themselves to blame.
Race is discrete? Religion is monolithic and immutable? Transgender people have not been discriminated against historically?
I know interracial folks, extremely liberal and arch-conservative Christians, and many, many folks who have changed religious identity; I have also opened a history book. I don't know what world they live in, but I don't share it.
The Roberts Court is a fascist organization representing the ruling elite who installed them!
These black-robed vultures, perched on the high rails of Justice, are weak-minded ideologues - Extreme in opinion and mediocre in judgment and intellect!
Fascism reigns Supreme!
The Roberts not-so-Supreme Court is packed with narrow-minded justices who represent the views of this “old guard!”
The “old guard “ of ultra-conservative, white wealthy males selected these judges BECAUSE of their 19th century world views on science and morality!
It’s no surprise that 19th century minds cannot intelligently manage 21st century reality!
Welcome to the not-so-Supreme Roberts Court!
I am a gender critical gay man and a centrist Democrat. I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Skrmetti. If the outcome of this case comes as a surprise to liberals and progressives, it is because of their willful ignorance—ignorance that is not accidental but cultivated through ideological gatekeeping and the suppression of dissenting voices.
For years, any feminist, gay person, parent, academic, or clinician who raised good-faith concerns about the rapid medicalization of gender-distressed youth has been branded a “transphobe” and their views dismissed as “hate.” This rhetorical sleight of hand has allowed activists to evade substantive debate by recasting principled critique as bigotry. In doing so, they have effectively shielded themselves from scrutiny—and ensured that much of the political left remains unaware of the broad, serious, and growing gender critical movement. This movement, contrary to activist caricature, is neither beholden to Donald Trump nor aligned with white Christian nationalism. It is rooted instead in liberal values, empirical evidence, and a commitment to safeguarding children, women’s rights, gay and lesbian realities, and the integrity of science and law.
The consequence of refusing to engage with these voices has been predictable: intellectual complacency, strategic miscalculations, and a mounting series of legal and cultural defeats. Skrmetti is only the latest, and it will not be the last. The left cannot continue to mistake doctrinaire orthodoxy for moral clarity—or to pretend that its only opponents are Bible-thumping authoritarians. That delusion is not just unsustainable. It is self-defeating.
The New Republic’s commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti is a case study in liberal denial and moral panic. The piece by Matt Ford displays several recurring flaws in progressive reactions to gender-critical legal developments: an inability to acknowledge bad facts on their side, a tendency to catastrophize defeats, and a conspicuous refusal to engage with gender-critical arguments on their own terms.
The most glaring error is the piece’s assumption that opposition to the medicalization of gender-distressed youth must be rooted in hatred or religious dogma. There is no recognition that the field of "gender-affirming care" is young, ideologically captured, and underregulated. Nor is there acknowledgment that the growing ranks of detransitioners—many of them young women who say they were rushed into life-altering treatments—raise serious questions about informed consent and medical ethics.
Ford also ignores that major European countries (including Sweden, Finland, and the UK) have reversed course on pediatric gender medicine, shifting toward more cautious, psychotherapeutic models after systematic reviews found little evidence of long-term benefit and growing evidence of harm. He also accepts without skepticism the authority of medical organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, portraying them as disinterested oracular bodies rather than activist-influenced institutions that have stifled dissent, ignored contrary evidence, and ignored the wave of European policy reversals on pediatric transition. Ford’s treatment of the issues implies that all serious scientific questions have been answered and that only bigotry motivates further scrutiny. This is not journalism—it is advocacy disguised as legal commentary.
When American courts uphold laws like Tennessee’s, they are not dragging the country into reactionary darkness—they are recognizing that the science is far from settled and that children deserve protections against irreversible procedures when the risks are unknown and the evidence weak.
The piece also mischaracterizes the ruling itself. It faults the majority for not recognizing “transgender” as a suspect class, as if this were an obvious next step in equal protection jurisprudence. But the opinion reflects a sober understanding of what the equal protection clause does and does not guarantee. “Transgender” is not a stable or easily defined class. The term encompasses a wide range of identities and expressions, some of which are transient, self-diagnosed, or socially constructed. Courts have long been reluctant to confer heightened protections on such amorphous categories, and for good reason. The legal system requires definable terms, not ideologically freighted abstractions.
Sotomayor’s dissent embraces activist framing wholesale, presenting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as if they are well-established, lifesaving treatments rather than experimental interventions with poorly understood long-term effects. Her invocation of Loving v. Virginia is deeply inapt; that case dealt with immutable racial classifications and a law explicitly rooted in white supremacy. Tennessee’s law is rooted in concern for child welfare—concerns shared by international health bodies and thousands of professionals who do not share Sotomayor’s ideological commitments.
Perhaps most troubling is the liberal refusal to reflect on why they are losing these cases. Instead of acknowledging strategic overreach or empirical weakness, progressives retreat into a familiar story of victimization and judicial betrayal. But the courts are not the problem. The problem is a movement that has insulated itself from critique, refused internal debate, and demonized potential allies. That may work on social media, but it fails in the courts—and in the court of public opinion.
If progressives wish to defend gender-related rights effectively, they must start by listening to their critics instead of caricaturing them. They must stop outsourcing their moral compass to activist organizations and rediscover the importance of neutrality, evidence, and liberal proceduralism. Otherwise, they will continue to be blindsided by rulings like Skrmetti—and they will have only themselves to blame.
Race is discrete? Religion is monolithic and immutable? Transgender people have not been discriminated against historically?
I know interracial folks, extremely liberal and arch-conservative Christians, and many, many folks who have changed religious identity; I have also opened a history book. I don't know what world they live in, but I don't share it.
Not that their argument had any foundation in the first place, but a middle school teacher would have rejected those as supporting examples.
Idiots as well as assholes. Although we already knew that.
This, coming on the same day Trump defunds the LGBTQ suicide hotline. Cruel, soulless fucks.