We are healing: 2 very sensible decisions from the USA

The 18th June 2025 brought good news from two very different sources about a return to rationality over issues of 'gender identity' versus 'sex'.

The first piece of good news was a big one, with potential to restore global sanity to an area of medical practice that makes homeopaths on meth look like rational seekers of the truth. The second piece was more personal to me but still I think a good example of how rationality is gradually seeping back into public life and therefore one which I hope has wider ramifications.

I will examine each in turn. The first is the US Supreme Court judgment in Skrmetti. Argument was heard in December 2024 and judgment handed down on 18th June 2025. The second is a surprising but welcome common sense decision from Air B and B when I was accused of breaching its non discrimination policy.

Skrmetti Supreme Court judgment

In 2023 Tennessee wanted to join a growing number of states that restricted ‘sex transition treatments’ for children, by passing a law that would ban puberty blockers and hormones for any child if the purpose was to treat any kind of ‘gender incongruence’. This was challenged by 3 trans identifying children and a doctor, and ended up in the Supreme Court to decide whether or not Tennessee was violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This holds that no State shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws’.

The SC was clear it did not sit in judgment on the ‘wisdom or fairness’ of Tennessee’s law but was concerned only to check it did not violate equal protection guarantees. By a 6-3 majority, there was no violation found. This law did not require heightened scrutiny, as it would if it attempted to treat race and sex differently. There was no sex discrimination because the ban applied to both sexes. Further, it satisfied ‘rational basis review’, with very rational objectives of protecting children’s health and welfare.

Thus the ‘fierce scientific and policy debate’ about the medical and surgical transition of children, was appropriately left to the people of Tennessee to decide.

The SC summarised at page 4

Tennessee determined that administering puberty blockers or hormones to minors… carries risks, including irreversible sterility, increased risk of disease and illness, and adverse psychological consequences. The legislature found that minors lack the maturity to fully understand these consequences, that many individuals have expressed regret for under going such treatments as minors, and that the full effects of such treatments may not yet be known.

It’s fantastic to see such a short and sober precis of what so many of us have been saying for years, and which sadly the English courts still seem reluctant to say, despite the work of Dr Cass in 2024. The Cass Review and its consequences in the UK gets specific mention at page 23, the SC noting its findings about ‘remarkably weak’ evidence in favour of medical transition. The SC cited Cass not as guidance on US law, but to ‘demonstrate the open questions regarding basic factual issues…’

Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court and Justice Thomas concurred. His judgment provides some of the most excoriating criticisms of the appeal to experts made by the plaintiffs. The courts do not substitute their beliefs for the judgment of of legislative bodies. The claim that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ to support medical transition is simply ‘untenable’. He notes there are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here

… as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance.

At page 8 he takes aim at the ‘sanitized description’ of ‘gender affirming care’ and sets out at length the realities of these treatments alongside the lack of evidence to support that they do more good than harm. One particularly harsh reality is the impact on future fertility. He also takes time to discuss the Cass Review.

At page 15 he makes the blindingly obvious point, which has apparently eluded many for a decade or more - regardless if this treatment is effective, States may legitimately question if they are ethical. States can reasonably conclude that the cognitive and emotional development of children inhibits their ability to consent to any of this. Further, that parents may have difficulty providing consent when they are ‘routinely warned’ that failing to affirm their child is to put the child on an inevitable path to suicide.

It is very good to see explicit recognition of the narratives of those who ‘detransitioned’, as further evidence of how fragile this notion of ‘informed consent’ really is. Justice Thomas noted that even the WPATH experts were well aware of this; they commented how they were attempting to explain cross sex hormones to children too young to have even studied biology in high school; talking about fertility preservation to a 14 year old was like talking ‘to a blank wall’.

Justice Thomas is damning about WPATH’s attempt to aspire to be both a scientific organisation and an advocacy group. The evidence points to a conclusion that WPATH’s lodestar is not science, but ideology. It tailored its Standards of Care to achieve legal and political objectives. It changed its medical guidance to accommodate external political pressure, by removing age limits for surgery at the behest of the Biden administration.

It is difficult to understand after reading this how any rational person could conclude that ‘gender affirming’ care for children should be protected by law. But of course, many did, including Senators and medical organisations.

So with this kind of determined idiocy on display my second piece of good news is perhaps even more surprising. If even the Supreme Court cannot pull some back from the abyss of ideological capture, what hope did I have of resisting an ‘investigation’ by American corporation Air B and B for displaying ‘transphobic hate’ in my own home?

Sensible decision from Air B and B

Since about 2014 I have rented out a spare room in my house via Air B and B. It’s been a mixed bag of experiences; I have met some lovely people but also hosted a man who let his dog off the lead and killed my rabbit. Provided you don’t make a noise after midnight and don’t kill any more of my pets, you are welcome to stay. Your politics, religion, sex, sexuality or gender identity are your business.

About 2021 I put up two posters in my hallway - both reminders of interesting days out in Bristol and London, campaigning for women’s rights.

These passed unnoticed until this year. First two young trans identifying men ran away, claiming they were ‘unsafe’ in my house and asked for a refund which I gladly gave. It clearly never occurred to them that the only person with any rational justification for feeling ‘unsafe’ in this situation was the single woman who had invited two male strangers into her home.

In May 2025 a would be guest took similar exception to these posters; her suitcase barely touched the ground before she too fled into the night to find ‘safety’ elsewhere. She then complained to Air B and B, dishonestly asserting that she had found transphobic leaflets in the bedroom. Air B and B initiated an investigation into breach of its non discrimination policy and I prepared myself for battle, getting a solicitor at the ready and preparing an application to the JKR Fund.

Then, with poetic timing just as I was reading the Skrmetti judgment yesterday, I received this email

I was genuinely astonished. Only a few years ago I had attempted to do battle with Eventbrite who removed my book launch listing on the basis that women’s rights were hateful. I was beaten back by the prospect of spending many thousands of pounds to ‘arbitrate’ in the US for an outcome that I then had no confidence would be positive. I think something very significant has shifted. Only a few years ago, all that was needed was an accusation of ‘transphobia’ to close a business or destroy a reputation. But in 2025 I managed to head it off with a terse email.

So despite the determined and corrupt dishonesty of those who will continue to bang the drum for medical transition of children under the flag of gender identity ideology, even as it leads them to the destruction of their reputations and sanity, we now have very positive signs that we, collectively, are healing.

A very common response to the SC judgment was just how poor the arguments of the ACLU were and just what a strategic failure it had been to make this challenge at all. Once stripped of the protection of ‘no debate’ this is an ideology that makes smoke and mirrors seem hefty; we really have to do very little now but let them speak.