Failed trans mission

Last week the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Tennessee law barring sex transition-related treatment for minors. The outcome of the case appears to be a foregone conclusion; the Supreme Court looks certain to uphold the Tennessee law. Many Democrats will dismiss that as the obvious result of the high court shifting sharply to the right, and perhaps it is.

It's worthwhile, though, to see this case against the legal and cultural background of the last 16 years. In 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, amending the constitution to prohibit gay marriage. Prop 8 led to a series of lawsuits, culminating in the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges that legalized gay marriage nationally. So, in seven years gay marriage went from something rejected by voters in one of the most liberal states to a national consensus. It seemed like trans acceptance may have been on a similar trajectory.

But there are some major differences. One telling quote on this comes from Chase Strangio, the ACLU attorney who last week argued the case on behalf of the parents challenging the Tennessee ban. "I find it disappointing," Strangio wrote two years ago, "how much time and resource went into fighting for inclusion in the deeply flawed and fundamentally violent institution of civil marriage." The quest for marriage equality sought parity with rights that had been taken for granted by straight people. The trans rights movement went in a different direction. Calls for inclusion evolved into ones for a wholesale overhaul of ideas about sex.

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As with marriage, many progressives came to see fundamental ideas about sex and gender as flawed and violent. And the whole package, from teaching elementary school kids about "gender fluidity" to medical interventions for teens, became a central pillar of Democratic orthodoxy. Gay marriage was framed as a search for tolerance and understanding. Trans rights have turned into a broader demand to tear down and reconstruct social norms — a bigger project, to which fewer people are eager to subscribe.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.