Frustrated by the arguments in the trans rights court case today

I’ve been thinking about this all day since listening to the oral arguments in the US v Skrmetti case today. This is a bit of a rant but I’m really frustrated with a specific part of the argument made by the attorney for the ACLU and just everything recently.

I wish transgender stuff would go back to being on the margins of society, where everyone wasn’t thinking and talking about us. I feel like this idea of identifying as transgender without dysphoria is really problematic for us legally right now. Justice Alito was grilling the attorney from the ACLU, and asked about being transgender and if this is an immutable trait. She fucking danced around the question and didn’t answer it. He then brought it back up, and was talking about gender fluid people. He was saying that if gender can change from one day to the next, it’s not immutable. I understand this isn’t a correct argument per se, and that the said gender fluid person in the hypothetical continues to be transgender regardless, but the attorney all but conceded this point. She gave a weak response about trans being just not identifying with birth sex. It was clear that she lost in that moment, and though it was a small moment, it’s been mentioned in most news coverage of the case and has been recognized as a great point by the conservatives, and is being lauded as a reason to not consider trans people as needing protection. I’m not saying this will make or break the case, who knows and what will happen will happen.

But it really fucking pissed me off. I’m so sick of this hyper progressive gender ideology. It’s great to be inclusive and respectful, but there is a really huge issue with demedicalizing being transgender. It’s creating a massive potential for us to be completely screwed legally.

The conservatives kept asking about bathrooms and sports, which of course is not at all what was being ruled on (it was about access to hormones and blockers). But of course, if you have people using bathrooms and playing sports without medically transitioning, it will generate an unfair advantage. In reality, all the trans people I know use the bathroom we pass as. It’s a non fucking issue. But for cis people who doesn’t know they interact with trans people, they don’t know that. They genuinely think someone who looks like a male is going to identify as a women sometime and just waltz into the women’s bathroom and onto the field hockey field.

This small part of the case just really pissed me off. Because transgender status might not be immutable for their hypothetical trans gender fluid person the court constructed, but it sure as fucking hell is immutable for me. I know it’s immutable for a lot of other trans people too. It’s fucking insulting honestly. I know people with gender fluid type identities arnt the real problem, and I do respect them, but I wish they would find another label or something if they don’t require medical services to transition. It just feels like there’s been an influx of people identifying as transgender but not actually medically transitioning or never having any intention too. And the consequence is that the actions from these types of people is being used as a reason to restrict medical care from the transgender people who actually need it.

If you’ve gotten this far in the rant thanks for listening. I get a lot of people would think this is invalidating or whatever, but I’m honestly so sick of having to qualify statements in order to not offend absolutely everyone possible. I think that’s part of the problem. I wish the ACLU women had just doubled down and been like “being transgender is immutable” rather than taking the fluidity is valid route.