The fight against gender ideology is 'winning,' 'moving in the right direction,' stakeholders say
BURKE, Virginia — Expressing confidence the movement against gender ideology is "winning" and "moving in the right direction," a group of stakeholders says a cultural tide turning as more governments and medical experts begin to take caution rather than embrace "outdated" science on gender surgeries and hormone drugs.
Hundreds gathered at Burke Community Church for The Christian Post's "Unmasking Gender Ideology II" event on Sunday, focusing on the ways transgender ideology has impacted children, families and medical professionals.
The first panel of experts reflected on the progress that has been made in recent years as more European countries are starting to reevaluate how they are treating children suffering from gender dysphoria, and over two dozen U.S. states have prohibited minors from receiving life-altering gender surgeries and hormone interventions.
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Moderated by The Christian Post's Brandon Showalter, panelists included Jay Richards of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, Arkansas Republican State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, Andrea Picciotti-Bayer of the religious liberty-focused advocacy organization The Conscience Project and Amie Ichikawa of Woman II Woman, a nonprofit organization devoted to serving the needs of incarcerated women. The panel expressed optimism about what Showalter called "the current cultural moment."
"We are after Pearl Harbor and we're working our way across the Pacific," Richards said, providing a World War II analogy. "We haven't gotten to Okinawa yet." Stressing that the equivalent of "D-Day hasn't happened," referring to the turning point for the Allied Powers in World War II, Richards expressed confidence that "we're winning and we're moving directionally exactly where we need to go."
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Richards noted how Lundstrum's bill banning minors from obtaining gender transition procedures, the first of its kind in the nation, passed in 2021. Adding that only a handful of additional states passed similar legislation in 2022, several states followed suit in 2023.
Richards said half the states have now passed bills prohibiting the performance of some or all types of gender transition procedures on minors. As of October 2024, the list includes Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The list of states that have passed laws requiring athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their biological sex as opposed to their stated gender identity closely overlaps with the group of states that have banned gender transition procedures for minors. Alaska and Kansas have implemented prohibitions on trans-identified male athletes from competing in women's sports while Nebraska has not.
Richards described trans-identified male athlete Lia (Will) Thomas, who became an All-American champion upon joining the women's swimming team at the University of Pennsylvania after previously competing on the men's team for three years, as a "gift from Heaven" in the effort to pass legislation prohibiting trans-identified male athletes from competing in women's sports.
Richards stated that in contrast to other hot-button ideological debates on social issues, a broad coalition consisting of "conservative Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons and Orthodox Jews and lesbians and atheist evolutionary biologists" has emerged in opposition to these aspects of gender ideology.
He described this coalition as a "force of nature that's different from absolutely any other kind of political issue that I have thought of or been involved in."
"This issue assaults not just what we believe as Christians; it assaults natural reason directly," he added. Richards predicted that "within five years," most pediatric gender clinics in the U.S. will not be performing gender transition procedures on minors.
"I'm thrilled with the cultural reckoning," Lundstrum commented. "God can do amazing things with people that are willing to follow Him."
The discussion turned to the ongoing litigation efforts to protect the conscience rights of medical and mental health professionals who do not wish to perform or endorse gender transition surgeries.
Picciotti-Bayer brought up the legal challenge to Tennessee's law banning the performance of gender transition procedures on minors, which she described as "the effort of gender ideologues to do for gender ideology what Roe v. Wade did for abortion."
Picciotti-Bayer's comment suggests that a ruling in favor of LGBT activists in the case would ensure a right to obtain gender transition procedures the same way the now-overturned-Roe decision established a right to abortion.
"I have a lot of confidence in this Supreme Court," Picciotti-Bayer proclaimed after explaining that the matter is currently pending before the justices. The U.S. Supreme Court currently consists of six justices appointed by Republican presidents and three justices appointed by Democratic presidents.
Picciotti-Bayer characterized the push to overturn the Tennessee law as "a very disturbing case that was brought … by some minors who identify as transgender, their parents and a medical provider."
She lamented that the Biden administration had joined the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
"It's really going to be an interesting and important first step," she remarked. "I think that the court is going to look at the Constitution does not have a right to these … experimental permanent and very destructive treatments."
"At the lower intermediate court of appeals levels, there is a number of cases that are being brought challenging the federal government's attempt to inject gender ideology into our civil rights laws," she noted.
Picciotti-Bayer mentioned the effort to codify such rights into Title IX law, which she summarized as "the federal law dealing with anti-discrimination, sex discrimination in education," when interpreting the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.
"There are several cases right now that are being reviewed by these courts of appeals or one is actually in the district court that are saying … 'wait a second, when Congress said no to sex discrimination, they didn't intend it to mean … gender ideology or a gender identity,'" Picciotti-Bayer said.
Another victory mentioned in the discussion was the fact that one of President Joe Biden's nominees for a lifetime appointment in the federal judiciary was not advanced after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, confronted her over her recommendation that a rapist and child pornography distributor be housed in a women's prison. The clip of the confrontation went viral after catching the attention of X CEO Elon Musk and receiving millions of views.
Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that decides whether or not to advance the president's judicial nominees to a vote by the full U.S. Senate after holding confirmation hearings, told Netburn: "If I were the father of one of those women and you decided that my daughter's cellmate was going to be a 6-foot-2-inch man who over and over and over again committed violent sexual assaults, I would say the entire justice system is absurd."
The full Senate Judiciary Committee opted not to advance Netburn's nomination.
Ichikawa detailed how Netburn wrote "a 48-page recommendation to the higher courts explaining the plight of this individual" who "raped a baby" and "raped a 17-year-old girl" that was "full of sympathy" for the trans-identified prisoner and did not include "even a paragraph to how this was going to impact the incarcerated female population." The failure of Netburn to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee is significant because the U.S. Senate is currently controlled by Democrats, 51-49.
Democrats constitute a majority of members on the Senate Judiciary Committee, reflecting the partisan makeup of the U.S. Senate as a whole. The vote to reject Netburn's nomination was 11-10, with Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., joining Republicans in opposing her nomination.
Ichikawa elaborated on the consequences of allowing trans-identified males in women's prisons.
She specifically cited the case of Tremaine Carroll, one of "44 male-born individuals that has been successful in transferring into women's prisons." Ichikawa discussed how Carroll was deemed one of the "Top 10 worst inmates in all of California," suggesting he was responsible for raping female inmates.
"There are babies being born in custody," she added.
Ichikawa described the phenomenon of trans-identified male prisoners transferring into women's prisons as "one of the biggest female human rights crises that I've seen in my lifetime" and "the biggest step backwards in women's rights in this century."
The conversation touched upon major medical organizations in the U.S. that have refused to urge more caution around life-changing surgical and hormonal measures.
Lundstrum said, "Millions and millions of dollars of money that is going into this because it [produces] a lifetime patient."
Richards and Lundstrum maintained that the failure of American medical associations to push back on the concerning aspects of gender ideology is why state legislatures have had to take action on the matter.
Richards lamented, "The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Endocrine Society, basically all of the professional major organizations that speak on this, have been ideologically captured."
He said "guidelines by the American Academy of Pediatrics have basically been written by the president" and "not based on anything in particular." Meanwhile, medical experts in other countries like the United Kingdom are urging more caution based on systematic reviews.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
